Rockley Photonics And SFI To Build R&D Centre In Cork
UK-headquartered Rockley Photonics has signed a new deal with Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) in the creation of a new R&D centre based at the Tyndall National Institute in Cork.
The three-year deal states that the SFI-funded Irish Photonic Integration Centre (IPIC) and Rockley Photonics will contribute €3.4m in total into a new photonics R&D centre that will focus on bringing silicon photonics into the market. This will consequently address the growing demand for faster and more energy efficient data communications in centres across the country and around the world.
The founder of Rockley Photonics, Dr Andrew Rickman, stated that this investment will impact the design of large data centres in the sense that it will improve the power and computational capacity of new consumer devices and will additionally provide powerful solutions in the consumer device sectors. The project will also aim to find ways for data centres to keep up with the increasing demand for bandwidth. For instance, it is expected that the current rate of 100Gbps will soon fluctuate to 400 Gbps. If new technologies like silicon photonics are not developed and deployed, major increases in energy usage will result.
Such innovative collaborations are a major driver of economic prosperity in a country. In this, all stakeholders are bound to benefit immensely. The company will become more competitive while the citizens will enjoy innovation that will simplify their way of life. Projects like this will also contribute to placing the Cork in a strategic position with regards to innovation both today and in the future.
