A MULTIMILLION-POUND centre dedicated to helping Scotland harness 'big data' online and convert it into useful information for business and public-sector organisations is to open later this year.
The £11.3 million Data Lab is projected to create at least 345 new jobs.
Researchers working at hub locations in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow will analyse online data, such as financial reports or customer behaviour, which clients can use to develop marketing tools and boost productivity.
The Data Lab's focus will be on sectors including digital technology, energy, financial Services, healthcare, and the public sector.
Laurence Howells, chief executive of the Scottish Funding Council, which put up the cash for the project, said: "Tablets, kindles, mobile phones, online shopping; we all use and generate massive amounts of data each day.
"Our £11.3m investment will support The Data Lab to develop innovative techniques that will improve many aspects of our lives, from efficient energy use, personalised online shopping, through to faster and more effective medical care."
Neil Logan, Chairman of The Data Lab, said the facility would increase collaboration between industry and academia.
He said: "(The Data Lab) will play important role in Scotland's future by enabling industry and academia to work more together closely in the exciting field of Data Science. This will change the nature of the relationship between industry and academia by helping industry to unlock the value inside our world leading academic institutions."
Big data is one of the fastest growing areas of technology science. It is estimated it will be worth at least £216bn to the UK economy by 2017.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article