As with many developing nations, India has enjoyed a quick game of leapfrog over its developed world counterparts when it comes to technology. For example, fixed telephone lines are there, but play a dramatic second fiddle to wireless networks, which are excellent. I have better reception on my American cell phone in India than I have ever had in New York. I didn’t know you could get 5 bars on there!

In much the same way, most Indian financial services firms never invested in mainframes and therefore have far fewer legacy maintenance issues than firms in the US or Europe. Firms in India have always preferred open source technology to paying large license fees to firms like Microsoft or IBM.

Ajit Karunkaran from California-based grid vendor Gemstone Systems says this makes the industry primed for the adoption of grid computing, which he says is set to take off in the next 12-24 months. At the moment, grid technology is only being used in Indian research institutions, but once firms understand the benefit of performing multiple complex calculations in parallel--an on cheap commodity boxes--he believes uptake will be fast. The technology has already matured in the West, so just like with the wireless revolution, the lessons learned there will be easily transferred to the later adopters.

The same goes for algorithmic trading and all the low-latency infrastructure and throughput requirements that come with it. Indian firms will have a much faster learning period than US firms that pioneered the way.