Intel drives research into sustainable connected cities with new UK centre

The new London based institute will be Intel's first research centre and global hub dedicated to exploring how technology can support and sustain the social and economic development of cities worldwide. It will also collaborate with the emerging Tech City cluster in East London to identify and analyse emerging trends. Speaking at the centre's launch event at 10 Downing Street, the Chancellor George Osborne said: "This new investment from Intel is great news for the UK economy. It is investments like this that will help us put the UK on the path we need to take to create new jobs, new growth and new prosperity in every corner of our country. "We are determined to make the UK the best place to do business in the world and a great place for technology companies to invest and build new business. It is encouraging to see major tech partners like Intel investing in this country as a result of the policies the government has put in place." The new facility will be a core member of the newly formed Intel Labs Europe UK R&D network, which will be based in nine locations across the country including London, Brighton, Swindon and Aylesbury. It also forms a part of Intel's new worldwide Intel Collaborative Research Institute programme, which aims to drive and fund collaborative university research to fuel global innovation and help address challenges across fields such as secure computing, visual computing and computational intelligence. "Now, more than ever, it is vital that universities collaborate with each other and with businesses on projects such as this," said Professor Stephen Caddick, vice president of enterprise at UCL. "Delivering research which can be taken out of the lab and onto the market, creating new business opportunities and jobs, and contributing to the growth to the UK economy are things we so urgently need." The new institute in London will initially employ about a dozen researchers focused on the application of computing technologies to enhance cities from a social, economic and environmental point of view. The centre will use this data to develop models for more sustainable behaviour, including community energy management or water conservation. It will also explore how fixed and mobile sensors across the city, and intelligent connected vehicles, can be used in the collection of weather, emission and traffic flow data, for use by city planners in the development of more sustainable cities in the future.