Technology, Connected - Why The UK's Old Industrial Towns Became Robot Labs

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

The UK produces world-class technology and is home to exceptional tech entrepreneurs. All too often it watches them scale in America.Rory Daniels, Head of Emerging Technology and Innovation at techUK, joins Thinking on Paper to discuss whether the United Kingdom can remain competitive as quantum computing, robotics, photonics, AI and advanced computing begin to converge.The UK has strong research institutions, deep technical talent and globally significant companies. Its recurring problem is scale. Promising technologies are often developed in British universities and laboratories, then commercialised or funded elsewhere.In this episode, we discuss:What makes the UK robotics industry different from the US and ChinaWhy British companies often focus on specialised robots for nuclear sites, wind turbines and industrial environmentsHow autonomous driving companies such as Wayve combine AI, sensors and connectivityWhether robotaxis can coexist with London’s black-cab industryWhy UK technology companies struggle to scale after the startup stageHow access to long-term capital affects quantum, robotics and semiconductor companiesThe role of universities, technology-transfer offices and regional innovation clustersWhat is happening in Coventry, Edinburgh, Milton Keynes, Barnsley and other UK technology centresHow digital twins and simulation are used to train robots and autonomous vehiclesWhy photonics matters for quantum computingHow quantum, photonic, neuromorphic and biological computing could convergeWhether AI can develop the judgement and wisdom required to solve complex technical problemsHow techUK connects companies, researchers and policymakersWhy public trust and adoption matter as much as technical performanceRory argues that the UK’s advantage may not lie in dominating a single technology. It may come from combining existing strengths in AI, chip design, robotics, quantum computing, photonics and connectivity.The conversation examines what government, industry, universities and investors must do if the UK is to convert strong research into companies that can scale globally without leaving the country.Please enjoy the show.Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, Space, quantum computing, science, and the systems shaping the future. 🏠 Buy us a beer on Substack🎧Get Up Close On YouTube 🎧 Remember Steve jobs on APPLE📺 Get the clips and outtakes on Instagram --Chapters(00:00) The UK Technology Landscape(03:14) Robotics: A UK Perspective(05:54) Autonomous Vehicles in the UK(08:39) The UK's Innovation Ecosystem(11:05) Challenges and Opportunities for UK Tech Entrepreneurs(13:27) Regional Innovation and Government Initiatives(16:33) The Role of Universities in Tech Development(19:15) Barnsley: A Blueprint for Tech Towns(21:53) Government Initiatives in Robotics(24:20) Digital Twins and the Future of Robotics(27:12) Quantum Computing and Photonics in the UK(29:24) The Role of Education in Emerging Technologies(30:55) AI and Human Wisdom: A Complex Relationship(38:02) Neuromorphic Computing: The Future of AI(38:23) Convergence of Technologies: Opportunities for the UK(42:42) The Human Element in Technology Adoption

You're right though, a lot of founders companies will, at a certain size, maybe series A, Cree C, increasingly look to other markets to scale. And that tends to be the US. And to give me a very simplistic view, I think it tends to be access to capital, particularly for deep technologies or research intensive technologies like robotics or quantum for semiconductors where you've got long development timelines 10 to 15 years and you need funders that are willing to kind of take that long-term risks, you find those in the US much more than you find them in Europe. Disruptors and curious minds, welcome to thinking on paper.

And today's show is about the United Kingdom. UK, my home, not Jeremy's home. We're talking about the UK technology convergence and how the UK can remain relevant in a world, in a technological world that's moving at great net speed. And we're asking if that convergence of quantum robotics, photonics, computing space is the UK's differentiator? Could it lead the world in the convergence of technology? Let's find out.

Today's guest is Rory Daniels head of emerging tech at Tech UK. Rory, thank you for thinking on paper with us today. Thanks, both. Really great to be here. Now, let's start with robotics. British robotics. humanoids from Newcastle, Birmingham, Colchester. Will they drink tea?

Will they be more polite than their US counterparts? Will they know how to queue, unlike the robots from France or Italy? And that's a joke question for a serious question. How is UK robotics different from US, Chinese, Japanese or Brazilian robotics? What is special about the UK robotics industry? That's a great question. I think the first thing to say is the UK has got a really strong legacy when it comes to the development of robotics.

So we've been around for a long time. And we've got a lot of complementary strengths in everything from AI to chip design to connectivity technologies that make us really good at particular parts of the robotics kind of tech ecosystem. I would say the main difference probably between I'd use the US and China is kind of, if I was to put them on one side, I'd say they are general purpose robotics. So when you see humanoids, they're typically coming out of US and China and they do a wide range of tasks. But in a world that's built for humans, a lot of these companies think we'll build a robot that looks like a human. In the UK, we're a lot better at more, you could say,

niche or specialized tasks and robots that fit a particular mold for a particular type of tasks. So a robot that inspects wing turbines for instance, or a robot that rolls onto a nuclear site to decommission or to move waste or that sort of thing. So we're really, really good at the more specialized instances of robotics. So some of these legacy technologies that you mentioned, what's an example of one that the UK has been really good at and potentially translating that to multi-use robotics? I'm going to kind of cheat a little and say there are a few technologies that in combination. actually the UK has produced something really special in. So I'd use the example of autonomous vehicles. So one of the world's leading robotics companies in this space,

it depends on you can find robotics, but in terms of a machine that's autonomous, is Wave, who are a member of Tech UK. You see them arriving all around London and have been testing here for quite a while now, born out of the UK, but really a global company. And it's the combination of advanced sensors, and LLMs and a whole range of connectivity technologies all coming together in one system and then

apply to a particular business model. And then, you know, you deploy and you scale. So the UK's got strengths in all these areas. Lots of them sit in universities, in other research institutions, government funded and otherwise. And now kind of got this new wave of innovators that are connecting them all together, joining the dots, applying new business models and and scaling. It's been a while since I was in London, actually. What are these autonomous cars? What would I see if I went to London tomorrow?

What would I see and how easy would it be for me to use one? Yeah, so they're currently, they haven't been deployed, so you can't, as a member of the public, ride in one just yet. But they've been driving around Kingscross for a number of years, and I believe are driving more widely across the city now. other companies are too. So Waymo is a good example, another techie care, then the company.

But they've got safety drivers, and they're either, you know, lots of these companies are, the drivers are still driving the car, two hands on a wheel, but mapping the environment as they go. Other companies are, you know, drivers kind of hands off the wheel

and being very cautious as to how the car moves and is ready to be in any moment. So different companies are different stages of technological maturity. but certainly if I look at Wade and Waymo, both committed to launching on UK roads in London by the end of this year an autonomous ride hailing service. With a safety driver in or without? What's the actual law for the end of the year? I believe without a safety driver.

So you could get in a car and it would be just new, but you wouldn't sit in the driving seat. So I've been in a Waymo a few times in the US in various cities and thus, you know, the car pulls up, you get in, you're the only person. in it. How did it feel? At first, really weird, really strange. I don't drive myself. So to get in the car and it suddenly, you know, you click your seatbelt in and you're off and the car's talking to you and saying, hi, Rory, let's go on this journey together. You look at the screen and there's your route all mapped out and that felt weird. It took some being used to, but I recorded a video at the time, absolutely my first experience and kind of put up my LinkedIn. And

my comment there was after a few minutes, I just thought, wow, you'd expect it to be slow and overly cautious, but it was actually assertive and confident in its driving. And it was one of the best, you know, taxi rides I'd had in quite a while. And I remember, you know, you could connect your phone to the speakers, blast your own music as you drive around San Francisco in the sun, in a Jaguar. It was incredible. We talk about trust a lot. That is trust in the machine. We, yeah, we have it. We have the Waymo's. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, in the States, and we have Waymo's bouncing around all over the place and seeing them is, I remember when I first saw.

I've never been in one, but, you know, seeing them is strange, but it's cool. So I also have roots. I mentioned in the pre-production. My mom was born in Norwich, you know, loosely Canary's fans, I guess you could say. But I want to talk about the, my view of my understanding of London. Cab drivers, right? Because, you know, we talk a lot about tech and culture on this show. London cab drivers are part of the UK's culture, right? In this dynamic, how is that going to all work out? Are they, are they trying to go autonomous? Can autonomous vehicles replicate the

cultural value of UK cabbies? Like, let's talk through that a little bit. Yeah, so it's not a topic I'm massively familiar with the black cab industry as it were. I know the industry itself has gone for a number of changes over the years. So I know that most taxis, when I first moved to London, most taxis were petrol or diesel combustion engines. Now most are electric, still produced in coalantry, but by a non-British company using non-British battery technologies. So it's already gone through a bit of a shift there on the hardware side.

I would imagine that the service that the London cab provides is hard to replicate. through technology, at least for quite a while. It's a personal service at the end of the day. And, you know, AI is becoming more conversational, sure. So, you know, you can kind of read into that what you will. But I'd also point out that the London transport market is absolutely massive. And so, you know, you would assume that there's enough space on the roads, as it were, for a number of different modes of transport all at once.

The UK historically is a technological powerhouse. Some of the greatest kind of founding seas of the greatest technologies were all born in the UK. You could list the names in quantum, in AI, in robotics, in mass engineering, since the beginning of civilisation really. They've all come to the UK. But of late, the seeds are still there, but they tend to scale elsewhere in America. primarily. So thought experiment. I am a tech entrepreneur in my house. I mean, creating some kind of new quantum VR, let's say, new technology. I'm getting interest from American companies that

are interested in my technology. They're interested in me. They're interested in my small team and taking us to America. How are you going to convince me to stay in the UK? That's a good question. I think firstly the UK's got loads of benefits that I think actually would take for granted. So the talent base and the infrastructure are available for the innovators, the fact that we are a relatively small market, but on the edge of a very large one in continental Europe, and relatively small geographically, but fairly joined up. We're actually a kind of a network of clusters that each one is not that far from the other. and compared to a lot of other countries, that's a real advantage. So first of all, look at the strengths of the UK. It's really strong in innovation, in R&D.

It's one of the world's leading startup ecosystems. And on many or most kind of metrics for innovation and technology across Europe, it comes out top. So the UK is doing a lot really well. You're right, though, a lot of founders, companies will at a certain size, maybe Sue Zah or B, increasingly look to other markets to scale. And that tends to be the US. And to give me a very simplistic view, I think it tends to be access to capital is a major driver,

particularly for deep technologies or research intensive technologies like robotics or quantum or semiconductors, where you've got long development timelines 10 to 15 years. And you need funders that are willing to kind of take that long term risk. you find those in the US much more than you find it in Europe. So quite pervasive challenges behind what we call the value of debt, which is not the nicest turn. But yeah, that's the situation. And just to caveat that, actually, there are still lots of examples

and increasingly examples of British success stories. You know, unicorns, billion dollar companies, particularly in thin tech, but now in increasingly more industries, popping up left, right, and center. So it's not all doom and gloom, and there's a lot to to celebrate. I have some history in some of these ecosystems as well. I designed a high-performance computing center for Georgia Tech with a few other folks. And I did a lot of stakeholder interviews with like really smart people, researchers and that sort of thing. And I remember one computer scientist came to me and he's like, what I really am looking for is a place where I could

bump into really smart people and steal their ideas. Now, stealing their ideas is different, but the serendipitous, how do you engineer these, can you engineer serendipitous connection between a quantum computer technologist and an AI engineer in your ecosystem? Is that something you're looking to do one to one, or is it a grander, bigger scale thing you're trying to pull off? I think the first thing to say is to certainly say that you don't need to engineer it. I think it happens.

I think there is no surprise that over half of, I believe over half of the UK's deep tech companies are actually spin outs from universities. And that doesn't happen, you know, by coincidence, it's amazing talent. It's companies co-locating close to universities to pull on that talent, it's academic expertise that drives innovations in deep tech

that later becomes commercialized. And it's the IP that spins up universities. So a lot of it happens coincidentally. I'd say a lot of it is orchestrated, not just at the kind of, you know, the level of the university, but the level of a region, for instance. So lots of in the UK we'd say local councils, they're responsible for regional governance, or local governance all have kind of place-based innovation strategies where they are consciously looking to essentially take the cluster of innovators and academics and investors.

that already exists and to amplify its strengths and to boost the spillover effects between different professions and all that sort of stuff. So it's baked in to innovation policy across the UK and it's thanks to organisations like Tech UK that we're able to join up kind of disparate parts of the ecosystem to all move in the same direction. So it's a bit of a bit of that happens by chance but a bit of it is conscious and our when we talk to government, we certainly want to see more of the conscious joining up the strategy behind all of this and the investment to supercharge the innovation that's happening across the UK but but in pockets. So real quick follow on to that. So you mentioned a high percentage of businesses coming out of

university, spinning out of research and university. Do you have the same kind of in the states we call them technology transfer offices, TTOs, do you have that? Is that a similar structure in the UK? And is that enabling a lot of some of this stuff to happen? It is. I think the challenge is that the signs of the TTO or the kind of commercialization function of the university very much depends on the resource that the university is able to commit to that function. So there are, you know, you've got your Oxford's and your Cambridge's that have teams of over

100 people in a large TTO. So in other universities, and this is kind of most of, almost all of the university section in the UK, you've got max one, two, three people. And so you've got a real disparity. And, you know, I often think maybe technology can actually be part of the solution. I've seen the kind of AI tools that allow researchers to spin out content in an automated way that automatically generates a business case for your, you know, IP and all that, you know, gets the email ready to go to investors straight away just from an initial. kind of description. So there's a real disparity and the UK can't rely on its top 5, 10, 15 universities produce most of the spinouts. So it just, it won't work that way. I think there's a ton, I have a theory. I think there's a ton of latent IP sitting on shelves that, man, if you just had

some folks kind of dusted off and get it in front of some new eyes, interdisciplinary eyes, little microgroups of people, I think we could find some interesting. interesting things. The UK has a north-south divide and I was looking at some of the huge amounts of robotic investment and AI investment that is going into London at the moment on the robotics at like the top 10, you know, wave valued at two and a half billion automator, 152 million skyports, humanoid, grey parrot. There's a lot of companies and they all seem to be based in London. What's happening outside of London beyond, you mentioned a few universities with maybe two or three people in those. What's happening on a government level in terms of building infrastructure beyond London?

And what is Tech UK doing beyond London? Yeah, so there's a lot happening is the answer beyond London. You could look at, for example, particular government initiatives that kind of highlight this. So the main announcement, I would say, about robotics that came out of the government's modern industrial strategy that was published. Number of months ago now was around the launch of a robotic adoption hub network, so a network of physical hubs across the UK

that work with businesses in that region to basically hold their hand and as they look to adopt robots in whatever sector they're in. So that's a good example of how the innovations, but also the opportunities are UK-wide. There are a number of robotic clusters that we will find out soon where these hubs will be located, but you would imagine they will largely be located

within existing clusters. Where are those clusters? Can you, which is we talking Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, Norwich? I mean, most of the above. I would point to this Coventry in the West Midlands is a really good example of, you know, strong heritage in automobile manufacturing, as I said,

Black camps still manufactured there today. And so the industrial base that kind of robotics industry sprung up from really. And so they are, I believe, the UK's first kind of dedicated robotics cluster. But there are many more in a kind of more informal sense. You could look at Edinburgh and you put the National Robotarium there, which is the UK Centre for Robotics and AI, that are doing a similar thing, but you've got dozens of robotics companies that base themselves within the robotarium,

and again benefit from that kind of aggloration effect. So really disparate ecosystem in the UK. Yeah, I think like you said, place-based stuff is going to be really important. I think a lot of the trends that I'm seeing, you guys are probably seeing the same thing that with what tech is doing or what AI is doing, there's going to be a push back to getting face-to-face with people

and getting in the same room and craving that collaboration. So I think that's really interesting. Well, that's one of the things that the UK has in its favor is its size, where it is small and everything is congregated in very small geographical places. So that is an advantage. Definitely. Yeah. Rory, tell me about, I read an announcement back in February about Barnsley. Barnesley was announced as the UK's first tech town. The tech secretary, I think, announced it back in February in the last.

idea was just to create this blueprint of a singular community working together to adopt technology across government, across different systems and that sort of thing. I thought that was a pretty interesting endeavor. Yeah, as you said, it's kind of seen as a little bit of a blueprint for a national strategy. I know that it's delivered in partnership with industry. and in fact, lots of a few of our large members, so Adobe and Cisco and others, which is great to see. And I know that one of the focuses will be about how to embed things and technologies like AI into public services. And I guess get as close as possible to the citizen, the people that these technologies ultimately touch and involve them in the kind of co-design and rollout process. So, yeah, agreed.

It's these place-based initiatives. It can't all happen at a macro-national level. It ultimately hits the ground somewhere and why not go to that region and a co-develop and launch and trial and iterate alongside the end users. I just don't remember if I've ever been to Barnsley or not. I like the idea.

So you have cultural cities. Every year, the cultural city and the UK changes. Is this going to be a similar thing where every year a different city takes on the mantle of tech city of the UK? And if they're not, that's a good idea. You should do that. You should, uh, we'll let them not know. Yeah. Let that government know.

So let's stay on government from the very top down to local level. What are some of the cool initiatives of 2025, 2026 that you've seen in your job? Because you get to experience and witness a lot of what's going on. So could you, could you name a couple? Absolutely, yeah. So on a local level, I'd point to initiatives like Robo Pass is a really interesting one. So it's set up in Milton Keynes, which I think has held the mantle informally at least as the most innovative council in the UK for a number of years, has been the home of autonomous vehicles and drones, was a very early adopter of these technologies and has been a bit of a test bed for how they can be safely developed and rolled out. And now I know the government has launched. basically a little bit of kind of a passport scheme whereby these technologies to be tested in one locality and then hopefully rolled out to other localities in a way that is as kind of non-duplicative and hassle-free as possible which which in an ecosystem that is fairly joined up

but also fairly fragmented and you've got many you've got hundreds of councils and constituencies and what have you makes a lot of sense and then on a national level I'd say probably the the highest level I can think of is I point to the robotics advisory group, which is a group that the Department for Science Innovation Technology established a few months ago to be basically a group of independent experts for across the UK's erotic ecosystem that advise the department desit on robotics strategy and a number of ministers attend meetings and kind of hear directly from the experts what they should be doing in robotics

and why. And we take UK and myself were appointed to that committee just a few months ago and kind of bring our members' views and priorities and asks directly to the top of government. So from the bottom to the top, there's lots of really interesting stuff happening. And our job really is to plug our member companies into it as it happens. I'm going to say a word, Jeremy, brace yourself. Okay, brace yourself. Metaverse. So robotics, virtual twins. Have you met? any industrial virtual worlds combined with robotic initiatives happening in anywhere in the UK? Yes, absolutely. There's lots happening in this space. So we would we would call them digital

twins and I point to companies like Siemens that, a member of ours that have been deploying digital twins of factories for instance for some time now and these models essentially that operate in real time that gather data from sensors in industrial environment. feed them directly into the model and enable operators in the factory, for instance, to see the state of a machine or the position of a package or whatever it is in real time. They can do this for a number of years, but the data has become a lot more sophisticated over the last few. I'd also point to members of ours like Nvidia that when it comes to things like the training of robots, often nowadays this happens in simulation. It happens virtually. So Wave and Waymo, the Assange's vehicles, are really good examples whereby they may have driven millions of miles on roads across the UK, the US and others, other markets, but they've driven billions of miles in simulation.

And so they've encountered however many millions or billions of edge cases or unique environments that maybe one day theoretically they could face in real life, but they've, in theory, already been there done that in simulation. So digital twins are enabling everything from real-time, you know, logistics and inventory monitoring, all that sort of stuff to robotic training and deployment. And soon the moon. Yeah, way cooler than the Metaverse. Digital Twins are way cooler than the M-word. The M-word. It's interesting. There's a lot of things that can happen in Digital Twin in the industrial side of the fence that have been, you know, we talked about this earlier.

things happen in the industrial environments earlier on, and they're not as exciting until they are. Meantime between failures in large facilities can be mapped and potentially predicted. I think there's a lot of cool things happening in the digital twin realm. Do we want to stay on robots? Do we want to go to space tech, Mark? What are you feeling? Quantum. I'm interested in because so we've spoken to inflection, we've spoken to IonQ, we've spoken to

Horizon, a lot of UK-based quantum computing companies, and Oxford is the epicenter, if not of, maybe even of the world of quantum computers, at least at that early C phase that we spoke about. There's a lot going on in the UK in terms of quantum. You mentioned photonics. Could you speak us through what is photonic quantum computing first and what's happening in Oxford. Big question. So, photonics, in a sentence, is the science and technology of light. So it is often, it is essentially the equivalent to electronics. So manipulating the photon, not the electron, and doing existing things, compute sensing, communications, not at the speed of the electron, but at the speed of light. So, you know, real enabling technology and then we can talk about this, but take you

really acted in the space the last year or so because what a massive opportunity for the UK to lead. We're already quite far ahead of almost every other country. Well, that's why quantum is so interesting because AI, the UK hasn't lost the AI race. It's probably not even in the AI race. But if it's leading the quantum race, this is a real opportunity for the government

and people like yourselves to really accelerate and put the foot down and remain a leader, the leader. Absolutely. Yeah, I'd say it's leading components of the AI race, but it's leading a huge chunk of the Potomics and the quantum races. And the real opportunity for the UK as a whole and for UK businesses is the combination of the two technologies. It's what happens when you have a quantum computer that can, yes, manipulate atoms at the

quantum level to do things traditional computers can't even imagine doing or would take them a very, very, very long time, but also the data that moves around the system moves at the speed of light. And that is, that's the difference between a great and an incredible quantum computer. So the good news is we already have companies in the UK that are world leading photonic quantum computing companies. I point to Orca computing is a really good example. But in our membership, I've been doing it in Things in Kings Cross for a number of years now. And I actually, as far as I know, the first company to have sold in a commercial sense a working botonic quantum computer to a real kind of paying customer that didn't use kind of grant money or that sort of thing.

So a real world first and that's coming straight out of UK labs. And the opportunity, we would say, is let's harness that potential, let's scale it and let's export it as quickly as possible. Half the battle kind of is coming up with the technology, the research that translates, into potential commercialization. Then you also have the talent development side of the fence and those pipelines and that sort of thing. One thing in quantum that's really interesting to me

that we've been following for a while is this idea of, and Mark, this is a new term I'm throwing out there, I'll get your take on it. The idea of a problem parser, problem parser, meaning when there's a research initiative. Is this your terminology? It's my term. I'm starting it out.

I'm dropping it, see if it lands. The idea of someone who can, can intelligently break down a problem into what fits for quantum, what fits for classical, and how to stitch it all back together in a really meaningful workflow. Are you seeing folks starting to emerge and saying, hey, I can do that? Or maybe the position wasn't traditionally there, but the demand is going to be, I think. Yeah, I think we're seeing early examples of it. We're seeing certainly I know that university level is a good example, whereby I think 10 years ago you would have been hard pressed to find a degree in robotics, for instance, that wasn't essentially mechatronics, you know, the physical hardware engineering degree.

Nowadays, I look at a lot of universities in our membership and beyond who are talking, who are launching robotics plus AI courses, for instance, where they recognize that software is as much a component of the system as hardware. and it's the interaction between the two that's the real kind of special source, the difference between a working and a world leading product. So there's just one specific example of an education where those interdisciplinary skills are absolutely critical

if you are to build, you know, the next robotics company that leads in the UK or globally will not be the robotics companies of the past, however many decades. They will be a robotics company with AI built in at the course, from the start, probably three, four, five, six other emerging technologies as core kind of components of their value proposition. And the skill set required to even begin to comprehend what that system

looks like goes well beyond individual disciplines. So yes, that's the way education is moving. But I'd argue industry probably is well ahead of the game. You know, well-harmes, sorry, but the P.P, the problem, the problem parser is an AI. There's no, there's no human in the loop. for passing that problem. I disagree. I disagree. You disagree?

100%. 100%. How do you disagree? So the technical aspects of how quantum and classical can work together, that could be automated and simplified with AI. But just looking at a problem from a human level saying, hey, here's the problem. Here are the pieces that are best served in this angle and that angle.

And then putting it back together. It's like data getting crunch. Data is nothing to humans until it becomes information. And dare we say wisdom at some point, right? So I think humans need to be, humans will still be in that piece of the puzzle. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. You're listening 10 years from now.

Rory, is he underestimating the capacity of LLMs to, is he underestimating the capabilities? I mean, completely off the top of my head, I feel like maybe this is a question of data. availability, right? So if you've got an LLN trained on, the repository is the world's internet, all the information on the internet, then you're probably going to get a fairly standard, pretty unimaginative combination of technologies. And yeah, it can create a working kind of system, but there's nothing special, nothing that the best engineers couldn't, you know, if they spent it long enough, they could dream up something a lot better. I think the mention of wisdom is really interesting. And yeah, at what point does AI even begin to

replicate that. I don't think we're anywhere near that. I think there are companies trying to move in that space. You've got the growing field of neuromorphic in key synchronism. So chips inspired, the structure of chips inspired by the human brain itself. But it's still in its fairly kind of early days. And I think until you have new data inputs that go beyond the world's repository of information online, and you combine that with some different way of conceptualizing the problem. So yeah, it could be quite. quantum could be neuromorphic, then I don't think you're going to beat the world's best engineering lines. Mark, think about this. You have a quantum system talking to an AI to figure out what is best to feed through the quantum system.

You have a classical system talking to an AI that's trying to figure out what's best for the classical system. The answer by the AI is going to be sycophanticantic and it's going to be that quantum is amazing. Everything you should go through quantum. Well, now I disagree. No, okay. I think that's quite a narrow-minded view of what, AI is capable of. But, okay, wisdom. Wisdom is not universally distributed. I think we all agree that wisdom isn't universally distributed. So Rory just said, okay, it will never compete with the world's greatest minds. Let's say that's true. How many of those are there? And at what

point does the AI become good enough, wise enough, however we're defining wisdom, does it become wise enough that in fact it's better, it's wiser than 99% of the world. And there's not enough of the 1% to do all of these tasks. So we employ AI to replace the human in the loop. Well, let's define wisdom first. Let's define wisdom and then pack back to that mark. So, Roy, how would you define wisdom? Oh, I would say wisdom is the ability to take a to adopt a novel perspective on a problem in a way that moves beyond conventional conception or understanding or reasoning, is that little something that is probably very hard to build through technology because technology ultimately, at least for now, thinks in bits

and that's quite a linear process. So would that be like a net new insight, is producing like a net new insight? potentially. Yeah. Yeah. Or Socrates, I know that I know nothing, in which case an AI will never be wise because there's no way that it's admitting to that. Well, let me throw this out there.

I'd love to get your take on this, both of you guys. So I think about like knowledge is like, is acquiring, there's data, you ingest the data and you turn that into something that makes sense in your brain. I think wisdom to me is applying that knowledge to experience. and further applying that next. And I think experience right now is like it's a conscious thing. So now we're in this conscious discussion or sentience discussion. Do you have to have consciousness to obtain wisdom?

But I guess also define experience, right? So the example of the wave and the Waymo car that's had a million miles on the road and a billion in simulation, is that not, is it not experienced? the world in actually more ways than we can experience, you know, in the physical and the virtual to that degree. Mark, you'll have to rein me in here. Answer the question, Jeremy. Answer the question.

So experience, right? So experience, right? So you're saying yes to the way Mo has experienced the world? I just, no, no, because I think experience. So it's like experiencing the color red or experiencing the smell of a rose. Can a sensor ingest something that is rose-like? Yes. Can whatever processes that sensory input know the experience of when you were in fifth grade

and you gave a rose to your girlfriend or something and that memory and that piece of it? It's really tricky and it's really tricky and like kind of a funky thing to think about. I think just processing sensory input is different than processing it based on, yeah, Experience is tough to define, Rory, you're right. You're right. When we've always speaks about that example of the Waymo and that it is experiencing something. Is it qualia, though, Mark?

No, it doesn't matter. I don't think it matters. I think it's sensing. I don't think it's experiencing. I think there's a layer deeper and it could be consciousness. It could be, you know, is it uniquely human or not human,

but biological to experience? It ingests, it senses, it detects. but it doesn't make you, it doesn't understand me, you know, it doesn't convert that into meaning.

And that's not wise. That's a great differentiator right there. What you said, sensing, detecting, processing. Yeah, that's cool. And in my car,

that's what I want. I don't want the human, squidgy, mushy problems in my drive. I don't want them to suddenly remember giving a rose to their girlfriend 35 years ago and then just crashing into a lamp post because they've gone all,

nostalgic. I want that lack of emotion. I just want the senses. Let's try to let's try to kind of land the plane, so to speak, on some of the things that you're excited about kind of moving forward, some of your initiatives. There's a frontier compute initiative that I saw that was recently announced that you're bringing some people together, some workshops, doing some research, a future report. Talk to us about that a little bit. I think the crux of what we talked about is that there are a number of emerging

technologies that are advancing rapidly and that are converging in their application to create entirely new possibilities for businesses and for countries and for innovators. So we as Tech UK have basically spoken to a lot of tech companies and decided, you know, concluded that there's a real opportunity for the UK in the convergence of several of these. So quantum photonics, neuromorphic, and we'd we've thrown biological compute into the mix as well. So how did those four technologies enable vastly new forms of compute that support applications and new intelligences really far beyond our existing the frontier of AI as it spans?

So the goal is to get some really amazing UK-based people in a room, talk through some of this stuff, explore the space between the tech, map it, figure it. It sounds super fun. It sounds like a room I'd like to. hang out in. What's the, because I note like in America, so Trump famously, America's going to rule the world in AI. He's come out publicly. He says, he says that. However much you want to believe or take

that, it's up to you. I'm not associated with my country's leadership. Just a disclaimer there. In the UK, like what we've been speaking about, how do you convince the policymakers that we need the money that the UK needs more money in the in the tech infrastructure to keep these technologies in the UK to keep these people in the UK how do you convince them to unleash the gates the financial gates or or and if that's not going to happen get the private investment to turn up a bit so I think there are a few things and we very good at an tech gate but first is bring together the right people to identify the opportunities very clearly to base that on a clear understanding of the latest technology.

So get the technologies in the room because they know what's going on. And to put that to the decision makers, the people with the money as well, in language that they understand. So we do that through our reports and our events and we respond to government consultations and all that sort of stuff. So that's our kind of bread and butter. I'd say another important point is speak to the people, the decision makers that already to some extent get it or are the ones that you could

you know feasibly make understand so for instance we we work a lot with chief scientific advisors and the national technology advisor people in government with decades of experience in industry right at the top of you know some of the world's leading tech companies and then they move into government and we talk directly to them and they get industry they get the challenges and the opportunities and they have a direct line often after actually to number 10 and the prime minister. So we go right to the top. And I think the robotics advisory group that we sit on is a really good example of that,

to being in the room with the ministers, with the decision makers. And I think the third thing I say is really bringing all the right kind of constituent, stakeholders on board to make things happen. So this can't be driven entirely by industry. We don't want this to be entirely driven by government. Academia, investors, ecologists, all need to be part of this conversation. And so tech uses its convening power, put the right people around the table to make things happen.

I love it. Yeah, that's something we think about a lot. You know, moving into the next year, Mark and I are, and we haven't officially kind of put this out there yet, but we've been loosely connecting the dots between humanity and tech for a while, but we really are thinking about formalizing some of this stuff and mapping some of these technologies to the human structures,

you know, power, governance, collaboration, communication, belonging, like all of these really interesting human elements that don't often get mapped to that kind of stuff. How important is the social aspect, the human element to the process? And how do you how do you dance with both? Yeah, that's a great question. I think the answer is absolutely vital. I think if you look at the design of these technology, technology is at all, right, it's agnostic in its in in its nature, but not its application. So the first thing is we we as Czech cocaine, many of our member companies, recognize that you need to work really closely with the community,

the technology impacts and you need to bait, safe, ethical, responsible design into these technologies. Really, really important and maybe increasingly so. but the other thing I'd say is actually on the other end of the spectrum when it comes to adoption. So we are doing increasingly a lot of work around public perceptions of emerging technologies because building the world's leading robotic X or Y is fantastic. It happens to the UK, great. And if the company stays instead of moving the board, great.

And we saw all these problems, great. We produce an ex-world leading company in X or Y. if the public don't adopt it, then we're back to square one. And now more than ever, we need to tell a compelling, a positive, but a, crucially, I think a realistic story about how technologies applied in a right way can lead to tangible results for people's lives. It can drive growth and productivity in the economy,

but it can help you care your LD relative, or it can lower your energy bills or whatever it is, whatever people care about. Technology is a key part of the puzzle, and we're not very good at talking about that in a way that makes sense to normal people. I love it. It's a big, big mission, Roy.

I love that you're embarking on. I love that you're leading it. I would love to stay in touch and even participate potentially in some of the things you're doing. It really lights us up and is part of the work that we're already doing. So thanks for joining us today, man.

It's been great. Roy, just before you go, could I ask you just in like 20, second to say what is tech UK because I think that we probably need to actually define that at some point. So Roy, what is tech UK? Good question. So tech UK is the UK's technology trade body or trade association. So we're basically a collection of just over 1,100 tech companies and we bring the sector together. We showcase examples of best practice and we push government for policy strategy regulation that is shaped by industry.

with the mission to make the world the best place to develop and deploy technologies thank you and could ask one last favour would you mind and you don't have to do this but we all ask all I guess to do this

because one day we might actually have an advertising marketing budget could you say I'm I am Rory the emerging tech lead for tech UK and I think on paper with Mark and Jeremy absolutely please I'm yeah

I'm Rory I'm Tucky K's head of emerging technology and innovation, and I think on paper with Mark and Jeremy. Awesome. Thank you. You're on mute, Jeremy. Yeah, I'm going to hit stop here, guys. Rory, thanks for joining.

Do me a favor. Make sure your local uploads so we can get the best quality of the video. Let me stop it here.