“Innovation” and “collaboration” were the buzzwords at the ribbon cutting ceremony—capping off years of planning and work—for the Innovation Quarter headquarters, the keystone to a district aimed at leveraging the city’s telecom past to become a hub for new technologies.

The new 27,500 square-foot space, leased in partnership with UT Dallas, anchors the 1,200-acre Innovation Quarter, which is aimed at bringing together players from tech startups to established international firms, university researchers, and public stakeholders to make the city a global player in the ecosystem.

“This is much more than a city of Richardson effort; this is more than a Dallas effort; this is bigger than the North Texas region,” Richardson Mayor Paul Voelker said at the event. “What I love about the city of Richardson is we are a global presence, and the vision that we have here is that we will be a global influencer of technology and innovation.”

‘A global marketplace’

Situated between Campbell Road to the north and Apollo Road to the south along a stretch of land known as the Telecom Corridor, the Innovation Quarter is already the site of operations for numerous global companies like Ericsson and Siemens, in addition to others like id Software and Zyvex.

“The collaboration that we’re going to be able to have truly is a global marketplace,” Voelker said. “And in my experience, the international community tends to be some of the most entrepreneurial types of individuals that you can ever run across,” 

After rezoning much of the area for uses that would make buildings there more attractive and flexible to emerging companies, the city used the ribbon cutting to mark the ceremonial opening of the IQ—where businesses will be able to use as a testbed for new tech and ideas. For example, the city hopes to leverage the existing telecom infrastructure to aid in the use of autonomous people movers along Glenville Drive, which makes up the “backbone” of the IQ.

A key IQ goal: attracting hundreds of small companies and startups

Voelker said one goal of the IQ is providing a place for building a business or commercializing the research coming from UT Dallas and other institutions in North Texas. An even bigger economic goal is attracting hundreds of small companies and startups that could eventually turn into unicorns or go public, rather than focusing on incentivizing one or two big name companies to set up shop in the city. 

“As we went out and recruited a more diverse set of key industries to be part of the Richardson area, the common denominator was our innovation around communications and computation,” Voelker said. “When these companies looked at the heat map of resources that were available, and that will be available because of UT Dallas, this is a logical place for them to land.”

Inside the IQ HQ, the city of Richardson plans to house its newly formed Office of Economic development and its Office of Strategic Initiatives, along with space for events and programming.

“Some remember the early days after the telecom bust, when many of us got together and said, ‘What are we going to do now?’” Voelker said. “We took a punch to the gut. This building, this day, we’re back.”

UT Dallas to play leading role in driving innovation

UT Dallas will play a leading role in bringing talent and companies to Richardson, as it has helped to do since UTD was initially formed as a research arm for Texas Instruments.

In addition to attracting talent and emerging startups to the area, the university will take up a large portion of the space at the IQ HQ. Along with coworking, office, and lab space, the university is launching five new research centers—which will be rotated, as demand from researchers in the space is high—under the umbrella of the Centers for Emergent Novel Technology at the Innovation Quarter.

The newly opened space will also house an extension of UT Dallas’ Venture Development Center.

“How will we know what that we are successful in our work here at the Richardson IQ?” UT Dallas president Richard Benson said at the event. “It will look something like this: Industry will engage with top researchers from UTD, entrepreneurs will launch startups with our support, and the public will experience academic and skill-building education from one of the nation’s top-ranked research universities.”

UT Dallas’ new IQ research centers include (with descriptions from UTD):

The Center for Applied AI & Machine Learning
The Center for Applied AI & Machine Learning (CAIML) is a research and development center that partners with companies to apply cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning technologies to their products, services and business processes.

The Center for Imaging and Surgical Innovation
Center for Imaging and Surgical Innovation (CISI) brings together UT Dallas engineers and computer scientists and UT Southwestern investigators and clinicians to develop emergent technologies to improve patient care and human health. UT Dallas, UT Southwestern and local companies will collaborate on translational research, clinical trials and product commercialization.

The Multi-Scale Integrated Interactive Intelligent Sensing Center
The Multi-Scale Integrated Interactive Intelligent Sensing (MINTS) Center will develop and deploy a cost-effective irrigation decision-support tool that uses super-resolution machine learning and remote sensing imagery from satellites, drones and security cameras. The center will collaborate with municipalities, corporate campuses and homeowners to save money by optimizing their irrigation water usage.

The Center for Smart and Connected Mobility
The Center for Smart and Connected Mobility (CSCM) aims to provide advanced solutions for the engineering of smart, multimodal cyber transportation infrastructures to improve safety and enhance mobility for drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians. The center aims to pursue community engagement, strengthen industry collaboration, accelerate the transition of research into the real world, and advance education and outreach efforts.

The Center for Applied AI at the Richardson Innovation Quarter with UT Dallas Expertise
The Center for Applied AI at the Richardson Innovation Quarter with UT Dallas Expertise (CAIQUE) will showcase emergent applied AI research at the University to engage companies, win extramural grants, strengthen international partnerships and provide a global network for affiliated students to excel as UT Dallas alumni. The multidisciplinary center draws from expertise across the university and will have affiliate faculty members from around the world. An industry advisory board will help shape the center’s direction.

“This forward-thinking initiative will allow us to collectively attract new businesses to the area and collaborate to ensure UT Dallas and the resulting community can learn and implement the knowledge they gain, while contributing to the economic growth of the city and beyond,” Calvin Jamison, VP for facilities and economic development at UT Dallas, said at the event.

“While some communities are on first base, we find an extraordinary pace in a special place—the city of Richardson—in an exceptional space to provide dominant visionary leadership in this research, innovation, and technology race,” Jamison added.

Quincy Preston contributed to this report.

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