Response to the UK Modern Industrial Strategy

The UK already leads in foundational science and engineering, from physics-based simulation and AI to autonomous robotics and real-time digital twins. Applying these at scale across the eight high-growth sectors and beyond requires deep, applied expertise and specialist compute resources to match.

The industrial strategy is right to recognise that growth will come from targeted sectors and empowered regions. Unlocking these will require more than incentives. Growth demands infrastructure that enables us to be makers of technologies such as AI, rather than takers. We must grow and connect existing digital infrastructure based in the UK, along with general-purpose academic machines and partnerships with international providers.

To deliver on this, the UK must:

• Connect and invest in existing data centres that meet secure industrial needs
• Build regional innovation capacity to develop, test and transfer tools into real-world settings, supporting technology adoption across sectors
• Develop a skilled workforce to design, scale and govern emerging technologies
• Apply the latest techniques from AI, physics, digital twins and more to support critical system-level decision making
• Prepare for the next wave of embodied intelligence, including agentic AI, robotics, and quantum, set to reshape our physical and industrial world.

Whether it’s creating virtual factories for aerospace, simulation-led design for net-zero infrastructure, or autonomous robotics for supply chain resilience, they will all require specialist digital expertise and architecture to create scalable value.

With corporate data now a critical asset, ensuring the provision of industrially secure AI, underpinned by compute resources under UK control, is more important than ever.

The cadence of disruption is now monthly, not generational. UK industry needs a scalable capability that can keep pace with that rate of change; this is a real risk.

‘The UK is also failing to see the benefits of innovation diffuse across the whole economy. As well as invention, adoption of technologies is critical to economic growth.

Britain often finds itself too regulated to take advantage, too cautious to change course… too reliant on one place… too sluggish to take advantage of transitions.’

CFMS is ideally placed to support government growth. As a national strategic asset, with our Bristol-based industrially secure data centre, high-quality skills provision and deep technological expertise, we can propel the technology adoption agenda.

But we can’t do it alone. 

We see huge value in connecting the wider asset base in the region. The West of England is already a national asset and a world leader in several areas, such as:

• Advanced materials
• Manufacturing
• Digital technologies – quantum, AI and cyber security
• Creative and immersive technology
• Health and life sciences

When connected and capitalising on individual strengths, this diverse innovation ecosystem strongly positions the region to support national delivery.

We look forward to playing our part, alongside UKRI, DSIT and our partners, in building the capability the UK will need to not only imagine the future but also model, make and export it. To do this, we must have specialist digital skills and infrastructure, especially in the UK’s critical and growing sectors: Energy, Defence, Aerospace, Transport, and Space.