A meeting has taken place to explore the possibility of setting up a data centre in Derry to improve the city’s chances of attracting digital and financial service companies.
Sinn Fein councillors Mickey Cooper and Bridget Cooper have revealed they met with officials of Derry City Council to discuss the need for such a facility.
Speaking after meeting with Stephen Gillespie and Linda Williams from the Council’s Economic Development Team, they said a data centre was key to increasing Derry’s increasing digital capabilities.
In a joint statement they said: “Such facilities already exist in Belfast and Coleraine and allow both to attract interest from financial services companies who need large scale data storage facilities to carry out their work.
“We discussed the need to increase Derry’s electricity infrastructure to ensure that a datacentre could be placed in the city.
“We also agreed that InvestNI need to examine what support they can offer to the creation of datacentres, given the potential employment opportunities offered by the establishment of Financial Services businesses in the city as a result of datacentres being established.
“As a next step, Derry City Council will now attempt to source the technical expertise required to identify and develop a suitable site in the city for data centre facilities and will also explore how an Enterprise Seed Fund and other initiatives can be established to allow local businesses to develop their own capacity to avail of the data centre proposals.
“Finally, we again discussed the lack of a digital marketing strategy for the city which would highlight Derry’s quality STEM graduates, the potential of the NW Science Park and Project Kelvin, the work being carried out by local companies, the University and community organisations in the digital and creative sector and the development of unique projects such as C-TRIC.”
The statement concluded: “We agreed that such a strategy was vital to ensure that Derry would get onto the radar of potential investors working in the sector and to highlight the work being carried out by local companies.”
