AmCham Hosts Mid-West Conference on Competitiveness and Infrastructure

AmCham hosted its 2025 Mid-West Region Conference this week, with panel discussions on infrastructure and innovation and on talent and cost competitiveness.

The Conference, which was sponsored by Deloitte, featured a fantastic line-up of speakers, who outlined the key priorities for business in the region, including skills development, enhancing Ireland’s research landscape, and the adoption of digital technology.

Speaking on a panel discussion on enhancing Ireland’s competitiveness, Alan Burton, Vice President and General Manager, Fiserv spoke about the Ireland’s 35 percent R&D take credit which he said “compares favourably with other competitor jurisdictions, noting that the UK offers a rate of 20 percent and the US offers a rate of 7 percent."

He said that by locating R&D facilities in the region, we are creating, IP and a substantial knowledge base that has “long term positive impacts” and represents “sustainable investment and capacity building in the region.”

Judith Browne, Senior Director Global Human Resources Services, Dell Technologies, highlighted that with the emergence of A.I. companies need to examine “how we bring our current talent pool with us” through upskilling and reskilling.

She said: “At Dell, our organisation has provided everyone globally with a self-paced learning platform to build their A.I. literacy.” She added that from there, the organisation has provided pathways so that encourages employees to see “where we can use A.I. in our day-to-day work.”

In a panel on infrastructure and innovation, Caroline Kelleher, Director of Public Affairs, Shannon Group plc, emphasised the importance of implementing the recommendations of the Shannon Estuary Taskforce, which found that there is the capacity for 7GW of floating offshore wind on the Shannon estuary. She said: “That is 10 times what we are using today” and the development of that resource could allow us to “expedite the industrial base of this region”.

Stephen Prendiville, Partner, Strategy, Risk & Transactions Advisory, Infrastructure, Transport & Regional Government Lead, Deloitte Ireland added to this noting the infrastructure challenge that exists when trying to implement renewable energy on a national scale.

He said: “It is really difficult to put renewables on a large energy grid system.”

He added that “it is easier” to implement battery storage and share excess heating “on a micro-system or at a cluster level.”