2025 Global Top 500 Unicorn Enterprises Report released

On Dec. 3, the 2025 Global Top 500 Unicorn Enterprises Conference was held in Laoshan district, Qingdao. During the event, the 2025 Global Top 500 Unicorn Enterprises Report was released.

The report reveals that the total valuation of the world’s top 500 unicorn enterprises in 2025 reached 39.14 trillion yuan, representing a year-on-year growth of 30.71%, which is significantly higher than the GDP of Germany, the world's third-largest economy. The average valuation of these enterprises rose to 78.276 billion yuan.

The combined valuation of the top 10 global unicorns surged by 107.4% year-on-year to 13.42 trillion yuan, accounting for 34.23% of the total valuation of the top 500 and contributing 57% to the overall growth of the entire cohort. Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as the core growth driver for leading enterprises. Among the top 10, all except SpaceX (a leader in the aerospace sector) achieved value growth by deeply leveraging AI technologies.

AI stands out as the most notable track this year. Compared with 2024, the 36 AI enterprises included in the top 500 saw their valuation jump by 5.37 trillion yuan to 6.83 trillion yuan, marking a staggering year-on-year increase of 367.8%.

In 2025, China and the United States formed an overwhelmingly “dual-core” dominance in the global top 500 unicorns, accounting for 74.8% of the total number of enterprises and 86.8% of the total valuation. The U.S. ranked first with 224 unicorns valued at 18.97 trillion yuan, excelling in sectors such as AI, information technology, fintech, enterprise services, healthcare, and aerospace. China ranked second with 150 enterprises and a total valuation of 12.83 trillion yuan, establishing competitive advantages in hard-tech tracks such as advanced manufacturing and automotive technology, as well as the cultural tourism and media sectors.

The 2025 global top 500 unicorns are distributed across 145 cities, with a significant concentration in leading metropolitan areas. The top 10 cities are home to 256 unicorns, accounting for 51.2% of the total number and 59.48% of the total valuation. Among these top 10 cities, three US cities -- San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles -- hosted 115 unicorns (23% of the global total), forming industrial clusters centered on advantageous tracks such as AI, fintech, and aerospace. China contributed four cities to the top 10, housing 99 unicorns (19.8% of the global total), demonstrating a multi-core development pattern with distinct characteristics in both entity-driven and consumption-related tracks.

Looking ahead, the AI field is expected to become the core arena for the growth of global unicorns. The AI strategies successively launched by China and the U.S. are continuously reshaping the growth ecosystem of unicorns in both countries, propelling global unicorns into a new development phase characterized by “AI-driven, strategic competition and cooperation.”

In the next few years, global unicorns will continue to present a pattern of “Sino-U.S. dominance with complementary tracks.” The U.S. will strive to maintain its leading position in the fields such as large AI models and biotechnology, while China is expected to achieve further breakthroughs in “AI + entity” sectors such as industrial internet. The ability to integrate policies, technologies and scenarios will become the core competitiveness of Chinese unicorns. Enterprises that can realize the in-depth integration of AI and the real economy will gain the initiative in global market competition and lead the development direction of various segmented tracks.

The 2025 Global Top 500 Unicorn Enterprises Development Report is the seventh annual report focusing on the development of global top 500 unicorns. Based on the Global Unicorn Enterprises Database, the report identifies and ranks the top 500 unicorns by valuation in accordance with standardized evaluation criteria and with the support of Human Machine Intelligence technology.