In July FastCompany published an article that looked at the European Silicon Valley tech hubs. Looking to Dublin, it said the city is increasingly earning itself the nickname ‘Europe's Silicon Valley’ as a result of all the tech giants that are converging in Ireland's capital.

The FastCompany article itself starts off by giving a history of how Silicon Valley came about in the US in the early 1970s, in what it termed a “geographically ill-defined zone” in the southern part of San Francisco's Bay Area. However the article swerved to take a look at flourishing tech hubs in Europe, including Dublin.

According to FastCompany, Dublin is fast earning itself the nickname ‘Europe's Silicon Valley’.

It was back in 2011 that Twitter decided to locate its third international office in Dublin in the Docklands area, which is also home to the European headquarters of Google, LinkedIn and Facebook.

At the time of the Twitter announcement an The Irish Times article termed the Dublin Docklands zone ‘Silicon Docks’.

Then, in early 2011, Google purchased the tallest building in Dublin city, the 15-floor Montevetro building, for US$136m as it said its earlier local office was too small for its growing staff.

At the time Google said it has also acquired the buildings that house its EMEA headquarters across the street on Barrow Street in Grand Canal Dock. The company had been renting this office space since 2004.

Then, in March 2011 a major clean-tech agreement between Dublin’s clean-tech cluster The Green Way and San Jose’s Environmental Business Cluster was signed in Silicon Valley.

The link-up was forged to support the growth of Dublin and Silicon Valley clean-tech companies, coupled with helping to spawn job opportunities in the sector in both cities.

The Green Way – Dublin’s Cleantech Cluster and the Environmental Business Cluster (EBC) in San Jose will be aiming to achieve a dramatic increase in R&D, business development, commercialisation and investment opportunities for both Irish and San Jose companies looking to access US and EU clean-tech markets respectively. 

On Irish soil, the clean-tech sector appears to be on a rapid ascent. According to the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs, the sector currently employs 18,750 people in Ireland and is worth over €3bn to the economy. It also predicts that this employment figure is set to rise to 29,000 by 2015.

And, in June, Nuance Communications, the firm behind the voice-recognition tech in systems like Apple's Siri digital assistant, revealed it was planning to set up an international office in Dublin.

By Carmel Doyle

To read the FastCompany article in full, which looks at European Silicon Valley-like hubs, click here.