Digital innovation

The Dutch invented the CD and DVD, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Python. Today, we form a digitally savvy society, being highly educated, wealthy and enjoying excellent internet access. Our open and innovative culture invites us to develop and test new digital technologies. The global digital infrastructure has one of its main internet exchange points in the Netherlands. TopDutch offers the digital infrastructure, unique innovation and market field labs, networks, talent and an excellent test-market population for rapid market access and validation. Here, we accelerate the digital future.

1.Best digital infrastructure, power grid & data center location

• Home to Gemini 1, the largest offshore wind park in Europe - and expanding. Gemini Wind Park is built 85 kilometers off the TopDutch coast, leading to a park that produces green energy for over 800,000 households. It won’t be long until Gemini 2, 3 (and counting) will rise in our shallow North Sea to power our industry, the rest of Dutch households and your data centers.

• Ideal location for data centers. Besides a rapidly expanding production capacity of green energy, the TopDutch region offers large green field sites available for industry and data centers, and an ideal climate for cooling.
• Google was first. Google opened its first data center in the TopDutch region in 2016. A year later Google announced its plans for a first expansion, and in summer 2019 Google announced a second expansion. Investments now total over €200 million. The TopDutch data center is Google’s first data center to run entirely on green energy.

2. Strong in data science and deep learning

• Solving large problems with High Performance Computing. Besides ASTRON, companies such as Bytesnet and IBM, but also our University of Groningen, are leading in high performance computing that helps us to solve large problems in science, engineering and business.
• Collaborating with global top tech firms on Deep Learning endeavors. In the TopDutch region, our Center for Information Technology (CIT) works together with Google and Facebook on Deep Learning projects. 
• Home to CogniGron, the Groningen Cognitive Systems and Materials Center. Hosted by the University of Groningen, CogniGron develops materials-centered system paradigms for cognitive computing based on modelling and learning at all levels: from materials that can learn, to devices, circuits and algorithms. CogniGron brings together different scientific disciplines with the aim to develop a cognitive computer: A computer that functions like the human brain.
• The University of Groningen hosts several other Big Data research centers:Groningen Engineering Business Center (GEBC) connects research questions from the industry to the university’s research and educational offer, closing the gap between knowledge institutions and business.
• Groningen Digital Business Center (GDBC) develops knowledge and adjusts its educational offer to young professionals for the digital economy.
• Groningen Center for Digital Humanities (GCDH) connects research in social sciences with computer and information sciences.
• Data Science & System Complexity (DSSC) translates research in big data and complex systems to innovation and educates data-experts for the academic, private and public sector of the future.
• Frysk Datalab supports organizations with big data analysis in a hypermodern datalab provided with the latest technologies.
• ​​​​​​​Offering big data facilities and field labs. The University of Groningen offers, via its Center for Information Technology, a wide variety of facilities and field labsData Federation Hub coordinates the use of data and facilities of the University of Groningen with internal and external partners.
• Geodienst offers geographical data, software and courses, data analysis and problem solving to partners from within and outside the university.
• Reality Center offers unique, powerful and advanced virtual reality facilities for innovative research in several sciences.
• Academic data center offers a public database of public data published by the Dutch CBS (Statistics Netherlands) for scientific research. 
• 5G field lab offers businesses a rural living lab to test 5G technologies and services.
• Big Data Mining field lab supports businesses to collect and use data in a smart way.  
• EnergySense field lab offers a living lab for businesses to develop and test new energy products and services for households.
• dHealth Lab offers a living lab for businesses to develop and test new healthcare products and services in both virtual and physical environments.

3. Digital society & ideal test market

• The Netherlands ranks number four in technological readiness, with a score of 9.44 out of 10. The Netherlands scores perfectly across almost all sub-indicators, including internet use, patents, scope of e-government and research infrastructure.
• The Netherlands ranks number two on the 2018 Global Innovation Index, published by WIPO, INSEAD, and Cornell University. We excel on this index with a:  number 1 ranking in business sophistication
• number 2 ranking in knowledge & technology outputs
• number 3 ranking in creative outputs.

4. Green and digital ecosystem accelerating Industry 4.0

• Cross-over with Energy. Cross-linked with our energy industry, we set up data labs to test energy products and services for households (EnergySense). We use big data to make our energy-intensive processes more efficient and develop new energy technologies, applications and processes together with the New Energy Coalition in various research projects.
• Cross-over with Mobility. Cross-linked with our mobility industry network, we develop smart factories for battery and fuel cell electric vehicles.
• Cross-over WaterTech. Cross-linked with our WaterTech innovation chain, we develop highly specialized water technologies and sensor technologies for industry 4.0.
• Cross-over with AgriFood. Cross-linked with our AgriFood industry, we develop new technologies such as soil sensor systems, smart dairy farming technologies and technologies that perform calibration measurements to optimize the performance of our cultivation and greenhouses for more sustainable farming.
• Cross-over with Life Sciences & Health. Cross-linked with our Life Sciences & Health industry, we have set up big data labs such as dHealthLab and DASH (data science in health) for developing and testing smarter health care and healthy ageing solutions
• Cross-over with Green Chemistry. We use computational modeling for predicting optimal bacterial engineering models, speeding up optimization and upscaling of these new biotechnical processes to produce chemicals for agricultural, biomaterials, flavors, fragrances and biofuels. We also use big data to optimize processes in our chemical plants.

5. Access to pioneering talent and skilled labor

Access to skilled labor

• The TopDutch region is home to 60,000 IT-skilled people- over a wide age range- 35% of whom have over 10 years of working experience in this field.
• Nearly 100,000 of our residents have technical competences, with over half of them having more than 10 years of experience working in a technical job.

6. Fastest business development and production facility start-up

We have the fastest business development in Europe, The Northern Netherlands offers some of the most attractive establishment procedures for new companies in Europe:

• It takes only 4 days to register your business, one week to open bank accounts and insurance, and two weeks to release your VAT Number.
• Companies who need to establish their own facilities, require only 17 to 26 weeks from application to the start of construction - a process that takes more than 25 weeks in Spain, 40 weeks in the Czech Republic and 30 weeks in Hungary.
• We provide a dedicated team to comprehensively and smoothly guide you through the business foundation process.

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