5G and Interconnectivity Equipment and Virtual Production Services for StudiosUK Facilities

Digital Catapult is looking to establish StudiosUK, a cluster of interconnected research facilities leveraging 5G and future networks capability to enable the exploration of convergent visual content production technologies - such as the use of high-density LED walls, motion-capture, real-time rendering engines and new forms of real-world capture.

Studios UK will be a cluster of interconnected facilities that leverage private 5G standalone (5G-SA) networks with multi-access edge compute (MEC) infrastructure hosting machine learning algorithms to enable real-time animation, wireless data transfer, volumetric capture, motion capture and AR broadcast; thus, enabling co-creation, remotely testing applications and experiences for Film and TV productions.

These studios will be utilised for collaborative research and development projects, skills training initiatives and commercial productions within the creative and manufacturing sectors. Examples of projects could include productions utilising in-camera VFX and Virtual Production, 5G enabled device testing, digital twin testbeds, real-time multi-site collaboration and tools and workflow development.

There are two sites, the first is within the M25, to be confirmed, the second is at PROTO, Abbott's Hill, Baltic Business Quarter, Gateshead NE8 3DF and both must be of specification to integrate with existing equipment. This procurement is for PROTO only, a procurement for the requirements of the site within the M25 will be subject to a separate procurement.