In the development of any global industrial hub, there’s always a series of factors that attracted talent, capital and resources to that location. It’s true whether we’re talking about fifteen century Venice or the English Midlands of the eighteen century.
Silicon Valley is today’s equivalent of those historical powerhouses and what drove California’s Bay Area to be the technological centre of the world was the massive government research spending of World War II, the Cold War and the Space Race.
Which means declining research and development spending by the United States is going to hurt the region’s position in the medium to long term, a warning made by Fareed Zakaria in The Washington Post.
So the question is ‘if Silicon Valley and the US are in decline, which will be hub of the next business and technology revolutions?’