Close to half of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) leaders worldwide see India and China to be the likely successors of Silicon Valley as the global technology innovation center within the next four years, a new survey has revealed.
More than two in five technology executives surveyed for KPMG’s Technology Innovation Survey 2012 believe Silicon Valley is on the way out as the global technology hub, in which a plurality of 44% expect China to replace it by 2016.
However, if Silicon Valley does cede its position as the technology innovation capital but it isn’t to China, it’s most likely to be India that takes over, after it ranked second in the survey as the ‘most likely new Silicon Valley’, with 22% of the vote, followed by Japan (10%) and South Korea (9%).
The report notes that Asia is “leading the charge in mobile communications and commerce, skipping past the PC generation of the west.” According to Ho Wah Lee, KPMG Singapore head of advisory, part of the reason that China has emerged as a force to be reckoned with in global ICT is the government’s financial and policy support for the nation’s technology sector.
“The Chinese government is encouraging significant investment in three key areas – shared services and outsourcing, payments and cloud computing. The [government’s] 12th Five-Year Plan is also driving innovation in these key areas,” Ho said.
China has perhaps the strongest cloud potential of any market, which is already nearly ubiquitous in the nation. The Chinese Government has additionally allocated 154 billion dollars to boost the cloud industry over the next few years, and has designated five Cloud Computing Service Innovation Pilot Cities-Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuxi and Hangzhou, the survey said.
