Most people in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West think of China and India largely as sources for inexpensive products and services. Few know that China, India, and other developing countries are taking center stage in the global war for innovation and talent.
Consider some important benchmarks: Scientists and engineers in China, India, and Russia are now producing an estimated 150,000 scientific and technical papers annually, more than many Western European nations. According to a Thomson Reuters review of 8,700 research journals worldwide, U.S. scientists led all others with slightly more than 25 percent of the total. Japan and Germany were next, with about 6.5 percent each, followed by France, Britain, and China, at 6 percent each. Brazil, Russia, India, and China, the so-called BRIC countries, produced more than 10 percent of the total — a number that is growing. If current trends continue, the developing countries could reach U.S. levels in fewer than 10 years.
The rapidly developing economies also now claim an estimated two-thirds of all engineers, a vital talent pool, while many Western countries face talent scarcities. Asian scientists and students are returning home from the West in record numbers — with those numbers increasing at approximately 13 percent per year. China and India are investing heavily in research and development, with China alone spending $136 billion on R&D in 2007, second only to the U.S. and ahead of Japan.
China and India also now boast some of the world’s top science and research universities, including the seven-campus Indian Institutes of Technology as well as Beijing’s Tsinghua University, which has more than 2,400 alumni in Silicon Valley alone. These trends have helped many Chinese and Indian companies aggregate a critical mass of talent, which is having a profound impact on their ability to innovate and compete in the global…