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Winston Mok

Silicon Valley is dominated by tech leaders of Indian origin. While Chinese tech companies have achieved global dominance across multiple sectors, why are India-based tech firms – other than in select areas such as software outsourcing – less influential? Why does Indian talent seem to flourish more outside India?
Silicon Valley has risen to third place in the innovation cluster rankings of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), long dominated by East Asia. This year, the Greater Bay Area surpassed Greater Tokyo to claim the top spot as the largest innovation cluster.
Indian innovation clusters have also advanced, with Bengaluru climbing from below 50th place to just outside the top 20. India now boasts four clusters in the top 100, behind China, the United States and Germany, but ahead of two other East Asian tech powerhouses, Japan and South Korea.
The key to India’s dramatic rise in the WIPO rankings is the inclusion of venture capital deal activity as a new metric. Before New Delhi’s clampdown on Chinese investment in 2020, Chinese venture capital went towards many unicorns in India. But for these restrictions on investments, Bengaluru would in all probability have made the top 20.
With three clusters among the world’s top 10, China must be doing something right. The Greater Bay Area is ahead of Silicon Valley, while the Beijing and Shanghai-Suzhou clusters, in fourth and sixth place respectively, are ahead of ninth-placed Boston-Cambridge. Are there lessons for India here?
Within China, it is notable that the Greater Bay Area is ahead of Beijing, where the country’s top universities concentrate. Clearly, it is more important to be a magnet for talent than their training ground. Likewise, Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) graduates may be legendary in Silicon Valley, but it is the US that reaps the greatest benefits from them.

Both China and India have deep talent pools. But while China has built an ecosystem where returning talent can thrive, India has displaced China as the biggest source of international students in the US. Will this end up as a brain drain or gain for India?
As the world’s sixth largest innovation cluster, the Shanghai-Suzhou corridor would have leveraged the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park, where the institutional environment associated with Singapore provided the impetus to attract international businesses. But the student seems to have surpassed the teacher. Shanghai-Suzhou is now 10 places ahead of Singapore in the WIPO rankings.
While India has fostered a vibrant start-up scene, institutional constraints have prevented the country’s talent from fully thriving at home. New Delhi could take a page from Deng Xiaoping’s special economic zone playbook. Shenzhen has seen perhaps the most successful planned metropolitan transformation in modern times, powering the Greater Bay Area to the top of the innovation cluster rankings.
Couldn’t India apply this to the development of a Bengaluru innovation zone, with the goal of cracking the top 10 within the next decade? Perhaps a Singaporean-style regulatory framework could also be adopted. The likes of Tsinghua University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Nanyang Technological University may be invited to set up research centres and branch campuses in Bengaluru.

Overseas Indian talent could be attracted back to India if they are put on the pay scales of Hong Kong and Singaporean universities.
With Chinese companies setting up research centres in Western countries, why shouldn’t the Indian and Chinese governments jointly encourage them to establish similar facilities in Bengaluru? The presence of Chinese venture capital should be encouraged to create a globally connected innovation ecosystem that rivals Silicon Valley.
Talent movements should be cultivated as reciprocal flows. IITs and Tsinghua may set up joint research centres in Shenzhen. Chinese companies should be encouraged to recruit from India, which should be seen as talent circulation – not a brain drain. Indian talent in China would gain valuable hardware experience, preparing them to start up their own businesses back in India one day. And these individuals would perhaps be more likely to return to India than those settling in Western countries.
There are many areas where China and India are complementary, beginning with biotechnology and pharmaceuticals and extending to medical devices and telemedicine. Electric vehicles could present a strategic convergence whereby Chinese hardware prowess and Indian software capabilities could create breakthrough solutions for autonomous driving.


In moving beyond mutual mistrust, China and India could unlock unprecedented collaboration in cutting-edge domains like artificial intelligence and 6G. China’s open-source AI culture provides India with an accessible pathway to an indigenous AI ecosystem. Sino-Indian collaboration in machine learning may foster multicultural AI systems with polycentric perspectives that transcend the Western-centric biases of many large language models today.
India is arguably a more natural market for 6G than many advanced economies. Sixth-generation telecoms technology presents a unique leapfrogging opportunity in addressing the needs of India’s rural population.
As a world leader in deploying 5G technology, China is well positioned to spearhead the development of 6G. China and India may leverage their respective strengths to establish compatible standards and coordinate patent filings for 6G technology.
While India has made undeniable strides in becoming technologically self-reliant, the WIPO rankings underscore the critical importance of building ecosystems where talent can flourish. Imagine the exponential acceleration that would result if India and China could combine forces. Intentional talent circulation can empower Indian and Chinese engineers not just to succeed abroad, but to become defining architects of technological progress at home.


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India

Together, China and India can be a tech innovation force

The innovation lab inside the premises of India’s information technology company Wipro in Bengaluru, India, on August 13. India now has four innovation clusters, including Bengaluru, in the top 100 of the WIPO list. Photo: Reuters

In the foreground, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who is among a long list of talented IIT graduates who have become tech titans in Silicon Valley, attend a dinner in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington on September 4. Photo: AP

A view of the Suzhou Industrial Park, a joint venture between China and Singapore. Photo: Getty Images

South China’s Greater Bay Area boasts world’s largest innovation cluster

People interact with a robot during the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area International Auto Show in Shenzhen in May. Photo: Xinhua

The San Tin Technopole, including the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park in the Loop, in February. Photo: May Tse

Shanghai spirit for new world order needs to be matched by the West

President Xi Jinping makes a speech at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025 at the Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Centre in Tianjin on September 1. Photo: Xinhua

Eric Trump at the Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong Kong on August 29. US President Donald Trump and his sons have holdings worth US$5 billion in cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial. Photo: Reuters

China’s multipolar ambition is making the US sit up and fire back

Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin speak during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin on September 1. Photo: Sputnik / Pool via Reuters

Opinion

Asia Opinion

China Opinion

Tech

Economy

China Economy

Knowledge

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China-India Relations

India has shot up in innovation rankings with venture capital as a new metric. More could be achieved if India and China joined forces


India has shot up in innovation rankings with venture capital as a new metric. More could be achieved if India and China joined forces.


Greater Bay Area

Technology

Shenzhen

World Intellectual Property Organisation

China-India relations

The View

Shanghai

Singapore

United States

China

Deng Xiaoping

Tsinghua University

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

Together, China and India can be a tech innovation force

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}India has shot up in innovation rankings with venture capital as a new metric. More could be achieved if India and China joined forces

India has shot up in innovation rankings with venture capital as a new metric. More could be achieved if India and China joined forces