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A vast white factory on the outskirts of Londonderry in Northern Ireland already makes a key component for about 30 per cent of the world’s hard drives. Now, a £115mn investment aims to deliver the technology for drives with twice the current highest storage capacity.
For US owner Seagate, the five-year investment in research and development will lay the foundation for the production of hard drives able to store at least 60 and up to 100 terabytes of data.
For Northern Ireland, it is a “historic” investment that puts it “on the global map” for cutting-edge innovation at a time of tariff turbulence, says Kieran Donoghue, chief executive of business development agency Invest NI.
More than two years ago, on a visit to Belfast, then president Joe Biden dangled the prospect of US companies tripling the previous decade’s $2bn investment into Northern Ireland if the region’s executive, which was then suspended in a row over Brexit, could be restored.
The Stormont Assembly was resurrected in February last year, but a flood of US investment has yet to materialise, despite a deal with the UK government that cemented Northern Ireland’s unique post-Brexit access to both UK and EU goods markets.
The Seagate investment in its Northern Ireland plant, that chief technology officer John Morris calls a “global centre of excellence”, comprises a £100mn commitment from the Nasdaq-quoted company and £15mn from Invest NI.
It could be the start of things to come, Donoghue told the Financial Times. “I would be confident our pipeline of investments is going to increase.”
The plant in Derry, as the city is also known, is one of only five facilities worldwide — two are owned by Seagate — that make the essential recording heads for devices ranging from small hard drives for personal use to mass storage for data centres.
Seagate already manufactures more than a quarter of the world’s recording heads at its Northern Irish factory. “I would be very, very confident that when they develop the new 60 terabyte disc, that disc will be manufactured here also,” Donoghue said.
Despite President Donald Trump’s pressure on US companies to manufacture at home, “when I look at our FDI pipeline, there is a significant number of US corporates”, Donoghue added.
Northern Ireland has large agritech, aerospace, defence and other manufacturing sectors, as well as thriving cyber security, financial and regulatory services, and tourism industries.
So far, the region’s tariff differential — Trump has imposed 10 per cent on goods exports from the UK but 15 per cent on the EU, including the neighbouring Republic of Ireland — has not delivered a clear advantage.
“Companies are observing what you might describe as a theoretical opportunity or tariff arbitrage opportunity . . . But no companies have yet come to us and said ‘we’re going to invest here on that basis’,” Donoghue said, noting it was far from clear how long tariffs would stay in place.
Despite cultivating ties with the US, the largest source of FDI into Northern Ireland last year was the Republic, followed by the EU and then the US, noted Donoghue, who until taking up his role at Invest NI in early 2024 held senior roles at Ireland’s successful FDI promotion agency, IDA.
“I think there’s a big opportunity for us actually in the Republic — more and more companies there are saying ‘we’d like to expand our operations on the island of Ireland, so we’d like to have a conversation with you about the merits of establishing a facility two hours up the road’,” he said, citing interest from agrifood and tech among other sectors.
However, Northern Ireland’s appeal as a place for manufacturers to take advantage of access to both the UK and EU is being hampered by infrastructure challenges, especially in wastewater services.
“Dual market access under the Windsor framework is fundamentally a manufacturing opportunity and manufacturers need water in, water out,” Donoghue said.
“So there is no fast solution. And therefore from an Invest NI perspective we need to make sure . . . that we focus on companies and investments that are relative infrastructure-light in the services space.”
