Chile's Silicon Valley - BusinessWeek

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Chile's Silicon Valley

U.S. tech companies are flocking to Santiago, where engineers are smart, wages are low, and government grants are plentiful

The information technology industry is constructing a new research and development hub for software: Santiago, Chile. The Latin American capital has the attributes that have made emerging markets attractive to outsourcers, such as cheap wages; dependable, state-of-the-art infrastructure; and government incentives. While Chile's small labor force will hinder its rise, the country also boasts an outsize pool of highly educated computer engineers and a time zone that's synchronous with the U.S. East Coast.

Equifax ( EFX ) is the latest U.S. company to open a software lab in Santiago, joining JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ), Yahoo! ( YHOO ), and others. The Atlanta-based company looked at adding a research center in a number of places that would be cheaper than Silicon Valley. After evaluating Argentina, Brazil, and Ireland, Equifax picked Chile because of the overall quality of its engineers, says Sandeep Gupta, a vice-president for research and development.

JOB CUTS HERE, HIRES THERE

Equifax's 22 Chilean engineers are ...

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http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_34/b4144073857837.htm