ETH ranks as Europe's top university in the first global AI higher education index

(CONNECT) Ranked just below the top eight universities in the 5W AI Higher Education Index 2026, ETH leads the second-best group of eight additional universities that scored between 77.9 and 70 points. This first edition of the ranking was compiled by the AI communications agency 5W, which has been named PR Agency of the Year multiple times at the American Business Awards. The top four spots are held by North American universities with scores ranging from 96.0 to 88.2, with Stanford University leading the ranking. It is followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2), Carnegie Mellon University (3), and the University of California, Berkeley (4).

The ETH has the highest ranking of any European university. It is followed in 10th and 11th place by the British universities Oxford and Cambridge. In 30th place is the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, with the Technical University of Munich ranked 40th. The three spots behind these institutes were taken by Imperial College London (41), the Sorbonne in Paris (42), and the University of Edinburgh (43).

Of the 50 universities evaluated, 25 are located in the United States and seven in Europe. Canada, China, and India are home to three each. Six others are situated in other Southeast Asian countries, and two are in Israel. All of them were assessed based on six criteria.

“AI is being produced inside a small number of universities, and the concentration is structural," Ronn Torossian, Founder and Chairman of 5W AI Communications, is quoted as saying in a statement. "This benchmark exists so university leaders, prospective PhD candidates, corporate recruiters, and donors can see where AI is actually being built – with a reproducible methodology anyone can audit and reweight.” ce/mm