Podcast EP 358: The new CEO of RDI Hub Fergal Brosnan discusses how the Killorglin-based innovation centre’s impact goes beyond regions and start-ups to defining the very sovereign future of AI.
If it’s not too twee to say it, there has always been a kind of Field of Dreams aspect to the RDI Hub in Killorglin story. A ‘build it and they will come’ tone to the narrative. It’s a lazy narrative, but it is equally true. If you delve deep enough you’ll realise the driving forces behind the hub have form.
“The mission is very simple, and it goes back to its foundations and the vision of Brian McCarthy of Fexco, our founding corporate partner,” the RDI Hub’s recently appointed CEO Fergal Brosnan says. “Fexco employs more than 3,000 people across 52 countries and processes €34 billion in payments from its base in Killorglin, a town of 2,200 people.”
“It’s a world-class, leading innovation centre that happens to be in a non-urban space … We happen not to be in Dublin, and we happen not to be in a city – the impact we’re making is as good, if not greater, in my opinion”
In just several years, RDI Hub has emulated this momentum in its own way, beginning primarily as a location to foster start-ups but gradually transforming its own mission brief to be a digital testbed, a skills enabler and now a sovereign gateway to Europe’s AI ambition.
Since its foundation in 2019 the RDI Hub in Killorglan has become home to more than 115 companies ranging from early-stage start-ups to global corporates, created more than 550 local jobs, upskilled close to 14,000 people and its innovation hub start-ups have raised €262 million.
For Brosnan, a Kerry native and a seasoned executive in banking, technology and transformation, the mission is just entering a new chapter under his stewardship.
Making Kerry Ireland’s foremost AI region
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Returning to the inspiration afforded by Fexco, Brosnan says: “Fexco came out of Killoglin in Kerry, with a population of 2,200 people. When you have a business that generates more than the population, there’s something good there. Brian envisaged how he could give something to the region that would help give people options to stay and to create and innovate, and that’s what he did. The foundations and the journey over the past six years have been phenomenal.
“I often make the point that the Black Valley was the last place in Ireland to get electricity, in the 1970s – but now we’re at the forefront of the AI infrastructure piece from an Irish perspective”
“The infrastructural piece is superb – we’ve got 29,000 square feet of space that you’d think was hanging off one of the large tech businesses in London or Dublin, but it’s in the regions, and it’s creating an environment that has allowed people to make an impact there. You made the point about it being in the region, but in fact it’s a world-class, leading innovation centre that happens to be in a non-urban space. We are proving ourselves on a journey from where it started to where we’re going now. We happen not to be in Dublin, and we happen not to be in a city – the impact we’re making is as good, if not greater, in my opinion.”
The Hub is actively engaged in several EU-funded initiatives and is poised to deepen its impact through cross-border collaboration and innovation leadership.
This next phase will be about building on a strong foundation in fintech, AI and other high-growth sectors. Central to the RDI’s growth is the RDI AI Gateway, a partnership across four organisations in Luxembourg and Ireland that gives businesses access to one of 19 AI factories established by the EU.
“AI is in the DNA of what we do — we’re just about to launch our seventh AI summit for the regions in September. Everyone at a consumer level is aware of the Gen AI pieces that have come to the fore in the last few years, but it’s been at the very core of what we do from day one.
“I think the journey we’re on is different to other places because, yes, the location is the location, but we have an expertise that we believe is unique in Ireland, and we have a couple of firsts from an Irish perspective. Ireland is superb at supporting businesses who want to grow and scale – Enterprise Ireland’s supports are fantastic. I see the envy for our infrastructural supports for startups and scale-ups when I work in Europe, where we now have 69 partners across 11 countries on seven European projects and programmes.
“But the one thing I believe we have in Ireland right now is locations – and from a technology perspective, urban, non-urban or rural, technology has democratised things so it’s not just about space or location anymore. It’s about what I call technical infrastructure, which is why we recently brought in the RDI AI Gateway, a unique partnership among four partners across Luxembourg and Ireland, giving people access to one of the 19 AI factories the European Union has put together.”
That Gateway offers 18 petaflops of compute power in a data sovereign environment, allowing companies that include pillar banks to build and test AI models in pre-regulatory sandboxes before proving compliance with the EU AI Act to their regulators.
“That’s unique to Ireland, and it happens to be in Kerry. That’s why large corporates travel to us. If you think about the journey we’ve been on, it’s the journey the country has been on too. We’re one of four partners running programmes on behalf of Enterprise Ireland – we’re the only non-urban partner in the NDRC programme that supports startups. We’ve also got the Smart Regions AI Navigator programme, where non-technical companies go through 14 months of development on AI strategy, opportunities and challenges.
“And on the EU side, we’re running various programmes on behalf of the EU to bring AI and other areas of research into the regions, which has really levelled the playing field for us.”
Kerry’s brave new world
Ireland’s industrial history is shorter than many of its European neighbours. But in the space of half a century the nation has not only caught up but has excelled to become the premier location in Europe for hi-tech and biotech manufacturing.
For Brosnan, the AI opportunity could see Ireland leapfrog even further ahead again. But we need to have a risk-first mindset. He believes the governance side of AI is as important as the compute power behind it; a lesson drawn from his own background in banking, most recently at Bank of Ireland.
“Everybody has AI. Everybody has risk, and everybody’s wondering what the tolerance levels are,” he said. The FDI Hub has partnered with Munster Technological University, which operates Ireland’s only cyber range for simulated attacks on business platforms and networks, extending that expertise into the Luxembourg ecosystem.
Brosnan said the data-sovereign model answers a growing need among businesses to test AI systems away from their own infrastructure without exposing customer data. “We’re there to support you and stay on your side of the fence to make sure it’s done right,” he said.
In the same way Ireland caught up and surpassed Europe’s industrial base, the nation – and more particularly its regions – have a role to play.
He pointed to a recent finding from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre that challenges assumptions about where innovation happens.
“Ireland was the only country out of 27 where the innovation measurement was highest in the rural areas,” he said, citing trademark and patent data presented at a session in Brussels last November. He added that pre-accelerator and hackathon application rates through the NDRC programme are also highest in the regions rather than the cities.
Having generated more than 550 jobs and upskilled nearly 14,000 people – with a new RDI Venture Creation Pathway launching to support founders – Brosnan says the ambition for the RDI Hub is to be recognised amongst Europe’s leading innovation centres within five years.
“We want people to be part of a community and to learn from each other. The last piece of the jigsaw we’re launching now is the RDI Venture Creation Pathway, which supports founders and tech founders – they don’t have to be students; they could be mid-career. If you have a great idea, you can come into a pathway programme that brings you on a six-to-twelve-week journey to find the problem statement you’re trying to solve, and we try to help you succeed fast or fail fast. We want people to come in with a great idea and, maybe six weeks later, realise this isn’t the problem they thought it was.”
For Brosnan, the impact the region surrounding Killorglin is making makes geography history.
“For us right now, success would look like having made an impact at a national level. As we get down to other levels, we want to make the region an attractive place to come to work, to live and to create an impact – and it is doing that. It’s becoming less important to be in Dublin, Cork or anywhere else; location is being democratised now, the technology is there.
“I often make the point that the Black Valley was the last place in Ireland to get electricity, in the 1970s – but now we’re at the forefront of the AI infrastructure piece from an Irish perspective.
“We are already a national player. We are already supporting government bodies, large corporates and the start-ups,” he said.
Hear the full conversation on the ThinkBusiness Podcast, powered by Bank of Ireland.
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