The Universities and Science Minister David Willetts is due to unveil £73 million of new funding to help unlock the potential of big data.
Speaking at a GovNet conference on high performance computing and big data later today, David Willetts will outline details of the projects that help bring large sets of complex data into usable formats that can inform research and analysis.
It is estimated that the big data market will benefit the UK economy by £216 billion and create 58,000 new jobs before 2017.
The 55 projects receiving investment will drive innovation in a number of diverse areas, including 24 projects through the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) for to help the UK research community take advantage of existing environmental data.
The potential of big data to drive innovation is now under active consideration by the UK water companies – both to deliver better customer service and optimise their water and wastewater networks. The utilities have more to gain from intelligent engagement with big data than any other sector – they generate massive amounts of data across geographies with large numbers of supply sources, processing facilities and consumption points.Data mining, GIS and smart metering are among the key technologies already being brought into use by the utilities.
Universities and Science Minister David Willetts said:
“Big data is one of the eight great technologies of the future and a priority for government. It has the potential to transform public and private sector organisations, drive research and development, increase productivity and innovation, and enable market-changing products and services.
“This funding will help the UK grasp these opportunities and get ahead in the global race.”
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) will receive £14 million of the new funding to invest in four new research centres at Essex, Glasgow, UCL and Leeds Universities. The centres will make data from private sector organisations and local government accessible to researchers investigating a wide range of topics. At present the data is being collected by these organisations, but is not being used for research purposes. This is phase two of the data network. Phase one was set up to get information from government departments.
Countries around the world are acting now to position themselves to take advantage of the data opportunity - ranging from the USD $200 million big data R&D initiative and Japan’s Growth Strategy which allocates nearly £90 million for big data R&D.
The Government is supporting the UK’s data infrastructure, most recently with £189 million of funding for big data in the Autumn Statement 2012.
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