ICL Plc, Silicon Graphics Inc (SGI) and the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) are setting up a laboratory to show potential customers and politicians how future technology will change the face of business. The emphasis of the ‘futurefocus@dti’ site will be to predict technology’s impact on business operations by ‘projecting people into the future,’ according to Michael Wild, project manager for ICL.
Located five minutes from Parliament to allow law-drafters immediate access, futurefocus@dti will contain reference works and a multimedia demonstration theater with giant screens powered by SGI supercomputers. ICL expects the site to process 5,000 executives a year. It will be up and running, says the DTI, in the Spring next year.
ICL has a relationship with the DTI which is built around a contract for IT infrastructure awarded last November (CI No 3,544). Trimension Systems Inc, based in Santa Cruz, will be the implementor for the SGI hardware.
