CHENGDU, Aug. 11 (NBD) -- Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan province, is a giant "magnet" for innovative software talents, SkyGuard Co-Founder Chen Shaohan told NBD Thursday.

At the 15th China International Software Cooperation Conference and 2017 iWorld Chengdu held in the provincial capital on the day, delegates of famous enterprises gathered together discussing trends of the software industry, indicating that the city's software sector is thriving and prospering.

The growth of the software industry, to a large extent, is up to talents, rather than architecture or technology, Chen noted at the conference. As long as there are great talents, software enterprises will be able to make hit products, he said.

The lack of talents, in fact, is now a great challenge facing the whole industry.

On one hand, there is a big gap in quantity between talents supply and demand, and on the other hand, there is an acute shortage of compound talents, Mei Ting, President of the Association of Fundamental Computing Education in Sichuan Universities, said at the event.

Chengdu is strongly attractive to software talents thanks to its affordable housing prices, modern infrastructure, and exquisite living and culture environment, which reduce their burden and leave them room for inspiration, according to Chen. That's also why his company decided to set up its second R&D center in the southwestern city.

A survey conducted by 51job.com among this year's graduates shows that Chengdu holds the sixth spot across China in the ranking of cities for out-of-town job hunting, attracting the interest of 11.3 percent of respondents.

Cai Jingye, Vice President of the School of Information and Software Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, told NBD that more than 40 percent of the School's graduates stay and work in Chengdu, and that many students from other provinces are unwilling to leave after coming to the city.

Chengdu holds a prominent position in China's software industry. It features a complete industry chain and supporting facilities and services, which are fundamentals to the development of the software industry, Cai added.

Cai expects the city to rise to fame for originality software products in around five years.

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn