The UK secretary of state for Scotland, Ian Murray MP, and first minister of Scotland, John Swinney MSP, have officially opened the Crop Innovation Centre (CIC) at The James Hutton Institute in Invergowrie today.

The CIC is home to the Advanced Plant Growth Centre (APGC) and the International Barley Hub (IBH), which were created in partnership with the University of Dundee Plants Sciences Division.

Both innovation centres were funded as part of a £62m investment through the Tay Cities Region Deal (TCRD) by the UK and Scottish Governments, which also facilitated the construction of the Mylnefield Farm building and the IBH Field Centre on The James Hutton Institute’s Invergowrie campus.

The 8000 sq meter building includes a new supercomputer – the UK’s Crop Diversity High-Performance Compute (HPC) Cluster.

Capable of storing over 6,000 terabytes of data (equivalent to 1.5 million HD movies), the HPC cluster is essential for handling the hundreds of gigabytes of new data researchers at the CIC will generate daily.

In terms of performance, the HPC cluster has a combined core count of 497,588, with only about 10,000 of those cores from Central Processing Units (CPUs). Around 95% comes from Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), favouring more cores at lower speeds to leverage energy efficient, parallel computing.

Dr Iain Milne, head of research computing at The Hutton said: “As a shared resource between seven UK institutes, including Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), the Royal Botanical Gardens of both Edinburgh and Kew and the Natural History Museum, the HPC facilitates national and international research collaborations.

“Its ability to deliver high-performance computing power will enable a wide range of projects, from crop diversity to natural history digitisation.

“Tasks that would have taken years to process on a single laptop can now be completed in a matter of hours or days, and with a focus on maximising performance per watt, the facility aligns with the centre’s commitment to sustainability.”

Promoting green energy use, 30% of the new centre’s energy comes from Bullionfield Solar Meadow near Invergowrie. The HPC is expected to draw around 100 kilowatts of energy and is supported by a cooling system that uses direct fresh air from Scotland’s naturally low outdoor temperatures, helping to reduce cooling costs.

The IBH will promote scientific discovery and innovation to tackle these issues by piloting new breeding technologies such as gene editing, precision phenotyping and crop management using data from sensors and drones.

The APGC seeks to address global food, non-food and pharmaceutical crops. It is made up of five facilities: a molecular phenotyping centre (to study the characteristics of crops at a molecular level, such as their DNA, proteins and taste and aroma molecules); a high throughput phenotyping platform (which allows the collection and analysis of data in large quantities); a vertical growth tower; a post-harvest storage facility; and next-generation controlled environments with the ability to replicate current, and predicted future, global crop production conditions.

Recommended reading

• Fusion Research Robots to be Used in UK Space Tech
• New Tech Could Provide Boost to Fusion Energy Research
• Scots Researchers Help Create Tiny Robot Armies to Treat Brain Bleeds

It aims to ‘revolutionise crop production systems to produce food locally, 365 days a year, with less environmental impact.’ It will utilise facilities like indoor vertical farms, which use LED lights to mimic optimised outdoor conditions, accelerating the breeding and growing of climate resilient and low input crops.  This technology will enhance the UK’s capabilities to lead a rapidly expanding market, expected to be worth US $62bn by 2025.

Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said: “It was a real pleasure to open the James Hutton Institute’s new Crop Innovation Centre alongside the First Minister. Home to the Advanced Plant Growth Centre and the International Barley Hub, the UK Government is investing £45 million in the Centre through the Tay Cities Region Deal.

“These projects at the world-renowned James Hutton Institute demonstrate Scotland’s cutting-edge research and innovation in practice. The International Barley Hub will deliver world leading research for a crop which is vital to our whisky, beer and food sectors. The Advanced Plant Growth Centre will revolutionise crop production to address critical food security issues.

“Both projects will be key to our future food security, and to ensuring a thriving future for rural communities everywhere.”

Over the next 10 years, The CIC is projected to contribute to over 900 collaborative industry projects supporting an additional 2,600 jobs in the UK, of which 1,760 will be in Scotland and 470 in Tayside. It has been estimated that it will contribute over £900m GVA to the UK economy, over half of which will be in Scotland.