Provided is a method of calculating a rank for importance of data and an apparatus for performing the method. An electronic device includes a memory configured to store instructions and a processor electrically connected to the memory and configured to execute the instructions, and, when the instructions are executed by the processor, the processor is configured to perform a plurality of operations, and the plurality of operations includes calculating a first matrix for a correlation between the data, calculating a second matrix for importance of the data based on the first matrix, and calculating a rank of the data based on a result of a recursive calculation on the second matrix.