Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend specifically to look at providing funding to make the North a testbed for experimental technology, as recommended in the recent report <i>The Digital Powerhouse: The innovation potential of tech clusters in the North</i>.

Government funding is already being used to develop and trial innovative new technology in the North. £170 million has been invested in the Hartree Centre to broaden and deepen the use of High Performance Computing in industry and academia - and has since attracted inward investment of over £200m from IBM and other high-tech industry. Government has also confirmed £45 million of research funding for six new Next Generation Digital Economy Centres – including one led by Newcastle University - to drive the development of new digital technologies. The centres have secured over £22 million additional funding and support in kind that will boost the impact of these centres. In addition, £9 million has been invested in the CityVerve Internet of Things Smart City demonstrator in Manchester to trial "Internet of Things" applications on a large scale.