Government invests £5m to boost cloud computing uptake

The government has put aside funding of £4.5m for the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) to encourage new uses of cloud computing technologies to help the UK create the next web sensation such as Spotify or Salesforce.com.

The TSB is an innovation agency sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) charged with encouraging business, research and the public sector to work together to develop services and products to help tackle emerging challenges, such as cloud computing.

The funding given to the TSB will be used to help address three issues around interoperability, data resilience and identity assurance that the organisation identified as potential barriers to adoption, in a report in 2011.

It will use the money to host a competition called Innovating in the Cloud in which firms can compete for funding to host projects that demonstrate the ability to use cloud services to build "improved value chains and networks" and offer "innovative information, content and services in the cloud".

The competition will be split into two strands, with one aimed solely SMBs with each project able to receive a total of between £75,000 and £150,00 over a six to 12 month period.

The second is a larger award, in which SMBs and medium-to-large organisations must work together, with £150,000 to £2m available for these projects, which must last between six and 24 months.

The competition opens on 9 July 2012 and the deadline for registration for both strands is midday on 15 August 2012.