Inaugurating the TeraLab Platform on 4^th February 2014, the Institut Mines-Télécom and Confederation of Schools for Economics and Statistics (GENES) expanded their collaborative research in the field of Big Data. Through the TeraLab initiative, these two institutional partners aim to provide the national research community, and of course businesses, with an environment conducive to research and experimentation focused on innovative applications and industrial prototypes.

The programme of the European Data Forum 2014 will cover different aspects of Big Data such as technical, application and socio-economic issues related to open data, linked data and Big Data. An important focus of EDF 2014 will be the establishment of a strong and vibrant European data community and ecosystem.

According to Wikibon (a professional community which gives free advisory knowledge regarding technology and business topics through open source sharing), 2013 spending on Big Data (hardware, software, services etc.) reached $ 18.6 billion and resulted in a market growth of 58% over 2012. 

Insight, a new Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Research Center for Data Analytics was launched in December 2013 in Ireland. In today’s society, an increasing torrent of data is being created every second. Insight will play a leading role in developing next generation technologies to capture and transform the raw databeing generated into valuable concepts and ideas that can inform better decisions about society, the economy, healthcare and government. Insight will work with more than 30 industry partners, ranging from small Irish startups to established SMEs and large multinationals, on a range of projects to advance data analytics technologies in Ireland.

Neelie Kroes, Commission vice president responsible for the Digital Agenda, participated in the World Economic Forum, in Davos on 21-25 January 2014. She talked about a vision for a connected, open and secure Europe and especially emphasized that Europe should not reject the huge economic and social opportunities offered by Big Data.

On 15 January, the European Commission organised an information and networking day focusing on the Big Data Innovation-related objectives of the Horizon 2020 Work Programme for 2014-2015. The first ICT call for H2020 opened 11 December and closes the 23 April.

The event gathered more than 400 participants with the aim to share information and present ideas on the objectives:

Today, leading representatives of industry, science, and politics kicked off the establishment of the Smart Data Innovation Lab (SDIL). This high-performance infrastructure facility and the supply of data from industrial processes are major prerequisites for excellent research relating to big data.

Big Data as a growth opportunity for the European economy and society was emphasized in a speech of Ms. Neelie Kroes, Commissioner for the Digital Agenda given in November 2013 during the ICT conference in Vilnius. In her speech, she stressed that policy makers should support this process in several ways and called for a European Public Partner Partnership.