Kildare County Council has given the green light to expand the Kildare Innovation Campus (KIC) which could contribute €5 billion to the economy when fully operational.
Currently, firms based at Kildare Innovation Campus in Parsonstown near Leixlip, including HP Enterprise and DB Schenker, employ 1,000 people.
The planned extension will deliver capacity for a further 3,000 jobs.
The council has granted 10-year planning permission without seeking further information on the application but has attached 53 conditions.
Underlining the scale of the proposal, one of the conditions requires the applicants to pay €9.47 million towards public infrastructure costs.
The authority granted the permission after concluding that the proposal would not seriously injure the amenities of the area or property in the vicinity.
An economic assessment prepared by Grant Thornton for the applicants, Davy Real Estate entity Davy Platform ICAV on behalf of the Liffey Sub Fund, has estimated that the total economic output from the expanded Kildare Innovation Campus will be €5 billion.
Expansion
The planning application for the former HP (Hewlett Packard) campus includes the construction of two new 'deep tech' buildings, four new data centre buildings and an Energy Centre to provide dispatchable power to the national grid as part of a three phased expansion of the campus from 2024 to 2035.
The report stated the investment in the 178-acre KIC site will be €2.5 billion and, when complete, will result in wages of €267 million per annum.
The Grant Thornton assessment stated the KIC aims to become the leading technological and innovation campus in Europe in areas such as AI & Robotics, Quantum Computing and semi-conductors, AgTech, Renewables, Digital Health and Space Technologies.
The proposal included an additional 152,138sqm of new buildings, leaving a total of 195,525sqm between existing and proposed development.
A planning report by consultants Tom Phillips & Associates stated that upon purchase of the campus in 2021, the new landowners began to develop a vision for the future development of the site to maximise its economic potential.
The consultants said the deep tech spaces “will include a range of innovative engineering technologies including the likes of artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing, both of which would have substantial benefits from co-location with data centre storage”.
The report noted that other examples of deep tech “include block-chain, computer imaging, and Virtual Reality”.
The report added that the proposed development “will aim to provide for a connected innovation hub for global leaders in science and technology and to connect those global leaders with third level institutions, in particular Maynooth University”.
Kildare Chamber of Commerce chief executive Allan Shine lodged a submission with the council outlining the chamber’s support for the proposal.
Mr Shine said the expanded KIC “positions Kildare as the leading county in Ireland for inward investment”.
He added that, subject to planning, the KIC will become the leading innovation campus in Europe in areas such as AI and Robotics.
