ASTANA – The Kazakh capital, for the first time, entered the list of the most investment-attractive cities, taking 64th place, ahead of Rome, Warsaw, and Moscow, according to a Nov. 22 sixth edition of the Smart Centres Index (SCI 6) published by London-based commercial think-tank Z/Yen.
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“The SCI 6 rates the innovation and technology offerings of leading commercial centers, tracking their ability to create, develop and deploy technology,” reads the index’s preface.
It determines the list of cities attractive for investing in technology, science, energy systems, machine learning, and financial technologies. It also rates them according to innovation support (i.e. governmental and regulatory support provided to a commercial center operating in the city), creative intensity (i.e. the magnitude of innovative services and opportunities), and delivery capability (i.e. the quality of the technology and innovation work).
Leading SCI centers are often located in places that combine a high-performing university sector across STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Energy Systems, Machine Learning) with well-developed regulatory, commercial, and financial services. This edition’s top cities are New York, London, and Los Angeles.
The Z/Yen researched 131 commercial and financial centers for the SCI 6, but only 75 received adequate assessments from survey respondents to be listed in the index.
The think tank, which exists since 1994, releases such indexes twice a year, the first being published in 2020.
