Silicon Valley: "Immigrants from countries like India, China and Taiwan play a key role in creation of wealth and jobs in the United States," a new study said.

Nationwide, 25.3 per cent of tech and engineering companies started between 1995 and 2005 had founders who come from overseas, according to "America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs," a report written by researchers from Duke University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Interestingly, only 11.7 per cent of the US population is foreign-born, according to US Census data.

Immigrant entrepreneurs' companies employed 450,000 workers and generated USD 52 billion in sales in 2005, according to the survey.

Indian immigrants founded more tech startups than people from the four next biggest sources United Kingdom, China, Taiwan and Japan combined. Of the estimated 7,300 US tech startups founded by immigrants, Indians accounted for about 26 per cent, the study found.

California led the nation, with foreign-born entrepreneurs setting up 39 per cent of startups, compared to 25 per cent of the state's population.

In Silicon Valley the impact of immigrants is even more profound as more than half (52 per cent) of the start ups established in the past decade are established by people born overseas, with Indians once again leading the pack. In 1999 this number stood at 25 per cent.

In many ways, Silicon Valley's risk-taking ethos is a perfect fit for immigrants who often chance everything to come to the United States.