More evidence accumulates to show how the economic centre of gravity is moving towards Asia.

Asia is increasingly dominating the field of billionaire entrepreneurs aged 40 or under, overtaking the US in terms of the numbers of this ultra-rich cohort, according to Bloomberg.

Six of the world’s 10 wealthiest self-made billionaires aged 40 and under are from the Asia-Pacific region, the news and information service’s Bloomberg Billionaires Index reports. Four of these people are Chinese and two are Australian. Only three are from the US, reversing its former dominance.

The figures add to other data showing that Asia is becoming the most important region for the rise of ultra-high net worth individuals. Last year, UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers reported that 89 Chinese entrepreneurs became billionaires for the first time in 2017. That is three times more than the 30 who were minted in the US during the same year, or the 34 created in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. China’s market is also young: some 17 per cent of new Chinese billionaires founded businesses less than 10 years ago; in the US, the comparable share is 7 per cent. To put the figures into a global context, 199 self-made billionaires were created in 2017.

Such results also continue to explain why private banks, both domestic and international, have sought to tap into this market.

Bloomberg said that when its index began in 2012 with a list of the world’s 40 richest people, three were self-made and under the age of 40: Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and Facebook Inc’s Mark Zuckerberg. Brin and Page are too old now, but Zuckerberg tops the list of the world’s richest self-made youngsters with a $65.5 billion fortune. Joining him are Shanghai resident and e-commerce entrepreneur Colin Huang ($13.7 billion), who rose to second from third in 2018, as well as Facebook co-founders Dustin Moskovitz ($11.8 billion) and Eduardo Saverin, a Brazilian living in Singapore ($9 billion). The other Chinese billionaires to qualify are TAL Education Group founder Zhang Bangxin ($5.5 billion), drone-maker Frank Wang ($5.2 billion) and Bitmain Technologies co-founder Micree Zhan ($5.2 billion).