Irish Govt injects €5m into IC4 cloud computing research centre at DCU

26 Nov 2012

Ireland's Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton, TD, with Prof Brian MacCraith, president of Dublin City University

With the intention of turning ideas into new start-ups and jobs, Ireland’s Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton, TD, has unveiled the new €5m Irish Centre for Cloud Computing and Commerce (IC4) at DCU.

The purpose of the new centre is to accelerate the development and adoption of cloud computing in Ireland.

The IC4 operation is jointly supported by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland and is the 11th Government-funded technology centre to be established in Ireland.

The centre is also guided by an industry panel including Fujitsu, Intel, IBM and Microsoft.

It will be based at DCU but will be supported with additional research capabilities from UCC and Athlone Institute of Technology.

“Cloud computing is already a significant part of the overall market for information technology and services and is now one of the fastest-growing segments of the market,” Bruton said in announcing the IC4 centre.

“That is why as part of the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs we have specifically targeted this sector for jobs and growth in the coming years.

“A major part of supporting job creation in this sector is ensuring that we derive the greatest possible benefit from the major state investment in scientific research over the past decade.

“We must ensure not only that we continue to support cutting-edge scientific research, but also that we put in place measures to ensure that we can turn the good ideas emerging from that research into good jobs.

“That is why we have developed this industry-led technology research centre, to bring industry and researchers together so that they can focus on creating viable businesses and ultimately create the jobs we need,” Bruton said.

View video highlights of the Cloud Capital Forum, where Ireland’s digital leaders gathered in Dublin recently to discuss cloud computing and the big data revolution

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com