The Chicago metropolitan area has more high-tech jobs than any other urban area in the country, including Silicon Valley and other reputed high-tech hot spots like Seattle, says a new study from the University of Minnesota.

Paul O’Connor, president of World Business Chicago, said the study is controversial because it broadens the usual definition of high-tech jobs. The definition is shifting into the realm of advanced manufacturing, he said.

“There are parallel tracks of technology — high-tech and the application of this technology to existing industries,” O’Connor said.

In total high-tech jobs, the Chicago area leads the nation with 347,100, the study says. Washington, D.C., is second with 321,500 jobs, followed by San Jose, Calif., and Boston.

“This is a good thing,” said Ann Markusen, director of the university’s Project on Regional and Industrial Economics. “This kind of mix of old and new insulates a city and its region from downturns in specific sectors, like the pain the dot-com decline has brought to Silicon Valley.”

“Chicago is very diversified across sectors,” Markusen added. “You can have a dot-com downturn, but information technology generally is on a growth trajectory. It’s going to keep going up. Chicago is so well-placed for the work in integrating this tremendous potential into how we live and work.”

Markusen, a former Northwestern University professor, said her team used a broader method of calculating high-tech jobs. Rather than limit themselves to obvious high-tech categories such as electronics manufacturing or software services, the Minnesota team calculated the percent of scientists, engineers and computer professionals in each industry’s national workforce. If that percentage topped nine percent, or three times the national average, it was listed as high-tech. The study also pointed out that, in some places like San Jose, high-tech is almost all there is. Many of these cities boomed [for the] first [time] in the high-tech age, while Chicago and other older cities “are exhibiting an ability to supplement their more mature manufacturing and financial sectors with dynamic new activities.”

Bill Vickers, NIU’s senior electronics technician, said he believes the survey.

“I think it’s true. When I worked for the I-88 technology corridor we were leading the way in technology development,” Vickers said.

The reason for Chicago’s high ranking, according to the study, is that established urban areas have both old and new high-tech industries.

High-tech growth does not necessarily equate with overall job growth, the study added.

Chicago’s high-tech sector also is nicely diversified, making it better positioned to weather a downturn than those that are highly specialized.