Cardiff Hartree SME Engagement Spoke

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The Cardiff Hartree Spoke will build on a vibrant AI, data science and high-performance computing research and innovation community centred on Cardiff University, with immediate access to Cardiff Capital Region and Western Gateway SME clusters. The Spoke team has deep first-hand experience of running innovative impact-led research and development in collaborative environments, with strong industry relationships and tried-and-tested SME engagement approaches. Our Spoke will be able to hit the ground running with a rapid start, leveraging significant recent University investments in its 'innovation ecosystem', coupled with carefully planned growth to full capacity. Cardiff University's proposed Spoke will provide targeted, locally-accessible AI, data science, and high-performance computing support to SMEs in the Cardiff Capital Region extending to the Western Gateway area. Our engagement and project activity will be centred in the Cardiff Capital Region - spanning Bridgend to Monmouthshire - while also reaching out to SMEs in the Western Gateway located around Bristol, Cheltenham and Gloucester.The Spoke will be led and operated by Cardiff University. The transformative impact of data and AI is core to the university's research strategy, with headcount of Computer Science and Mathematics academic staff nearly doubling since 2016. Cardiff leads Supercomputing Wales, a £16M programme delivering HPC support. The University has recently invested significantly in establishing its new Innovation Campus. The sbarc|spark building opened in March 2022 as the 'front door' to the Campus, housing SPARK - the world's first social science research park, and Innovations@sbarc - a creative space for start-ups, spin-outs and partnerships. We propose to locate the Cardiff Hartree Spoke in sbarc|spark to situate it at the centre of the university's 'innovation ecosystem' with close access to key stakeholders and partners. The unique combination of facilities, people and existing SME connections that we have available means that we can launch the spoke with a very fast start on 01/12/22. We plan to achieving a rapid start by building on our existing networks of SMEs.The planned work of the Spoke is closely aligned with HNCDI Programme:Explore: This will be the focus of the Spoke, building engagement with SMEs, understanding their needs, and developing projects. Cardiff's long track record working with the IBM team in research and innovation via International Technology Alliance programmes, combined with experience of targeting data innovation to the region's SME sectors in the Data Innovation Accelerator initiative, will facilitate an accelerated start to Explore activity. Explain: The University's mission to develop skills in the data science, AI, and advanced computing domains put us in a strong position to include elements of Explain alongside the Spoke's primary activity in Explore. We will draw on the academic teachers and experts in Abacws to offer 'explainers' as part the Spoke's engagement delivery.Excelerate: We will work closely with the HNCDI team to identify and foster engagements and projects with potential to develop into Excelerate activity. We note that this way of working is also part of Cardiff's sbarc|spark 'eco-system', and is the reason why the building includes both innovation institutes and lettable commercial space: sbarc|spark can provide a locally-accessible means for SMEs to continue their digital transformation journey beyond Explore.Emerge: this is highly compatible with the University's research and impact mission, to raise awareness of next-generation and generation-after-next approaches and technologies, while identifying pathways to their early adoption.