Cisco has announced a series of strategic commitments in the UK totalling over US $1Billion over the next three to five years, following a meeting at No.10 Downing Street between UK's Prime Minister David Cameron, Cisco's Chairman and CEO, John Chambers and others. The commitment includes a $150m funding for Internet-of-Everything UK start-ups and venture capital equity investments focusing on applications across financial technologies, retail, healthcare industries, smart city development and cybersecurity solutions.
According to Cisco, the new investment is the second significant round of activity in the UK following the $500m commitment made by Cisco in 2011, which has contributed in excess of $5bn in technology and manpower to the UK economy through initiatives such as the British Innovation Gateway (BIG) that helped to foster and nurture UK innovation and entrepreneurship. Cisco said that the new investment will support the next phase of the country's digitization plans that form part of Cisco's global ‘country digitization acceleration' programme, whereby select countries across the world receive major strategic investment to accelerate existing government goals for driving economic growth through high-tech innovation.
As part of Cisco's new financial commitment, capital will also be made available for further strategic acquisitions by Cisco in the UK, which over the past five years has included acquisitions in wireless software, next-generation video delivery, and cloud-based security technologies.
David Cameron, Prime Minister
This massive investment from Cisco is great news for the UK's growing digital economy and is a clear vote of confidence in our long term economic plan. It will create jobs and growth across the country, providing security for hard working people.
John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco
We believe the UK is well on its way to becoming one of the top digitized countries in the world, and we're proud to once again activate new programmes and continue our deep commitment to partnering with the UK government. Since 2011 we have delivered over and above on every objective we set with government in our prior commitments – encouraging technology, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Image by Diliff (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
