company microsoft has been expanding its gaming business in the build up to the metaverse with a worldbeating 69 billion acquisition of gaming giant activision blizzard this month ballmer announced a 425 million donation to the university of oregon9mukesh ambani 64 of reliance industries was up 20 billion to 103 billion retaining his title of the richest person in india and asia10 bertrand puech family 86 of hermes kept his top 10 slot with his wealth up 28 to 102 billion although hermes enjoyed record sales growth of 42 profitability took a hit because of the higher costs of artisans and supply not being able to meet demand in line with other luxury brands hermes increased the price of its products by 35 against the usual average of 15the two new faces in the top 10 are sergey brin and larry page of alphabet at the expense of mark zuckerburg and chinabased bottled water tycoon zhong shanshanthe top 10 added 235 billion over the year and are now worth 13 trillion or 9 of the total listseven are from the usa 2 from france and 1 from indiathe cutoff to make the top 10 in the world has doubled every five years from 26 billion ten years ago to 42 billion five years ago and 102 billion this yearwhere they livechina continued to pull away from the usa in terms of billionaires adding 75 to 1133 the usa was second with 716 billionaires up 20 between the big two china and the usa have 55 of the known billionaires on the planetindia added 38 to solidify its third place whilst the uk overtook germany for fourth russia dropped down one place to 8th with 72 billionaires down 13 on the back of the collapse of the rouble and sanctions since the russiaukraine war a further 20 russiaborn billionaires live across the world with 7 in the uk and 5 in switzerland all are selfmadewith shenzhen overtaking new york for third place it means that the top 3 cities in the world for billionaires are all from one country china with beijing shanghai and shenzhenby speed of growth london was the fastest growing city for billionaires in the world adding 19 in the year followed by mumbai with 12 and new delhi with 11