This is real. There is huge potential in this country to create tens of thousands of jobs in this country. There is nothing stopping us. We have real government commitment. We have international companies investing here. We have utility companies, telecoms also investing in it. The environment exists for us to go out, and take this opportunity and become a leading company, particularly in this developing internet
We have an internet world where the volume of data is doubling almost every second year. We use our mobile phones to watch video and we go home at night and tune into YouTube as opposed to television. There is a huge volume of data that is now going into the internet. One of the constraints that start to appear is at the switching point of that date. The routers and switching equipment that manage to transfer that data have started to eat up because they take the volume of data that needs to be routed. An Irish company that has come up with a solution to that fundamental problem by developing a highly sophisticated, colour coded, fibre optic system
And what were saying in the Irish government is yes we’re going to support that type of Irish company. First, we will use in our own network where we have state owned fibre, so we can get achieve those efficiencies to achieve the fastest speeds so Ireland is the best connected company in the world.
We are going to be a leading country in efficient data centres and computing. All that information is coming from increasingly large data centres. They are being built here and they have to be energy efficient to meet our climate change target. We have an advantage in our country as a cooler country then most others that we can actually keep those systems energy efficient. We don’t have to have such a heating or cooling need for them.
We want to place this country as the centre of the most efficient data centre technology and we have the ability to do it. A lot of the companies are based here, doing leading research here to show how to do that. We are going to coordinate on that and deliver on that as Ireland being the centre for green data centres worldwide.
So that is the transmission and the source. The crucial issue is the content. The greatest opportunity in terms of jobs is to create an international content service centre here. We’ve done it before. Someone’s come up with the idea and said lets have an international financial services centre, and people probably laughed at first. But ten fifteen years later we have 25,000 people working in that financial service centre. We have every reason to develop a similar project on a content service centre here in Ireland. We have everything that’s needed in term of backup legal accounting and other professional services. We can now create the property rights infrastructure and laws that will actually attract international businesses to Ireland as a fair place to do business on the Internet. And that is what we’re saying here with our international content service centres.
The other component I would put centre stage is the actually smart electricity network that would deliver the electricity that powers this whole new internet system. We have as I said a big advantage in our innovation model because we have the international companies here.
We would use that network and ESB is investing in a network which can devise an electrical vehicle system or smart metering system because in those areas it is the data management which is a crucial technological advantage, and by developing it here first we can then use that technology, and I commend ESB’s vision and ambition in actually investing in that area. In fact the connection between the green energy world and the communications world is increasingly intertwined
So again, it’s a real message based on a real investment that is taking place today that we will be a smart grid centre for the world and we will be able to track all other international companies that know this will be a growing area to carry out their investment here.
There is a concept based on a sense that the internet will now increasingly not just go from people to people or computer to computer but will go from remote sensory devices. Maybe you’ll have a sensory device in a light, or out in Galway Bay you’ll have a sensory device, and you can start managing devices and measuring the environment in a remote mechanism that will actually give you huge efficiencies and returns. IBM is already doing that, in making an investment in Galway Bay in devising this world leading technology for remote sensory devices.
And that’s what’s happening in the world. That’s the big opportunity in environmental management. It’s the same in energy efficiency management. It’s the remote sensors that can switch off devices where all the growth and investment is in
There are a range of different projects. They’re all achievable, and their all achievable quickly. There all projects where there is real investment now; where there are jobs being created now. And that’s what we’re committed to in Dublin, to making that happen and to make the smart economy a reality.
I am convinced more today that when I go out to the companies that are here, when I talk entrepreneurs willing to invest in this area, when I see state companies willing to investing in this area, that this smart economy is realisable, it is achievable it will provide the jobs unlike any other area, and we are determined to go out and deliver those