The New Geography of Innovation

tells the story of the rise of new technology companies from across the world through remarkable case-studies from different countries. Its focus is on innovation and breakthroughs: where and why places experience sudden technological advancement and how this is now a global game.



For fifty years, Silicon Valley has been spinning out new technologies and developing fast-growing, high value, billion plus dollar tech companies – such as Apple, Facebook/Meta, Microsoft and Google. Companies such as this, and their like established ‘the Valley’ as the centre for the most rapid creation of wealth in human history. But now its secrets are spreading elsewhere. Is the Valley still the world’s tech epicentre when the geography of innovation is shifting?


In this book Mehran Gul, a World Economic Forum expert on the emergence of new generation big technology, traces the shift from a system where many products were designed in the United States but assembled in China, to one where billion-dollar companies are springing up in places like China, Korea, Singapore, India and continental Europe, ultimately changing the landscape of the world’s economy. How and why this happens, and what can be done to encourage innovation.


It used to be rare for a new company to reach a billion-dollar scale. Now, it happens a lot. From Finland’s Clash of Clans to Singapore, Germany, Korea, China and Switzerland, the modern 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.


The New Geography of Innovation outlines the contours of this emerging and dynamic world. For readers of Fareed Zakaria, Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Black Swan and Chris Miller’s Chip Wars, this book charts bold frontiers and is an unmissable, thought-provoking read.