Vs open loans which little cost accountability. (well accountability via students for which this is the most extensive, longest term, financially complex, with highly variable ROI purchase they will have made in their life so far...)
Anyway it is a poor metric, especially compared to the US, because small countries are not well suited for consumer oriented tech companies such as Facebook. The home market is too small. Small Scandinavian countries tend to have tech companies in particular niches.
I am Norwegian myself and a lot of high tech here is related to the oil industry, making specialized software, hardware and instruments for it. Norway is world leader in this area, but few people outside the oil industry would know that.
Another problem for small countries is due to the small home market, our tech companies usually get bought by big American multinationals. That means a lot of tech done here happens under umbrella of some American company and doesn't show up as some independent Norwegian company.
Almost every single Norwegian tech company I have worked for has gotten bought out by some big American multinational. Video conferencing, secure authentication systems, 3D modeling of geology etc.
It is not unique to Scandinavian countries. Israel dubbed startup nation suffers the same problem. Few tech companies ever manage to get very big before they get bought by an American multinational. It is an issue that worries government there as being a country only made up of branches is not as profitable as having tech HQs.
Denmark is the home of BlueTooth, ZenDesk, Skype, and a company called Danfoss which you've certainly never heard of but provided microchips and motherboards for a large percentage of the world's tractors, district heating plants, refrigeration centers, and industrial greenhouses. Denmark is a technology powerhouse with manufacturing capabilities that outrank countries a dozen times their size.