INVEST in Nottingham visitors this week will gain insights into a growing economic sector... the gaming and digital creative industry.

With companies such as Monumental Games, Anthill Games, NuGeneration and Simple Life Forms, Nottingham already has a small but promising computer gaming industry.

But with the addition of international company Crytek, which bought up local firm Free Radical Design when it went into administration, the city's gaming profile has taken a step upwards.

Crytek UK's move into the Southreef development in Canal Street was also a vote of confidence in Nottingham city centre as a business location, bringing some early confidence to the new Southside business district.

But developing Nottingham as a hotbed for the digital and computer creativity is not all about office locations: it's also about your data stream. Or, as John Taylor of data carrier The Portal in Wilford Lane puts it: "It's about power, pooling and racking."

Put simply, The Portal is the place where five major fire-optic data transmission systems terminate. This gives the 90,000 sq ft place a huge capacity for the management, storage – "racking" – and rapid transmission of data nationally and internationally. And this, according to John Taylor, is a major asset for any business that relies on the storage and transmission of large amounts of digital data, including computer game developers, internet service providers, digital archives, even large future physical developments such as the Medipark. By early next year, The Portal will have an extra 200,000 sq ft of office space for data-heavy businesses who value clustering.