• According to a study by Nearshore Americas, Chile generates the region’s best talent for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Latin America’s information technology ecosystem is expanding rapidly. Although no country in the region ranks among the world’s top 50 countries on innovation, some have done important work in training skilled labor and continue to make strides in developing the essence of the digital economy: brain power.

According to a study by Nearshore Americas, Chile is the region’s undisputed leader as a brain hub, with the best score on three of the four variables measured in the report: years of schooling (9.6 years), enrolment in tertiary education (91.5%) and knowledge-intensive employment (26.4%).

“Chile has been a leader on this for quite some time now. The incentives to entrepreneurship, as well, create a dynamic digital ecosystem,” says the report.

The only indicator on which Chile did not lead was science and engineering graduates, which was led by Mexico with 25.5%.

Brazil took second place in the ranking, followed by Mexico, Colombia and Argentina.

Nearshore Americas used data from the Global Innovation Index of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the World Bank’s Human Capital Project to determine which Latin American countries have the best conditions to cultivate talent in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Since 2016, InvestChile has been implementing a strategy to attract investment in global services and the digital economy. It has focused on promoting the industry and currently has a portfolio of more than 120 projects at different stages, from prospection to materialization, worth a total of some US$2,500 million.