Iran stands among the top ten science and technology superpowers, ranking higher than Japan, according to a new report published by Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).
ASPI’s new Critical Technology Tracker reported Iran ranked as one of the top 5 countries in six of the forty-four technologies tracked, and ninth in the overall ranking to predict the top ten future global powers.
The number of publications and citations along with the Hirsch Index was examined in advanced aircraft engines including hypersonics and the country stood 4th in line, next to China and the United States, clearly surpassing Japan, Italy, and the UK.
According to ASPI, Iran is also among the top four countries in bio-fuel and smart materials science and new technologies that are emerging onto the market which could change the future of the industry.
Iran has published 2 percent of the total number of worldwide publications in synthetic biology marking it as the 8th country in global rankings.
Beyond the usual competition between China and the US, Iran's very strong performance in artificial intelligence technologies has become immediately striking. Most notably, Iran emerges as an unexpected powerhouse of hardware accelerator research.
Iran has long been considered among the leading countries in producing science in the world for many years. However, the Critical Technology Tracker has gone beyond simple research and has focused on the key performance measures of scientific and technological capability, revealing countries that have a competitive advantage in this measure across the 44 technologies.