"We've always found that when we're discussing these sorts of questions of companies wanting to invest here," he said. "We find that Australia is attractive not from having a huge or cheap labour force, but from having a highly educated, technically up to date labour force and a creative labour force."

BSA president and CEO, Robert Holleyman, said the index, which benchmarks 66 countries against a series of indicators in IT innovation, was far from dominated by one country.

"No country holds a monopoly in information technology," he said.

"We're seeing the fast-growing economies of the developing world invest heavily in things like research and development and human capital."

Holleyman said countries with a high ranking must be vigilant as smaller players slowly increase their power.