50 Smartest Companies 2016
Our editors pick the 50 companies that best combine innovative technology with an effective business model.
Learn More
-
Why
Call out a request and AI-powered Alexa will play your favorite song or order you a pizza. And Amazon Web Services just keeps growing.
$89.99
What the Echo Dot, the most affordable device to feature Alexa Voice Service, sells for.
Company Details -
Why
China’s leading search engine is developing autonomous cars, backed by a big research and engineering team in Silicon Valley.
100
Baidu plans to employ more than 100 autonomous-car researchers and engineers in California by year’s end.
Company Details -
Why
The world’s largest DNA-sequencing company is moving beyond simply selling equipment to expand its uses: a company it’s launching, Grail, intends to develop a blood test that would screen for cancer before symptoms appear.
$2.2 billion
Revenue reached last year, up 19 percent from the previous year.
Company Details -
Why
While advancing autopilot technology in its Model S and X cars, the company is taking electric vehicles mainstream with its $35,000 Model 3 car, which already has 400,000 pre-orders.
50 percent
According to CEO Elon Musk, drivers have a 50 percent lower chance of having an accident when driving with Tesla Autopilot.
Company Details -
Why
Its innovative batteries for the power grid make this startup unusually successful in a tough industry.
Backers
Include Bill Gates, Shell.
Company Details -
Why
A leader in making driver assistance technology such as collision warning systems for clients including Tesla, General Motors, and Volkswagen, among others, it is working on advances that will enable fully autonomous cars.
600
Number of employees who are annotating the images used to train its autonomous driving system.
Company Details -
Why
After a two-year moratorium, 23andMe has resumed selling direct-to-consumer DNA tests that assess risk for genetic diseases.
One million
The company has sequenced the DNA of more than one million customers.
Company Details -
Why
Its DeepMind business inside Google developed an AI program that beat one of the world’s best players at the board game Go.
1.6 million
Number of miles Alphabet’s autonomous cars have driven so far.
Company Details -
Why
Very strong trial data on its gene therapy for a form of blindness implies that the treatment is headed for approval.
Collaborators
Corporate collaborators have included Pfizer, Genable Technologies, and Clearside Biomedical.
Company Details -
Why
This Chinese telecommunications giant is now the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor thanks to strong sales in both premium and entry-level devices.
27.5 million
Number of smartphones Huawei shipped in the first quarter of 2016, according to market researcher IDC.
Company Details -
Why
While rivals face bankruptcy, it has continued to invest in research, increasing the efficiency of solar panels.
$546 million
Profits earned in 2015.
Company Details -
Why
With deep learning driving demand for its graphics-processing chips, it started selling chips designed for AI.
$1.3 billion
Revenue increased 13 percent in the most recent quarter, to $1.3 billion, compared with $1.15 billion a year ago.
Company Details -
Why
Last summer a hospital in London used Cellectis’s gene-editing technology to heal a child with otherwise untreatable leukemia.
$300 million
Though not profitable, the company has over $300 million in cash, enough to last through 2018.
Company Details -
Why
A number of Australian radiologists are now using the company’s deep-learning software to analyze x-rays.
50 percent
Claims its algorithm read chest CT images 50 percent more accurately than experts in its own test.
Company Details -
Why
Its Oculus Rift technology is the first truly high-quality virtual-reality headset for consumers.
$599
Rift sells for $599.
Company Details -
Why
The company is making spaceflight cheaper with rockets that can land and be reused.
Four
Number of times SpaceX attempted to land a rocket on a barge before succeeding.
Company Details -
Why
Building an operating system for commercial drones, as well as a traffic control system that could increase their usefulness.
Leader
Airware’s founder and CEO also leads an investment fund that supports businesses creating technologies for commercial drones.
Company Details -
Why
Its large-scale desalination process is winning big contracts in China and Australia.
30 percent
By October IDE will be producing 30 percent of Santa Barbara’s water.
Company Details -
Why
Asia’s largest Internet company, which owns the popular WeChat messaging app, is expanding into the enterprise market and investing in other technology companies.
78 percent
Tencent’s largest business segment, mostly games, accounts for 78 percent of its revenue.
Company Details -
Why
Apple’s $1 billion investment, part of $7 billion raised this year, will help the Chinese ride-hailing app continue to fend off Uber.
14 million
Number of rides its drivers complete a day.
Company Details -
Why
It’s begun selling a DNA sequencer the size of a smartphone that may move genomics out of the lab and into the field.
Intellectual property
Illumina, once an investor, is now suing the company for patent infringement.
Company Details -
Why
Created a more efficient lithium-ion battery that could reduce the cost of energy storage for the electric grid and electric vehicles.
50 percent
The company claims it can reduce the cost of lithium-ion batteries by 50 percent.
Company Details -
Why
E-commerce site is now the world’s largest retailer and will benefit from the growth in mobile video ads.
$485 billion
Gross value of merchandise sold through Alibaba in its last fiscal year.
Company Details -
Why
Uses of its life-saving immunotherapy, Opdivo, has expanded to lung cancer, advanced renal-cell carcinoma, and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Five years
One-third of patients with advanced melanoma survived for five years in a study of Opdivo.
Company Details -
Why
Its neural-network research is leading to applications such as simultaneous language translation in Skype and social augmented-reality experiences in its new HoloLens headset.
152
A Microsoft network that won a global image recognition contest in 2015 used 152 layers of virtual neurons.
Company Details -
Why
World’s largest maker of industrial robots is incorporating machine learning.
Eight
Number of hours a Fanuc robot needs to learn a task with 90 percent accuracy.
Company Details -
Why
Its smart batteries, which include software to manage energy use and can store energy for later, are transforming the electricity market in Germany.
25 percent
Electricity on its system is 25 percent cheaper than the electricity on the grid, according to the company.
Company Details -
Why
Its virtual-world simulation platform is used to create VR software and test driverless cars.
Funding
Andreessen Horowitz is a major backer.
Company Details -
Why
Its computer-vision chips are making mobile devices and drones smarter.
On the radar
Drones using Movidius technology can sense obstacles to avoid collisions.
Company Details -
Why
The Oxitec division of this biotech holding company genetically engineers mosquitoes that could reduce the spread of Zika.
$174 million
Acquisitions increased sales from $8 million to $174 million in five years.
Company Details -
Why
Its new kind of 3-D printing is dozens of times faster than rivals’.
$40,000
Use of its 3-D printers costs $40,000 a year.
Company Details -
Why
Advanced manufacturing facilities it is developing rely on connected sensors and sophisticated software to improve factory efficiency.
$80 billion
Record revenue generated in 2015.
Company Details -
Why
Its flexible tool for diagnosing abnormalities more quickly has FDA approval for certain uses, including detecting a fungus that causes sepsis.
35
Number of customers who now use the company’s bench-top diagnostic system.
Company Details -
Why
Plans to begin testing a powerful new form of gene repair in humans within two years.
$94 million
Money raised in its February IPO, and the stock is up 85 percent since then.
Company Details -
Why
Food giant has jumped into microbiome research, working to develop “healthy gut” products.
$2 billion
At a slow time for its core food business, its nutritional therapies division has reached $2 billion in annual revenue in its first five years, and more strong growth is predicted.
Company Details -
Why
Has begun first human trials of optogenetics, using light-triggered genetic changes to restore some vision to people with retinitis pigmentosa.
$12 million
Revenue raised from foundations and private investors as well as the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.
Company Details -
Why
The Japanese messaging app is quick to add innovative features, such as group calls for up to 200 people, and plans an IPO this year.
218 million
Number of monthly active users.
Company Details -
Why
This money-transfer service, with a peer-to-peer model for sending money abroad, aims to charge lower fees than traditional players.
$750 million
Money TransferWise helps users exchange every month.
Company Details -
Why
Attempting to sell low-cost genome tests directly to consumers.
$1,000
Whole-genome sequencing, including interpretation and counseling, costs under $1,000. The supply is limited to 5,000 customers in 2016.
Company Details -
Why
With clients like JPMorgan Chase, Sony Pictures, and Target, it’s creating a new model for computer security on a large scale.
In the works
New products focus on securing public and private clouds and detecting targeted e-mail attacks.
Company Details -
Why
Its software makes it possible to analyze one of the world’s largest genomic data sets.
11,000
Number of patients that have contributed 33 cancer types and subtypes to its Cancer Genomics Cloud.
Company Details -
Why
The workplace communications app burrows more deeply into workplaces. Now you can use your Slack login for all the software your company uses.
Three million
Number of daily active Slack users.
Company Details -
Why
South Korea’s largest and fastest-growing online-only retailer is innovating in mobile commerce and same-day delivery.
$5 billion
Coupang’s most recent valuation.
Company Details -
Why
Preparing for an AI era by acquiring huge data sets to train its software.
100
Number of clients that have built Watson into a product.
Company Details -
Why
Building out its advertising business by partnering with Viacom to sell ads and with Nielsen for marketing campaign data.
10 billion
Number of videos that are seen on the app every day.
Company Details -
Why
This e-commerce company is the continent’s first tech company to be valued at more than $1 billion.
26
Africa Internet Group operates in 26 African countries.
Company Details -
Why
Maker of electronic building blocks has accelerated its growth with new funding, new investors, and new distribution.
$299
Basic kits sell for $99 to $299.
Company Details -
Why
In a time of transition, the chip maker is experimenting with reprogrammable processors for deep neural networks and marketing a fundamentally new kind of computer memory.
$16.7 billion
Money Intel spent to buy Altera, a maker of programmable logic devices.
Company Details -
Why
Using RNA interference to create alternatives to conventional GMOs.
$1.5 billion
Money invested last year in research on new biotech traits, genomics, and more.
Company Details