Asia to reap nanotech rewards

Asian nations will come to dominate the global nanotechnology business, while Europe risks losing its early research advantage, a research report has predicted.

During the next seven years, Taiwan and China look likely to join Korea, Japan, the US and Germany among the global leaders in nanotech, according to nanotech specialist, Lux Research. 

The global nanotech market could be worth one trillion dollars by 2015, according to a report from the US National Science Foundation. 

Nanotechnology is a catch-all term for a broad range of technologies that work with materials on a scale of billionths of a metre. Potential applications include electronics, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.

Nanotechnology is already being used in products as diverse as flat-panel displays, computer chips, sunblock and stain-proof textiles.

While the nanoscale properties of materials have already been harnessed, it is only during the past decade that attention has focused on nanotechnology as a distinct field with potentially lucrative industrial applications.

But the uncertain toxicity of very small particles has given rise to safety concerns.

While basic research is important, a strong manufacturing base with close links to research is key to the rise of the emerging Asian nanotech giants.

"Many countries are investing millions or billions in primary research," said David Lackner, a senior analyst Lux Research.

"But the true winners will be those that discover how to incorporate nanotechnology breakthroughs into new manufacturing techniques, medical treatments and finished products".

Asian governments, particularly in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Singapore, have been promoting nanotech research strongly for the past decade, and have moved beyond R&D to encourage commercial applications.

Authorities have been particularly proactive in Taiwan, Lackner told news agency United Press International.

"Nowadays in Taiwan you see things which never happen in the West, such as underwriting the expenses of corporations for R&D and supplying subsidies to any PhD student taking a postdoc position in Taiwan doing nanotech work," he said.

In Asia, the US and Germany, industry has answered these official efforts with its own research funding.

Figures from Lux Research state that corporate R&D funding for nanotech this year will total $1.8bn in the US, $1.1bn in Japan, $296m in Germany, and $213m in South Korea.

But government spending on research in Europe is not always being followed up by local industry, according to the analyst.

"France and the UK risk sliding into stagnation with little commercial output to show for their groundbreaking academic work," warned Lackner.

Lackner was particularly concerned about the prospects for France, but is more hopeful that the UK can change direction.

The two European nations are referred to as "ivory towers" by Lux Research because they are "high on nanotechnology activity but low on technology development strength in relative terms".

Testimony delivered to the US government earlier this year by Matthew Nordan, Lux's vice president of research, noted that companies operating in nations like China, where intellectual property enforcement is lax, had an opportunity to build up manufacturing expertise cheaply by using pirated technology free of charge.

"[They] generally refuse to name their production processes, raising suspicions that they are using Westerners' patent filings like recipe books," said Nordan.

A PDF of Nordan's testimony is available here.