Motion Blur Ltd

The development of HPC Wales will make a massive difference to creative media companies in Wales, according to Alan Moult, director of North Wales-based Motion Blur Ltd.

The Pwllheli-based firm has an international reputation and a strong client base supplying the creative industries with digital art and computer 2D and 3D animation.

The company is on the BBC New Media Approved Suppliers list and has already supplied the BBC with art and animation for their Dr Who hit (BAFTA nominated), online project "Comic Maker". The company has also created an online Dr Who game.

Mr Moult said: "The area we fall down on repeatedly is missing out on extremely large jobs that seem to come our way from time to time, but that require a completely different set up at very short notice.

"We would all hope that the boosting of the computational culture in Wales that would be engendered by provision of the HPC machine would be likely to generate a supply of additional labour that could be called on at relatively short notice (e.g. raw graduates and recent graduates operating in cottage-industry mode).

"Having an affordable HPC node in a local University with a solid HPC track record, as we have found at Glyndwr University, would certainly have given us a winning chance by enabling us to retain significant amounts of production in the UK.

"I'm convinced it's not just our own company that is missing out here, but the wider creative community and Wales itself.

"Based on my own personal experience there is great potential to bring large scale projects to North Wales. Accessible, affordable HPC would be a great place to start in helping to make this happen."