Singapore, Bengaluru Push Asia to Become Second Biggest Innovation Destination

With more companies setting up hubs in Singapore and Bengaluru, Asia became the second biggest innovation destination after Silicon Valley this year, as per a recent report. Also, despite being the innovation hub, Silicon Valley’s numbers have declined from it being home to 58 per cent of innovation centers in 2015 to 38 per cent of world’s innovation centers in 2017.

Singapore and Bengaluru added 13 and 6 centers from November 2016 and October 2017, respectively, while Silicon Valley added only 10, , according to the Capgemini 2017 Innovation Research report. Singapore has managed to attract the highest number of innovation hubs, an achievement that has been attributed to its policies.

Asia now has 29 per cent of world’s innovation centers, with 19 innovation centers being added during the last one year. Europe has 25 per cent of world’s innovation centers. Singapore toppled London out of its previous second position, pushing the British city to the third place as a popular innovation center destination. The research attributed this to Singapore’s aggressive push to be a digital economy.

India ranked fourth in the list of newly-opened innovation hubs in 2017, with Bengaluru being the fourth most popular innovation center destination, as opposed to the 5th position it occupied in 2016. India is the largest supplier worldwide of digital talent.

The availability of digital technology talent primarily in India and conducive environment in Singapore are the key reasons for Asia’s rise, according to Subrahmanyam Kanakadandi, the co-author and member of the Digital Transformation Institute, Capgemini.

“Asia continues to be a big market for global players, who are keen to establish themselves in this region and localize their offerings to cater to the unique and evolving needs of Asian consumers. Another key reason for Asia’s prominence is the presence of a very strong digital talent pool. India, for example, as our recent research with LinkedIn shows, is the largest supplier worldwide of digital talent,” Kanakadandi added in the research report.

The reason for companies such as PayPal, Shell and others deciding to set up technology and innovation hubs in India is their bid to capture the right digital skill sets here.

The report quoted Guru Bhat, the general manager for Technology and Head of Engineering of PayPal, as saying after their announcement of launching two innovation centers in India: “With over 145,000 registered patents between 2013 and 2016 to its credit, India’s innovation potential is enormous and will certainly break benchmarks with the right kind of encouragement.”