News
3rd December 2025
A high-tech plaza has been installed in Sunderland city centre using AI, ultrasonic sensors and surround sound creating an immersive experience for visitors and residents.
Called Pixel Plaza, the installation features a circle of 12 double-sided LED totems, each of which is two metres high.
The totems use ultrasonic sensors to detect movement and proximity of people nearby, responding with dynamic visuals and surround-sound audio to provide a multi-sensory public experience. By interacting with totems, people can stream 360° immersive content to their own devices. The LED screens also display ambient animations which react in real-time to environmental factors such as maritime and weather data.
The plaza is enhancing Sunderland’s major sporting and cultural events. During the Women’s Rugby World Cup which brought 42,000 people to the city in August, AI functionality in the totems allowed fans to generate their own personalised rugby player avatar. In total more than 4,600 images were generated by fans from 20 countries.
Now, during the city’s busy festive period, visitors to the plaza can picture themselves as one of Santa’s elves by using the totems’ AI avatar generator.
Pixel Plaza was created by Sunderland City Council and immersive technology company Hot Dark Matter, enabled by a private 5G network from Sunderland’s smart city partner Boldyn Networks. Funding was provided from the 5G Innovation Regions (5GIR) initiative at Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT)
Liz St Louis, director of smart cities and enabling services at Sunderland City Council, said:
“It’s incredible to see this interactive display in place and demonstrate the imaginative and inventive ways we can use our smart city’s cutting-edge digital infrastructure to enhance the visitor experience in and around the city.
“It brings a fantastic opportunity for people to interact and enjoy the technology with their family and friends. Sunderland is a smart city that is using innovations like this not only for our residents to enjoy, but to create a place we can be proud to welcome people along to.”
Totems consist of several applications running on local servers and a controller connected to the totem displays. Powered in the backend by a P2P wireless mmWave network, the 5G connectivity provides seamless low-latency data transmission between sensors, displays, and user devices. This ensures real-time interactivity for users and high-quality video streaming without lag or buffering.
Hot Dark Matter’s creative director Alex Lambert said:
“Pixel Plaza is public art at city scale – a living sculpture that reflects Sunderland’s legacy and the world around it, while creating a space for people to play, gather and enjoy together. It shifts with the city’s mood, weather and people, so every moment feels unique.
“We’re proud to be working with the people of Sunderland to bring a piece of contemporary art of this ambition into the heart of the city – something that belongs to everyone who experiences it.”
Pixel Plaza joins other smart installations across Sunderland that reimagine culture and leisure spaces through technology, such as digital play equipment at two local parks which are among the most-played worldwide as demonstrated by usage data.
Sunderland also boasts the UK’s first full neutral host RAN managed service in a high-density demand venue, in the form of Boldyn Network’s connectivity-as-a-service (CaaS) which launched in summer 2025 at the Stadium of Light through the Sunderland Open Network EcosysTem (SONET).