ARGYLL’S revolutionary rollout of artificial intelligence (AI) is gathering momentum this week with a new round of talks to help develop the project further.
As planning continues to transform the former North Sea rig base at Killellan and Ardyne into a multi-million pound centre of the emerging service industry, its pioneering leader is in Silicon Valley in the United States to negotiate further partnerships.
The project is creating real job opportunities in Dunoon, across Argyll and Bute, and stretching out over Scotland to Aberdeen, Perth and the Mull of Kintyre.
At least 30 of those jobs are coming to Dunoon, which will increase to 150 and help to enable up to 2,000 other posts.
The man behind it all is Peter Griffiths, chair of Argyll Data Development.
“We are Scotland-first,” said Mr Griffiths. “Our focus is to build and develop here and to create real opportunities on land and in our marine development of AI infrastructure.”
The further drive into Silicon Valley in California is on top of his partnership, revealed in this newspaper, with the international service provider SambaNova, which describes itself as offering “blistering-fast AI with high efficiency, low power, chips-to-models computing”.
Peter Griffiths said: “This strategic pathway marks the start of an ambitious plan that will see our project infrastructure grow rapidly inside the next two years.
“Our work will position Scotland at the forefront of the European AI revolution.”
It is likely to exceed that expectation with land and marine growth potentially matching and surpassing the outputs of parts of Silicon Valley itself.
Construction work is now under way to develop the key data centre at Killellan. The centre is designed to harness advanced computing power that will help ensure Scotland embraces the potential of low-carbon energy sources.
The complex is planned on land that formally housed a yard where around 3,000 people were employed in the 1970s making rigs to produce oil and gas from huge fields that were being developed across the North Sea.
It is bringing this part of Cowal and the wider Argyll and Bute back to the forefront of another rapidly developing industry that will service clients worldwide.
“All made here in Scotland,” said Peter Griffiths.
