Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both 32, were given the accolade for the effect the company they founded seven years ago has had in the last year on Internet users and the worlds of business and technology, the FT said.

It also noted Google's rising stock market value of nearly 130 billion dollars (109.5 billion euros, 74.8 billion pounds), which has put it virtually level-pegging with technology giants IBM and just behind Microsoft and Intel.

Fresh from an investment in AOL Wednesday, Brin and Page -- who began as postgraduate students at US university Stanford -- admitted there was still scope to improve Google's core product.

"It's clear there's a lot of room for improvement, there's no inherent ceiling we're hitting up on," said Brin.

"Google has a large computational infrastructure -- that could be very useful for microbiology or computational biology," he added.

"I don't think we particularly restrict ourselves or have a 20-year vision or anything like that. I don't think we're averse to doing something new."

Other front-runners for the award included Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, the FT said.

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