The former chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt, believes the internet is set to “split in two” within ten years, with a US-led version and another led by China.

Mr Schmidt, who is worth around $10 billion, claims that the Chinese government's censorship of online content will lead to the emergence of an entirely new internet that is incompatible with the western version of the web.

"I think the most likely scenario now is not a splintering, but rather a bifurcation into a Chinese-led internet and a non-Chinese internet led by America,” said Mr Schmidt, talking at an event in San Francisco on Thursday.

“If you look at China... the scale of the companies that are being built, the services being built, the wealth that is being created is phenomenal. Chinese internet is a greater percentage of the GDP of China, which is a big number, than the same percentage of the US, which is also a big number.”

The comments come as Google, his former company, has been criticised for an alleged effort to launch a new censored version of the search engine. In order to comply with Beijing's rules, the search engine being developed by Google for China reportedly links users’ personal mobile phone numbers to the search terms they type in. The feature would enable Chinese security services to link searches with individuals, raising the risk they could be identified if they sought information Beijing viewed as politically sensitive.