THE FUTURE 50: FAST-GROWING COMPANIES THAT INVESTORS SHOULD WATCH—AND LEADERS SHOULD EMULATE

BUSINESSES WORLDWIDE have weathered a chaotic year so far in 2025. Shifting global trade and tariff dynamics and the AI race have made the pace of change even more relentless than usual. Costs have risen, and bankruptcies are up. Still, across sectors, some companies are not just staying afloat, but thriving—and in many markets, buoyant share prices show that investors retain their optimism.

- BY KETIL GJERSTAD, MARLEY FINLEY, AND JOHANN HARNOSS

LOOK MA, NO DRIVER A WeRide-Renault robobus during a pilot project in March in Barcelona.

So how can we tell which businesses are primed for the kind of long-term growth that delivers meaningful rewards to stakeholders? Since 2017, BCG and Fortune have teamed up to screen the world’s biggest companies for their innate fitness to grow—a measurable, manageable trait we call “corporate vitality.” Each year, the top vitality scorers are enshrined in the Fortune Future 50.

Our screen sweeps in more than 3,000 companies, including more than 150 privately held, venture-backed startups. This year, we analyzed more than 10 million data points to identify 25 metrics that offer unprecedented insight into each company’s strategy, technology, workforce, organizational setup, and culture. Each metric is correlated with above-average business performance, and together they produce BCG’s Net Vitality Score. (For scores and methodology, visit fortune.com/future-50.)

Historically, the shares of our vitality winners have outperformed their peers’ over time. Since the list’s inception, Future 50 companies have averaged annual total returns of 12%, outperforming the MSCI World stock index by 1.4 percentage points. (Last year’s picks are off to an even stronger start: A portfolio of the public companies in the 2024 Future 50 has outperformed the MSCI World benchmark by 2.6 percentage points.)

SOFTWARE WINS

U.S. tech companies, particularly in software, have dominated the Future 50—a fact that reflects their scalability and their unstinting focus on talent acquisition and R&D. This year is no exception: Snowflake, a cloud-based data-storage company, tops the list, with data, analytics, and AI provider Databricks a close second. Both companies are driven by the AI moment in business—their platforms help firms unlock and activate their own data as the foundation for AI.