The New Geography of Innovation

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Less than a decade ago, the sentiment towards Chinese tech companies was often dismissive and complacent. Now the alarm bells are ringing. But as the commentariat pontificates how the US–China tech battle will play out, an equally interesting question to ask is: are there more Chinas out there? Places no one is taking seriously now that might turn out to be massively competitive sooner than we think.

Samsung, a South Korean conglomerate, competes with Apple to be the world’s largest manufacturer of smartphones. Arm, founded in the UK, develops chip designs that are used in more than 90 per cent of all mobile devices. Spotify, based in Sweden, is the most popular music streaming service in the world.

That’s not all. The world’s most important semiconductor company, TSMC, is in Taiwan. The other most important company in the semiconductor industry, ASML, is in the Netherlands. Some of the world’s best-known games like Minecraft, Candy Crush and Angry Birds came from gaming studios in the Nordics. Nearly all the major electric battery manufacturers like CATL, LG, and SK On are in Asia.

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This is a story about technology and the places where it finds its way into the world. Silicon Valley has for half a century been unrivalled in spinning out technologies and fast-growing, high-value, billion-dollar-plus tech companies, the Apples, Facebooks, Googles of the world, that made it the centre for the most rapid creation of wealth in human history. Its secrets are spreading to more places.

The geography of innovation is shifting. The world has a lot more high-value tech companies than ever before, growing a lot faster than ever before, in a lot more places than ever before. This is a book about these places.