Last year's position : Not Placed

With China, size is everything and a population of some 1.3 billion people means the modernisation of Chinese society will turn the country into the most lucrative technology market in the world. The country already has 300 million mobile phone users - twice that of the US.

Panellist Ajay Chowdhury, managing partner at IDG Ventures Europe, said: "It will influence the world of technology in many different ways. First as a market and second as a lot of technology comes out of China. It is motoring ahead at a rate of knots."

But it is clear already that new president Hu, the man charged with guiding China to its new superpower status, is not just going to throw its doors open to the usual western technology giants. The Chinese government is looking to develop its own 3G standard, while its support for the development of an open source alternative to Windows has already had Microsoft, somewhat ironically, complaining of anti-competitive practices.