Future Screens NI comprises the two higher education institutions (Ulster University and QUB) and a number of key industrial partners central to the creative economy in the region, including NI Screen, BBC, Belfast City Council, Belfast Harbour, Causeway Enterprise Agency, Digital Catapult, Catalyst Inc., RTE, Games NI, Kainos, Invest NI, Techstart NI, Matrix and Tourism NI. The Northern Ireland Assembly defines the creative industries as 'those industries which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property'. The Partnership has, from this, developed a definition of, and a working model for, the creative industries in NI which is focused on participation, cultural and economic growth, and social and economic regeneration placing the Partnership as a leading developmental catalyst in this NI sector. In the context of Northern Ireland, the creative industries are more than just another key economic sector, generating, according to DCMS figures, £1.01 billion in gross added value of the NI economy, and employing 2.9% of the entire NI workforce. For a region emerging from a period of profound conflict, and social and cultural division and dysfunction, the creative industries sector has continued to offer an alternative and successful paradigm, a new model for cultural expression, personal growth, and economic attainment. The cluster of organisations involved in Future Screens NI may be defined as: (a) audiovisual-led, complemented by the strength of the digital sector and the impact of technology in other more traditional sectors, eg. in tourism, heritage, textiles and crafts; (b) operating across NI as a region, driven by the Belfast travel-to-work-area (add ref to NESTA) but with a region-wide remit linking, in particular, to the North West of the province; c) a spatially defined multi-industry cluster that is distinctive within the UK, shaped by the complexity of cultural space in the aftermath of 20th-century conflict, a plurality of commercial and cultural relationships including across the border with the Republic of Ireland, the role of economic development bodies such as Invest NI and Catalyst Inc., and the significant investment of the HEIs and FE colleges in the creative industries; d) comprising emerging animation, games and immersive technologies industries, which although small by international standards, is one of the fastest growing sectors of the NI economy. The overarching aim of Future Screens NI is to develop a new understanding of the role the creative industries can play in advancing the NI economy both in terms of financial growth and the creation of new employment opportunities. It will do this by researching new technologies and opportunities, developing appropriate educational and training models, placing NI creative businesses in front of international markets, and working with government and other key agencies to ensure sustained growth. The importance of this intervention is that it establishes the creative industries in NI as a neutral space where contemporary and emerging industrial forms can be advanced in secure settings in a transitional period which is still informed by underlying political tensions. The role of the Cluster as a safe space for high-risk creative endeavour in a low-risk innovation environment, one that fosters experiment and cultural opportunity, cannot be overestimated. As Benedict Anderson (1991) has shown, communities interact through concepts of imagined connection and Future Screens NI will actively work as a hub to create new forms of imagined community which advance and normalise political stability while creating real employment and building economic growth.

The proposed aims are to establish a £5M Kelvin-2 HPC centre involving Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University for which £2.1M is being sought from EPSRC. It will have significant impact for science, by expanding the use of HPC to new pools of talent and new areas of investigation; for Northern Ireland, by building on the strong collaboration between Ulster and Queen's already established through two major city deal initiatives, and their approach to enterprise with regional investment agencies and commercial enterprises; and a strong foundation for HPC within the UK, building further capacity and interactions with critical stakeholders and linking to non-commercial stake-holders to address societal challenges. The platform will offer 8000 AMD-based CPU cores and 32 GPU nodes with a high performance 2 Petabyte of scratch storage interconnected via a high-speed network. Different to other sites, it employs Dell-based technology which offers impressive performance with low running costs. The inclusion of GPU will support AI-based research reflecting the institutions' joint strength, recently ranked as 6th in the UK in terms of research power in the a recent government report produced by the Alan Turing Institute. Queen's are subsidising the cost by £400k. Kelvin-2 is focused on introducing new aspects of HPC modelling for neurotechnology and computational neuroscience, advanced chemistry, innovative drug delivery, precision medicine, metabolomics and hydrogen safety, many of which fit with UKRI's strategic plans in healthcare and new energy. Six ambitious research exemplar projects that are directly associated with strategically important research centres in both institutions, are proposed. These will account for 28M and 570M wall-clock hours of CPU and GPU respectively which will constitute 40% of the total Kelvin-2 resource. 35% of the processing time will be dedicated to supporting general users for the national Tier-2 service, with the remaining resource allocation for new projects. By a programme of communication, this aim is to highlight the potential of HPC to the specific communities in the UK. The facility will be managed by a director with strong commercial sector experience and two principal applicants with excellent track record in multidisciplinary research and commercialization. Two dedicated research software engineers will be employed to support the research and engagement with the community. The team will be supported by a team of experts from each domain, staff with considerable HPC expertise and Prof. Simon McIntosh-Smith, a UK academic with considerable computational science experience from running an existing EPSRC HPC Tier-2 site, and Professor Newton Howard, Professor of Neurocomputation, Neurosurgery and Mathematics at the University of Oxford where he directs the Computational Neuroscience Laboratory. A Resource Allocation Panel will be established to review and allocate the resources, meeting on a quarterly basis. A £3M resource will be provided by the universities to support Kelvin-2 in the form of management, network/operational staff, new hardware and data centre. We will aim to expand our international links specifically with the 13k-node/63TiB platform at ICHEC and HPC facilities/expertise at Virginia Tech. and Lawrence Livermore National Lab and increase our presence at the main HPC conferences, e.g. Supercomputing. The Tier-2 Computing infrastructure is central to two separate, major city deals in Northern Ireland focused on economic competitiveness, innovative projects and job creation targeted at health/life sciences and agri-food. These are due to start in 2021 and will provide a guaranteed refresh cycle of Kelvin-2 in the 2023/25 period, thus minimising any subsequent capital requests to EPSRC. Broad engagement will be ensured from the universities' strong track record in engagement with industry and spin-outs.

Cloud storage is rapidly growing because we all, as individuals, companies, organisations and governments, rely on data farms filled with large numbers of 'server' computers using hard disk drives (HDDs) to store personal and societal digital information. One server is required for every 600 smartphones or 120 tablet computers, and trends such as Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things are generating yet more new data, so the Cloud will continue to grow rapidly. The Cloud accounted for 25% of storage in 2010 and will account for >60% by 2020. As a result of these trends, the Cloud storage market is growing at 30% p.a. and is expected to be worth nearly $100b by 2022. While almost all personal computing and related electronic devices have migrated to solid state drives (SSD), HDDs are the only viable technology for cloud storage and a step change in the capacity of HDDs is required. Due to the limitations of existing magnetic materials, a new technology is needed to increase the density of magnetic data recording beyond the current 1Tb/sq. inch out to well beyond 10Tb/sq. inch and meet the 30% annual growth rate. Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) has been identified to overcome physical challenges and has now demonstrated proof of principle. HAMR requires the integration of photonic components including lasers, waveguides and plasmonic antennas within the current magnetic recording head transducer. With a total addressable market (TAM) of 400-600 million hard disk drives p.a. with 3-4 heads per drive, HAMR is projected to require 2+ billion diode lasers p.a. & become the largest single market for laser diodes and photonic integration. HAMR will only be successful if it can be deployed as a low-cost manufacturable technology. Its successful development will therefore drive low-cost photonic integration and plasmonic technology into other industries and applications. Queen's University Belfast & University of Glasgow co-created CDT PIADS in 2014/15 with 9 companies, and the founding vision of CDT PIADS was to train cohorts of high calibre doctoral research students in the skillsets needed by the data storage & photonics partner-base & the wider UK supply chain. Students are trained in an interdisciplinary environment encompassing five themes of robust semiconductor lasers, planar lightwave circuits, advanced characterisation, plasmonic devices, & materials for high density magnetic storage. By providing high-level scientific & engineering research skills in the challenges of integrating photonics & advanced materials alongside rich & enhanced skills training, graduating doctoral students are equipped to lead & operate at the highest technical levels in cross geographic distributed environments. In renewal we exploit the opportunity to engage & enhance our programme in collaboration with Science Foundation Ireland & the Irish Photonics Integration Centre with complementary capabilities including packaging & microtransfer printing for materials/device integration. Our training is expanded to include research on computational properties of functional & plasmonic materials and introduce a new programme of professional externally validated leadership training & offering both PhD and EngD routes. All 50 students recruited in renewal will have industry involvement in their programme, whether through direct sponsorship/collaboration or via placements. Our anchor tenant partner, Seagate Technology, has a major R&D and manufacturing site in the UK. Their need to manufacture of up to 1b p.a. photonic integrated devices at this site gives CDT PIADS a unique opportunity to create an ecosystem for training & research in photonic integration and data storage. The anchor tenant model will bring other companies together who also need the human resource & outcomes of the CDT to meet their skills demands.