Dubai has been rated the top city for business innovation in the Arab world, according to a new study released on Thursday.

B2B financial service platform Finom.de study rated the emirate 94th best city globally for business innovation, ahead of Padua (Italy), Budapest (Hungary), Geneva (Switzerland), Turin (Italy), Cape Town (South Africa) and Quebec City (Canada).

The emirate is ranked second most innovative city for business in the Middle East region after Tele Aviv, which has been rated first in the region and 45th globally by Finom.

The emirate achieved the best rating in the technology ecosystem, venture capital funding and universities research and development sub-indices.

Finom began by creating a shortlist of 200 cities based on their size and significance in the business world, which they narrowed down to the best scoring 100. The cities were then analysed according to two broad categories. The first category, Innovation Areas, was made up of a number of subfactors that relate to different stages of the business innovation process. The second category, Industries, looks at which cities are leading business innovation on an industry by industry level.

The study splits the innovation landscape into different areas, including research and development, startup activity and funding availability, in addition to looking at innovation on an individual industry level, for example in artificial intelligence, biotechnology and fintech.

San Francisco is the highest-ranking city in the index, scoring highly on factors like company R&D spending and the technology ecosystem. Beijing and New York were ranked second and third, respectively. Paris is the only European city in the global top 10.

Top 10 cities for business innovation

1. San Francisco

2. Beijing

3. New York

4. London

5. Boston

6. Shanghai

7. Tokyo

8. Paris

9. Washington DC

10. Los Angeles

Yakov Novikov, CEO and co-founder of Finom, said the study showed that Boston is the leading city for biotechnology innovation, while San Francisco tops the list for green technologies innovation. “These cities have the significant industry know-how and a wealth of supplier companies that feed into the supply chain.”