By Daniel Hunter

Global technology executives say China and the US are the two countries most likely to come up with 'disruptive technology breakthroughs' that will have a global impact in the next two to four years, according to KPMG’s global Tech Innovation Survey 2012.

Nearly one third of respondents (30 percent) said China will be the future “global hotspot for innovation”, followed by the US (29 percent), India (13%), Japan (8%) and Korea (5%). The UK ranks in 11th place and was named by just 1% of respondents.

43 percent of respondents said it is likely that the technology innovation center of the world will move from Silicon Valley to another country in the next four years. China was named as the country most likely to be the next innovation centre (45%), followed by India (21%) and Japan (9%) and Korea (9%).

"More and more technology executives believe that when it comes to tech innovation the centre of gravity is moving east," Tudor Aw, Technology Sector Head, KPMG Europe LLP, commented.

"Until now China has been better known for its disruptive cost model rather than its disruptive technologies but things are beginning to change. China today has a highly competitive education system which produces a vast pool of talent. It has fostered an environment which encourages the development of disruptive technologies and we simply can’t ignore anymore what’s coming around the corner.

“It’s not surprising that people think so poorly of the UK in terms of tech innovation, there are very few strongly branded tech companies in this country although behind a lot of today’s most popular technologies are British visionaries — think Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Jonathan Ive, lead designer behind many of Apple’s products and Alan Turing, widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. No one would argue with the fact that the UK is a creative hub which is reflected in our fashion and music but, with a few notable exceptions, what we have been poor at in the Tech sector, is taking that creativity to a commercial model.”

Asked about the next technology breakthrough that will result in the greatest business transformation four years from now, 28 percent of respondents named mobile technologies, smartphones and tablets, 17 percent cloud computing and storage and 13 percent advanced IT and 3-D technology.

Security and privacy governance was named as the top barrier to commercialize these technologies (30%), followed by funding and access to capital (24%) and technology complexity (24%).

“The results confirm our findings from previous research. Most tech executives would agree on where the big opportunities are, the challenge will be executing on these opportunities. The winners will be those who get the consumer experience right and who manage to dispel widespread concerns among consumers about privacy and data security," Tudor Aw commented.

Other key findings of the research:

- Internet companies (e.g. Google, Facebook and Amazon) were selected by 34% as key industry players that will lead the mobile payments market share over the next two to four years

- Companies most often cited as driving disruptive innovation: Apple (39%), Google/Baidu/Yahoo/Comcast (24%) and Microsoft/Oracle 20%

- Innovation Management: CEO was seen as the role with the main responsibility to drive innovation by 29% followed by the Chief Innovation Officer (20%)

- Revenue growth (53%) was selected as the leading metrics used to measure the value of innovation

- R&D was selected by 38% as the top area where innovation can be spotted and nurtured

- Financial incentives the top approach selected was thought to be the most effective way for an organization to motivate its employees to be innovative (39%)

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