UK education council saves funds for cloud computing investment

The UK-based Higher Education Funding Council fully supports new technology, recently revealing it has nearly $20 million set aside for helping universities adopt cloud computing.

Part of its University Modernization Fund, the HEFC will spend roughly $16 million on developing cloud computing applications and shared infrastructure. The remaining $4 will be spent on educating teachers about cloud computing in order to receive its full benefits.

"Cloud computing has the potential to [allow for collaboration] in ways which will serve the academic community leading to improvements in research, teaching and administration," said HEFC's director of research, innovation and skills, David Sweeney.

Sweeney also stated the council's cloud model would be cost-effective and would vastly upgrade the functionality of England's current universities and other educational bodies. With budgets in UK currently under duress, having this option for increased saving is incredibly valuable.

The adoption of cloud computing as a cost-effective managed IT service has seen sustained growth during the last few years, leading many analyst companies to predict the technology's market to be worth nearly $2.4 billion by 2015.