STFC Hartree Centre Strengthens Strategic Partnership to Benefit UK Businesses

The STFC Hartree Centre has strengthened its mission to help UK industry drive productivity, growth and job creation using Big Data and cognitive technologies, as it welcomes a growing team of IBM Research scientists to its centre at Sci-Tech Daresbury.

Backed by the £115.5 million commitment from Government announced in 2015, this development is a major expansion in the joint collaboration between IBM and the Hartree Centre and will enable UK businesses to benefit from a potential 18–24 months competitive advantage through working the enhanced team.

Alison Kennedy, Director of STFC’s Hartree Centre, said:

“The growing presence of IBM research at the Hartree Centre strengthens our strategic collaboration and is a major stamp of approval for our commitment to help UK industry get the most out of Big Data and cognitive technologies. Data is our fastest growing natural resource and, in partnership with IBM Research, we’ll be able to help UK industry benefit from the wealth of information and insight hidden within it.”

Over the next 5 years up to 30 IBM staff will work alongside the Hartree Centre team at Sci-Tech Daresbury in Cheshire.

Working together the combined team will use access to the latest data-centric and cognitive computing technologies, including IBM’s world leading ‘Watson’, to better exploit the opportunities hidden within large volumes of data.

For the first time users such as doctors, economists, engineers and security personnel, who are all experts in their own fields but not in data analysis, will be able to make better decisions and discoveries thanks to insights based on automated complex analyses on their data.

In turn, this will translate into competitive advantage through better products and services.

Professor Chris Thompson, Technical Lead of the IBM Daresbury team, said:

“The collaboration between IBM and Hartree is a rare opportunity to make a significant impact on the UK industrial ecosystem and I am looking forward to seeing the IBM/Hartree team grow and engage in this challenge.”

The IBM/Hartree team will work with IBM Research labs in Dublin, Zurich, Yorktown Heights and around the world to develop new tools, algorithms and approaches to Big Data and cognitive systems, with initial areas of collaboration to include molecular modelling, DNA sequencing, uncertainty modelling and the Internet of Things.