Economy Minister has announced a £2.1 million
investment by Dublin-based Data Platform Company Spark to
establish a Data Analytics and AI Technology and Consulting
Centre in Belfast.
The investment will create 12 high-quality jobs, two of which are
in place, with salaries substantially above the Northern Ireland
private sector median, which will contribute over £1 million a
year in wages to the local economy.
Speaking after meeting with the company, Minister Murphy
said:
“This is the latest in a number of investments by Irish
companies that have recognised the benefits of establishing
operations in the north to support their growth. Those benefits
include the quality of our IT graduates and the competitive cost
of doing business here.
“AI is one of the most important technological
developments of the modern era. I believe that our economy
will benefit from bringing together industry professionals from
north and south to help transform business operations through the
application of AI technology. Spark's hybrid working model
means that the new jobs are available to IT professionals across
the north ensuring equality of opportunity which is one of my
goals as Economy Minister.”
Spark is an award-winning data and AI platform company that was
set up in 2020 and now employs 50 staff across its offices in
Dublin and Malaga, Spain. The company specialises in blending
strategy, design and ML engineering to help its customers develop
single source of truth capabilities via its platform and succeed
as future-proofed digital businesses.
Commenting on the investment, Spark CEO Bern Hennessey said: “We
are excited to be setting up an operation in Belfast where we
know we can recruit top-class IT talent to add to our world-class
team of experts. Northern Ireland is recognised as an area of
excellence in the area of data analytics and those skills will
help us to grow and to reach our target of achieving 30% of
revenue from the UK market over the next few years.
“We are an employee-first business and can offer staff a dynamic
working environment where workplace satisfaction, diversity and
inclusivity are core principles.”
Invest Northern Ireland's teams in Dublin and Belfast have helped
to secure the investment and are working with Spark to help it
find suitable accommodation and tap into further government
support for the ICT sector. This will include establishing links
with the new state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence
Collaboration Centre based at Ulster University in partnership
with Queen's University Belfast.
Steve Harper, Executive Director of International Business,
Invest NI, said: “Spark is an ambitious company that in just a
few years has demonstrated the ability to win business with
significant global companies. With the Data & AI consulting
market forecast to grow to $45.6 billion by 2032, it has set
itself ambitious growth targets. The new centre in Northern
Ireland will play an important role in helping it achieve its
goals.”
