Born out of a series of public meetings between Cork Corporation and the IT industry in Cork to ascertain the underlying issues and concerns of the IT sector in the Cork region, The National Software Centre is a direct reply to one of the main issues raised at these meetings: the need for a physical building that would go towards making Cork a centre of IT excellence.

The purpose of the National Software Centre is to establish Cork City as the most preferred regional location outside of Dublin for IT inward investment and a leading centre in Europe for niche software development in collaborative teams and joint ventures.