The nationwide study analyzed companies involved in a range of sectors, including data processing, semiconductors, defense, aerospace, bio-sciences, and the environment.

It revealed that in Silicon Valley, 52.4 percent of start-ups in the last decade had at least one founder of foreign origin, significantly higher than the California average of 38.8 percent and a national average of 25.3 percent.

"Silicon Valley is like the Mecca for technologies," said Duke University professor Vavek Wadwha, co-author of the study. "Right now you have the best and the brightest people from all over the world willing to come there."

Indians represented the most dynamic ethnic group, according to the study, accounting for 15.5 percent of the new start-ups, overtaking Chinese and Taiwanese with 12.8 percent.

Wadhwa said a similar study carried out by the University of California, Berkeley in 1999 had indicated that between 1980 and 1998, 17 percent of new companies had been created by Chinese and Taiwanese, with India seven percent.

Silicon Valley's Indian population increased by 40 percent between 2000 and 2005, according to figures from the US Census Bureau.

Many of the overseas workers seek out success in Silicon Valley in order to benefit from the unique creative climate of the northern Californian technology hub. "In China, the start-ups tend to be copying other companies," said Jack Jia, who moved to Silicon Valley 15 years ago and who has founded two companies, V-Max and Baynote.

"There's very little original innovation, and for every single concept, there's a lot of competition. Silicon Valley's attraction is the innovative culture, the money, and the know-how expertise."

Anselm Baird-Smith moved to Silicon Valley from France, leaving behind what he described as the "sclerosis" of his homeland's IT sector, to create Lala, an Internet site for trading compact discs.

"Here you can succeed simply on merit," Baird-Smith told AFP. "It doesn't matter where you're from. What matters is what you do. "There are no limits on innovation, and you don't spend your time trying to convince your superiors that an idea is worthwhile."

Some of Silicon Valley's biggest companies have been founded with the help of overseas talent. Sergey Brin, from Russia, co-founded Google, while a German, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Vinod Khosla, from India, founded Sun Microsystems. A Taiwanese, Jerry Yang, co-founded Yahoo.

"Without these people starting their companies here, Silicon Valley would have been out of touch with China and India. Immigration connects Silicon Valley with emerging countries," said Jia.

"It also brings culutral diversity. Diversity is the key to innovation, because it brings new ways of solving problems. It stimulates people to think outside of the box."

For Vavek Wadhwa, the success of overseas talent in Silicon Valley reflects a shortage of quality American graduates.

"Maths and science education is so poor in the USA, that if the country relies only on American graduates it will be in great trouble," Wadhwa said.

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