New Digital Tech Cluster to Create 1,000 Jobs in North West

The Science and Technology Facilities Council reveals the plan as it aims to support the growth of digital businesses across the region.

Happy days are on the way with a new Digital Tech Cluster at Sci-Tech Daresbury potentially bringing 1,000 jobs to North West England.

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has announced the plans and wants to support the growth of digital businesses across the region.

Sci-Tech Daresbury is located in the Liverpool City Region. Warrington, Runcorn, Manchester and Liverpool are “a short distance away” from the campus.

Paul Vernon, Head of STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory, says: “By providing budding businesses with ready access to STFC’s world leading research infrastructure and digital expertise, the new cluster will help them to overcome their digital challenges and speed up their innovation process.”

He adds that the digital technology sector is worth around £151 billion to the UK economy.

The idea of the cluster is to give small businesses access to the power of supercomputing, data analytics and artificial intelligence. They will also be able to develop new software products.

The Digital Tech Cluster has a vision for the next decade, which includes the 1,000 jobs across the region; growing a critical mass of 100 digital tech companies at Sci-Tech Daresbury; and developing a support network consisting of more than 300 companies.

Businesses in the cluster will get access to experts and university academics located at the campus. Such as the STFC Hartree Centre and its most recent collaborative programme with IBM, the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation.

STFC’s Alison Kennedy, Director of the Hartree Centre, adds: “Providing access to the cutting edge technologies here at the Hartree Centre enables businesses to increase the pace at which they can benefit from new digital technologies and achieve success – to the benefit our economy, both here in the North West and nationally.”

In other recent – and positive – news, the nation’s quantum industry received some help in the form of £50 million funding from the UK’s National Quantum Technologies Programme.

Announced by UK Research and Innovation, the projects include a wide variety, some of which are relevant to the enterprise technology sector.

Along with the funding news, the UK and the US have signed a joint statement of intent to boost collaboration on quantum technologies.

Antony Peyton
Antony Peyton
Antony Peyton is the Editor of eWeek UK. He has 18 years' journalism and writing experience. His career has taken him to China, Japan and the UK - covering tech, fintech and business. Follow on Twitter @TonyFintech.
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