US is home to 51 richest in tech, 19 hails from China

When Forbes released its second annual list of the world’s 100 Richest Tech Billionaires, there was a clear message for aspiring entrepreneurs- Silicon Valley isn’t the only harbor to try one’s fortunes in technology, eastern lands are also lush enough to boost up your wealth. Out of the top hundred richest tech titans of the world, 33 hail from Asia.

China obviously leads the pack with 19 Chinese there on the list and three from Hong Kong. In fact, China comes second to the U.S. which is home to 51 on the list. Three tech giants each hail from Japan and South Korea as well, followed by two each from Taiwan and India and one from Singapore.

While, Microsoft founder Bill Gates with a $78 billion estimated fortune is once again the richest billionaire in tech as well as the richest person in the world–a position he’s held for over two decades, Alibaba founder Jack Ma is the Asia’s richest tech billionaire, with a fortune estimated at $25.8 billion.

Ma is up $2.6 billion since last year, making him not just one of the tech’s wealthiest billionaires, but also one of the industry’s biggest gainers. Others who have added significant sums to their fortunes this past year also come from Asia. Ma Huateng, CEO of internet media company Tencent and the man behind popular instant messenger QQ and mobile chat app WeChat, added $4.1 billion to his fortune.

Talking about Indians, Wipro Chairman Azim Premji and HCL co-founder Shiv Nadar are the only two billionaires from India in Forbes’ list, ranking in the top 20 ahead of Google boss Eric Schmidt and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. Premji ranks 13th on the list with a net worth of $16 billion and Nadar comes in on the 17th spot with $11.6 billion of net worth.

Looking at the bigger picture, one can say it was an overall good year for tech titans as their combined worth grew by 6 percent to reach $892 billion. The minimum net worth now stands at $2.2 billion, up from $2 billion a year ago. Fifty-three of the top 100 added to their fortunes, while 27 got poorer. Twelve newcomers joined the ranks, and the top five billionaires collectively added $36.9 billion to their fortunes over the past year.

Not so surprisingly, 51 of the 100 richest in tech are from the United States, including eight of the top 10 richest on the list.

Taking the second spot after Bill Gates is Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who has an estimated $66.2 billion fortune, an increase of $18.4 billion since this list was released last year. He is followed by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who climbed from fourth to third place thanks to a 30 percent jump in the value of Facebook’s stock.

Only five women rank among the world’s 100 richest in tech. Two of these women, both from Hong Kong, made their fortunes through smartphone touch screen manufacturing, including the world’s richest female tech founder, Zhou Qunfei. She became a billionaire in 2015 after Lens Technology’s IPO and has a net worth of $6.4 billion. America’s richest self-made woman in tech is health care software firm Epic Systems founder and CEO Judy Faulkner, who has a net worth of $2.7 billion. The only other American woman on the list is Hewlett-Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, who has a net worth of $2.2 billion.