Scotland's Economy

Scotland’s cutting edge laser industry

April 9, 2014 by Humza Yousaf, Minister for External Affairs and International Development No Comments | Category Economy, Investment, Uncategorized

While in San Francisco this week for Scotland Week 2014 I was fascinated to visit the Photonics Research Centre at Stanford University in California’s Silicon Valley.

There I met participants in the SU2P programme, a Scottish-US project which aims to maximise the commercial potential of our world-class academic success in this field.

I was proud to hear about the incredible contribution Scotland is making to the SU2P programme and the benefits this project is delivering to the universities, companies and professionals who are involved.

Scotland has the talent, skills and expertise to become a global powerhouse for the multi-billion pound laser-enabled technology industry.

Our laser industry is part of a booming worldwide business. Lasers are used in everything from mobile phones to medicine, barcode scanners to Blu-Ray players. They are becoming increasingly integral to our lives and the global optoelectronics industry – which includes laser-enabled technology – is predicted to be valued at more than $900 billion by 2015.

Laser-enabled technology is already hugely important to the Scottish economy, worth more than £660 million and supporting high-value manufacturing, world-class research and highly skilled jobs.

As our involvement in SU2P shows, Scotland is a creative and innovative nation with the talent, skills and expertise to take advantage of the opportunities offered by this growing market.

We are proud to have both a strong academic base and a thriving laser industry that manufactures cutting edge technology which is exported the world over.

Our important link with Stanford – one of the world’s top universities – is helping to promote internationally, Scotland’s incredible talent and expertise in this field.

Tags: business, innovation

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