Tech giant IBM partners Witswatersrand on joint research and incubator hub in Johannesburg.

Witswatersrand University is to receive $60m from tech giant IBM to create a joint a research and startup hub based in South Africa.

The Johannesburg facility will focus on big data, healthcare, and other scientific projects. The physical space itself will be provided by the university, with the majority of IBM’s investment going into support student bursaries and postgraduate research.

Funding for the project, which will also look to work with other universities in South Africa, will be made available over the coming decade. The workspace itself will be based at the university’s Tshimologong precinct at a former nightclub, and it is hoped that the project will act as a catalyst for economic activity and urban regeneration in the area.

Solomon Assefa, who is heading up the project, told news provider ZDNet that IBM Research Lab will become a living laboratory, adding: “By that I mean that our lab will be set up in such a way that students and entrepreneurs and startups will come in and work on our infrastructure,” Assefa said, “including Watson, to investigate solutions to problems facing both business and society. We can create a technology revolution, a revitalised and rejuvenated area.”