Infrastructure
One of the largest ever investments in the UK's creative industries.
In a rapidly evolving industry, our infrastructure is designed to outpace the rate of change by creating a flexible platform for experimentation and production with a unique combination of facilities and expertise.
Our studio Labs are equipped with connectivity that allows creatives to harness technology in whole new ways with:
- state-of-the-art facilities tailored to each Lab's specialism including sound stages, spatial audio and motion capture facilities
- integrated media networking
- private 5G connectivity providing a platform for creative experimentation across each CoSTAR facility
- AI Compute capability with high performance servers and ultra-fast storage due to significantly expand in May 2026
- access to CoSTAR Network's world class researchers, technologists and engineers
- industry partners
This will provide a platform for new forms of collaboration between geographically distributed experts and research teams, allowing the UK to lead in developing the next generation of production workflows, digital performance, and multi-sensory storytelling.
CoSTAR Network invites UK companies of all sizes to take part in regular, funded opportunities to experiment with and test our infrastructure, while providing business support for growth.
Our CoSTAR Network creative technologists, engineers & researchers will also collaborate with industry on prototyping projects.
CoSTAR is a place for thinking, connecting, developing, testing, building and innovating
Our infrastructure is housed in five Labs across the UK in London, Surrey/Buckinghamshire, York, Belfast, and Dundee. Find out about full studio specifications below.
Our LABS
The CoSTAR National Lab will provide a state-of-the-art, AI enabled converged media production stage. Currently based at Futures Studio, Surrey and opening its flagship facility at Pinewood Studios in 2026. Led by Royal Holloway, University of London.
Screen Lab is a facility for film, TV, gaming, and digital entertainment creators based at Studio Ulster and led by Ulster University.
Live Lab is a UK hub for developing new technology for live performance based in Production Park, Wakefield and is led by the University of York.
Realtime Lab explores virtual production and real-time tech and gaming and is based in Water's Edge, Dundee led by Abertay University.
Foresight Lab is a community of industry leading researchers, policy experts and data analysts led by Goldsmiths University of London.
The CoSTAR National Lab is developing a state-of-the-art AI compute facility to drive innovation in creative technology and beyond.
Our pilot cluster is already operational, offering:
- 3 high-performance servers, each hosting 4 or 8 GPUs and up to 2TB of system memory
- 20 NVIDIA H200 GPUs, each with 141GB of next-generation high-bandwidth memory
- Ultra-fast NVMe storage, optimised for AI workloads
In May 2026, we will expand to a full-scale cluster, delivering:
- 10 additional 8 way GPU servers, each designed for high-demand AI workloads
- 80 additional NVIDIA H200 GPUs bringing the system to more than 14TB of total GPU memory
- High-speed interconnects (400Gb InfiniBand) for large-scale, multi-node training
- 750TB of ultra-fast NVMe storage
This infrastructure is purpose-built to support training and prototyping of advanced AI systems—such as multimodal generative models for the creative industries—while also enabling research and development across academia, startups, and industry partners.
BT 5G infrastructure offers a secure private network to support development, testing and demonstration activity for CoSTAR network labs and associated companies.
This includes:
- Ericsson EP5G core hardware
- Fortinet security and switching
- Encrypted BT SIMs
- Licensed N77 spectrum
- A dedicated backhaul connection and ongoing managed support
In practice this gives the labs a reliable private 5G platform for creative experimentation with wireless production workflows, realtime video streaming, connected devices, immersive audience experiences and other early stage use cases with industry partners.
