LAS VEGAS— China is closing the technology gap with the U.S. every year, but it will be many years before it challenges the U.S. for dominance of the technology market, according to Fred Hu, co-head of Investment Banking for China at Goldman Sachs.

The country is also improving human rights conditions and vows to resume a human rights dialogue with the United States over its "sweat shop" policies—particularly in light of the upcoming Beijing Olympics. However, slowly churning human rights changes in China will still result in cheaper IT manufacturing prices for U.S. companies, Hu told an audience, Feb. 26, at Goldman Sachs 2008 Technology Symposium here in Las Vegas.

" China has been making great strides in a lot of areas. It's making large strides in IT to close the gap with the U.S., but that gap remains very, very big," said Hu. "There are reasons to think one day China will become of the leaders in technology—there is the human capital [quotient] where every year China trends 600,000 graduates in engineering. That's by far the greatest number of engineers. So there is an abundance of human capital. And there is the social aspect….but I haven't found anything event remotely compatible to Microsoft. Is it in five years [competitors will emerge]? I think even longer."

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