Smart Centres Index 7: Western European And US Centres Performing Strongly In Technology And Innovation

The Smart Centres Index explores the ability of global commercial centres to create, develop, and deploy technology. Leading centres in the SCI are based in places which combine an innovative, cultural centre with a high-performing university sector across STEM subjects, supported by a well-developed regulatory, commercial, and financial services.

• Western European and US centres show continued strong performance, but Asia/Pacific centres have fallen back a little.
• London took first place in the index, with New York and San Francisco in second and third.
• Four Western European centres feature in the top 10, and three from the US. Singapore and Hong Kong feature in the top 10 among Asia/Pacific centres. Tel Aviv enters the top 10 for the first time.
• Five centres rose 10 or more places in the rankings in SCI 7, while six centres fell 10 or more places.
• Following a fall in the average ratings in SCI 6, the average rating in SCI 7 rose by 6.28% with all centres rising in the ratings. This may show increased confidence in the quality and depth of technology and innovation development across the world.

As a mark of continued technological progress, we asked respondents to the SCI survey to predict the time frame over which they expected quantum computers to be able to break current public key encryption. Over three-quarters of respondents expect this point to be reached within five years. This increase in computational power will continue to drive the way in which technology shapes our lives.

Survey Respondents’ Estimate Of The Timeframe Over Which Quantum Computers Will Enable The Breaking Of Current Public Key Encryption

The top 20 ranked centres in SCI 7 are shown in the table below:

Professor Michael Mainelli, Chairman of Z/Yen said: “We will only solve our global problems by harnessing technology to the task. Our expectations of technology will only be realised if we can deploy it, which is the job of commercial centres. It’s an exciting, and dangerous, time, and more than ever we must improve our assessments of new technologies ranging from AI to materials, space, graphene, carbon capture, or quantum computing.” We invite all those with an interest in the development of innovation and technology centres to take part in SCI 8 by rating the financial and commercial centres you know on our continuously running survey – smartcentresindex.net/survey/.