Nokia Receives $1.35B Grant To Develop Graphene Tech

silverpig writes "It now appears that graphene has reached a point worthy of serious, direct industrial attention. The grant money itself comes from the European Union for the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET), but the work will be done by a large non-governmental company with eyes on developing useful real-world applications. Smartphones contain many components with high potential for making use of graphene. From the article: 'Nokia is leading the electronic firms within the Graphene Flagship Consortium, which includes 73 other companies and academic institutions from a number of mediums. The Finnish handset manufacturer has received a grant of $1.35 billion to research and develop graphene for practical applications, with the European Union for the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) providing the grant itself.'"

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia is involved in a graphene research program along with 73 other companies. The research program gets 1 billion euros over 10 years. Nokia will probably only get a fraction of that money.

Grossly wrong

[ndverdo]

this is a unusually grossly wrong submission having gotten to the /. frontpage. The gross project funding amounts to EUR 1 billion (approx. USD 1.35 billion) which is allocated to all the over 100 participant institutions, companies and groups - of which Nokia is only one. The effort is led by Chalmers University of Sweden.

Re:Wrong, wrong and wrong.

[EzInKy]

The article says differently, but I suspect you may be right. Like many I don't regularly read articles. For the most part I find the comments much more informative, but with Nokia stories I can't help it. I just can't get rid of the hope that the maker of the best phone I've ever owned (N900) will come to its senses and market another and perhaps even freer one despite its deal with the devil.

Anyway, a little searching turned up this Bloomberg article [bloomberg.com] that seems to back your assertion.

"University-led research projects to investigate graphene and the functioning of the human brain each won 1 billion euros ($1.35 billion) in European Union funding, the European Commission said.

Researchers at Sweden’s Chalmers University will lead a project to investigate graphene, the thinnest and toughest material ever produced which conducts electricity 30 times faster than silicon. Royal Philips Electronics NV, Alcatel- Lucent SA, Thales SA (HO) and Nokia Oyj (NOK1V) are among companies involved in the program. Another project simulating the way the human brain works is led by researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale of Lausanne, Switzerland, and includes SAP AG (SAP), Cray Inc. (CRAY) and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) "

Re:Grossly wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, I reacted strongly to this myself. This is a very big deal for Chalmers University of Technology [chalmers.se] who are the ones who actually "won" anything here, and it would be nice to at least mention them in an article summary since they are the driving force behind the project. Nokia is one partner out of many.

Chalmers have been at the forefront of experimental nano science in Europe since their big investment in the MC2 building [chalmers.se] with a state-of-the-art clean room, with a particular focus on materials science and microwave electronics. They have a theoretical department to go with this, and the head of the theoretical division, Jari Kinaret [chalmers.se], is the one who will commandeer this project.

This months-old article [goteborgdaily.se] lays out the thoughts before the big project landed, where they originally budgeted for a ~€80M project. Now they actually got an order of magnitude more funds which will expand the project greatly, but it's still the same focus.

A more recent article [goteborgdaily.se] that even more clearly lays out the circumstances.

(CAPTCHA: "electron" - how fitting)