Whitespace Global plans to create 40 new jobs over three years, doubling its Northern Ireland workforce, giving HR and talent acquisition teams a view of sustained demand for engineering, product and delivery skills in Belfast. Invest NI has offered £240,000 (€278,000) in support towards the roles.

Whitespace Global is a Belfast-headquartered AI company founded in 2015 by Paul Jenkinson and Andrew McCartney, building sovereign AI technology for defence and national security through Collective, its AI operating system for cloud, edge and air-gapped environments. Revenue figures are not publicly available.

Invest NI is Northern Ireland's regional business development agency, which worked with the company to secure the investment over London, Dublin and Southeast England.

The strategic logic anchors high-value roles and intellectual property in Belfast, with Invest NI having worked to secure the investment over London, Dublin and Southeast England, as the company expands internationally.

The new roles span software engineering, AI and machine learning engineering, data engineering, cloud engineering, product management, and design and delivery consulting, with an average salary of £78,500 (€91,000) and recruitment running over the next three years through the company's careers page.

The structural driver is demand for sovereign AI in regulated markets, following a £10 million (€11.6 million) Series A in November 2025 backed by Beach Equity and White Cloud, according to UKTN. Collective is already operational within UK Defence.

Ruth Hengari, chief financial officer at Whitespace Global, said: "Belfast gives us talent and ambition to match our own, and these 40 roles are a chance to prove that on a global stage."

Anne Beggs, chief commercial officer at Invest NI, said: "Our support secured the expansion in Northern Ireland, helping the company to create these 40 high-quality jobs that will provide valuable opportunities for people across Northern Ireland thanks to its hybrid working model."

For the sector, the announcement shows a defence technology firm pairing regional hiring, a hybrid working model and public support to expand AI engineering capacity outside larger technology markets, a combination likely to inform how comparable employers plan growth.

Source: Sync NI / Invest NI