Seagate invests $135 million in its European photonic center to deliver 100TB hard drives by 2030
By Wayne Williams
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Seagate invests $135 million in its European photonic center to deliver 100TB hard drives by 2030
Wayne Williams
11 September 2025
The investment will accelerate research and create new skilled jobs
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(Image credit: Seagate)
Seagate commits £115 million to expand Northern Ireland research in Mozaic and photonics
Investment supports push toward 100TB hard drives with new jobs and supply chains
Partnership with Invest NI deepens university collaborations through Smart Nano NI Consortium
Seagate is expanding its long-running research presence in Northern Ireland with a five-year program focused on advancing hard drive technology.
The company said the initiative, supported by Invest Northern Ireland, will develop new photonics-based recording systems designed to push storage capacities toward 100TB.
The total funding amounts to £115 million (approximately $135 million), made up of £100 million from Seagate and a £15 million grant from Invest NI.
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The road to 100TB
The investment is centered at Seagate’s Derry/Londonderry site, one of the region’s largest private employers with over 1,300 staff, where ongoing work on Mozaic heat assisted magnetic recording technology aims to scale drive capacities beyond 60TB and ultimately to 100TB.
John Morris, chief technology officer at Seagate, said, “In today’s AI-driven world, data volume isn’t just growing, the value of data is evolving as organizations rethink what it takes to train AI models and retain new, highly valuable data.”
The facility currently produces more than a quarter of the world’s recording heads and plays a critical role in laser research that underpins next-generation drives.
“To unlock data’s full potential, we need storage solutions that are not only massive in capacity but engineered for reliability, durability, and scale,” Morris added.
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Kieran Donoghue, chief executive of Invest NI, described the move as a continuation of a three-decade collaboration.
“Through ongoing engagement and support, we have helped the facility here to evolve into a world leading manufacturing and pioneering R&D centre. We are delighted to support the Seagate team with this latest project and secure the development of the new recording heads and laser technology in the North-West,” he said.
Seagate says the program will create new skilled jobs in both R&D and production, while at the same time strengthening supply chains via local sourcing of materials and services.
Seagate is also increasing collaboration with universities under the Smart Nano NI Consortium, which focuses on nano-photonics research and innovation.
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Wayne Williams
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Wayne Williams is a freelancer writing news for TechRadar Pro. He has been writing about computers, technology, and the web for 30 years. In that time he wrote for most of the UK’s PC magazines, and launched, edited and published a number of them too.
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36TB Seagate Exos SATA hard drive goes on preorder for $800 – world’s largest HDD is already sold as refurbished, but why?
You can buy a 30TB hard disk drive, the world’s largest HDD right now, for only $600 — Seagate Exos M breaks cover online, and it is a monster
Kiwi storage startup uses proprietary 144TB SSD to hit 230PB storage per 42U rack – but it will cost well over $2 million to get such a system
Kioxia unveils 246TB SSD behemoth — the LC 9 is the largest SSD ever launched and can store 52,000 DVD movies
I honestly thought it was a typo when I saw the price of this 24TB Seagate Barracuda HDD – and it got me questioning everything
Here’s the first ever test of the world’s largest SSD, and yes, an even bigger 246TB SSD may well land before the end of 2025
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