India among top 5 innovation destinations; Bengaluru tops

India has been named among the top five global locations for innovation centres, and Bengaluru has emerged as the most favoured destination within the country, having four such facilities.

According to a Capgemini report titled Digital Dynasties: The Rise of Innovation Empires Worldwide, India is becoming a new innovation destination of choice, doubling the number of innovation centres since July 2015 and seeing brands such as Apple, Airbus and Visa locate here.

Silicon Valley, London and Paris were named as the top three locations for innovation centres, followed by Singapore and Bengaluru in the fourth and fifth place, respectively.

"India has been rising in the ranks of favourite destinations to open innovation centres. Our previous research identified eight innovation centres in India in July 2015. India has since seen eight more innovation centres open their doors," the report said.

Bengaluru has been the most favoured city with four new innovation centres. Bengaluru is home to several billion- dollar Indian startups such as Flipkart, InMobi and Mu Sigma, and attracts world-class technology talent and investments.

Among the new innovation centres opened in Bengaluru ar Airbus' BizLab, which intends to bring together startups and Airbus' internal entrepreneurs and Visa, whose new technology center will house 1,000 developers accelerating development of next generation payment solutions.

"Global firms are showing interest in other Indian cities as well," the report said adding that TriMas Corporation -  a diversified global manufacturer of engineered and applied products - opened an innovation centre in Delhi to focus on driving innovation across its range of packaging solutions, while Puratos, a leading global food ingredient company, launched an innovation centre in Mumbai.

The report noted that though Silicon Valley still remains the hub of the world's most dominant innovation "empire", the innovation centre phenomenon has continued to spread globally, a number of new 'empires' have emerged.

"Over the last year, we witnessed the rapid rise of Asia as a destination for innovation centres. Compared to our previous research, Asia has seen a 29 per cent rise in the number of innovation centres being launched," the report said.