The biggest, and fastest growing, tech hubs in the U.S. have been revealed. Recent research commissioned by Sage Intacct, has revealed the top 10 US cities with the most cloud-based companies. The new research also reveals the most up-and-coming countries for cloud entrepreneurs, based on the number of cloud-based startups in the past 5 years.
Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user.
It is probably of no surprise that California is at the top, as Silicon Valley has long been known as the global centre for technology and innovation. However, bubbling below this, technology hubs are growing quickly across other locations including New York, Texas and Massachusetts. It has been estimated that New York has 9,000 startups and somewhere between 150,000 and 300,000 tech workers, half of whom are said to work in non-tech companies.
There are different definitions as to what constitutes a ‘tech hub’. One approach is to conceive of a tech hub simply as a place where things happen faster; a locale where ideation and product development can be streamlined.
Tech hubs are often supported by government grants and by industry investment. The aim is to have everyone, and everything needed in a compact space in order to bring an idea from concept to reality.
Based on the research, these are the top 10 U.S. cities with the most cloud-based companies:
| Town/City | State | No. of cloud-based companies |
| San Francisco | California | 224 |
| Central New York | New York | 121 |
| San Jose | California | 68 |
| Santa Clara | California | 64 |
| Palo Alto | California | 58 |
| Boston | Massachusetts | 54 |
| Austin | Texas | 54 |
| Seattle | Washington | 47 |
| Chicago | Illinois | 41 |
| Mountain View | California | 33 |
Outside of California, central New York is hot on the heels of San Francisco for cloud-based tech with 121 companies in the area alone.
Looking further down the list, Boston comes in 6th as the city has made ongoing tech developments in recent years and is home to some of the top educational facilities for technology field students such as MIT.
Further findings revealed that over£128 billion has been invested into cloud-based businesses in California alone and that New York is second biggest tech hub in the U.S. for cloud with over 150 companies across the state.
The research also finds that Y Combinator is the top investor in cloud computing with over 60 investments. Y Combinator (YC) is a U.S. technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. YC has been associated with Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Stripe and Twitch.
