Purely with respect to innovation in the physical word, is China:

Note: this is separate from moral feelings toward China.

For example, the Nazis were ahead of the US on rockets. The US could admit this without calling them “good guys”, and did Operation Paperclip after the war, which helped bootstrap the space program.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oper...