Northern Lights Arena Europe has signed an 18-month agreement with Dundee City Council, allowing the firm to progress initial design concepts.

The arena, which would be built near to the V&A Dundee building, would provide educational and employment opportunities for Dundee, giving Scotland’s digital economy a boost.

The planned future arena would host 4,000 seats, an e-sports academy for further and higher education, as well as indoor sporting events, retail and workspace areas.

E-sport events are organised as multiplayer video games contests with prize money involved.

NLAE is working on the project with Abertay University, Dundee & Angus College and Nottingham Trent University’s creative technology faculty, Confetti.

As part of the project, Abertay intends to develop a new range of degree courses related to the global e-sports job market, with students gaining access to bespoke facilities within the arena complex.

Cutting-edge facilities and technical infrastructure for the arena and academic campus will be designed with Nottingham Trent University’s Creative Technology faculty, Confetti.

Technology partners including Amazon Web Services, and low-carbon energy provider Vital Energi.

Professor Gregor White, Dean of Abertay University’s School of Design and Informatics said: “We are delighted to be involved in bringing forward this exciting partnership-led development for Dundee, which has the potential to make a significant contribution to the future development of Scotland’s digital economy.

“Abertay has an international reputation for excellence in the video games sector and is ideally placed to lead the educational delivery aspects of this project, with a view to opening up a new graduate talent pipeline to the esports industry, which is worth more than $1billion globally each year.”

Chris Turner, NLAE CEO said: “We are delighted to be able to announce Dundee as the first of several multi-million-pound projects that the NLAE team is working on.”