As London Tech Week kicks off, Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates & Global Tech Advocates, gives us the inside scoop on the industry with his daily diary
We are at the halfway point of London Tech Week 2024, and events – both headline and fringe – are truly in full swing.
Today has marked the final day of proceedings at Olympia. The new venue has certainly not disappointed, ably playing host to tech leaders from a plethora of different specialisms, occupations and international hubs.
Amidst the excitement of this year’s London Tech Week, evidence of the strength of the UK tech sector has been demonstrated by news surrounding Raspberry Pi’s shares, which have jumped by more than a third since its debut on the London Stock Exchange on Monday.
Up bright and early this morning for an appearance on Bloomberg Daybreak, I was reminded of the pull that London still wields, meeting Michael Intrator, the CEO of CoreWeave – who had flown in from the US.
Today also marked a special day for our Global Tech Advocates community, as leaders from 18 different regions and countries joined our GTA Leaders and Advisory Board breakfast event and shared their differing perspectives on the tech sector in 2024.
With events underway and tech week attendees hopefully now settled into the hustle and bustle of the capital, it feels appropriate to discuss a tech vertical that should be at the top of the UK’s priority list – semiconductors.
Semiconductors: Powering London Tech Week
Semiconductors – or chips as they are more colloquially described – rightly continue to dominate policy agendas both in the private and public sectors.
In this sense, London Tech Week 2024 has been no different. Yesterday, David Moore, the CEO of Pragmatic Semiconductor – one of the UK’s shining lights in this vertical took to the main stage in Olympia for an exclusive fireside chat.
Meanwhile, on Friday, TLA is honoured to be a Community Partner for the all important Semi Impact Forum at The Royal Society.
Welcoming a diverse group of talented leaders in this space, particular excitement is already being generated by the Special Guest Speaker of Honor – Professor Konrad Young, the former director of R&D at TSMC who is one of six leaders credited with laying the foundations of TSMC’ remarkable global success.
There are very few, if any, that doubt the importance of this technology today, and it is crucial that this is continually reflected in agendas at the world’s leading tech events.
UK Tech leaders must keep banging the semiconductor drum
It is just over a year since GTA teamed up with techUK and TechWorks to form the Chips Coalition. At the heart of the group’s ambition was to ensure an unwavering commitment by policy makers to developing the UK’s chip capabilities.
The establishment of the Semiconductor Institute last month is a welcome sign that policy makers have headed these calls, and the Chips Coalition stands ready to support its work over the coming years
The sector has come some way in the last year and there have been some pleasing signs that the UK is ready to throw its weight behind developing our local sector.
Just as the UK has emerged as a global leader in AI, so too can it carve out a niche in the semiconductor supply chain that can ensure a secure place in the global supply of the technology.
With the research capabilities available across our higher education institutions – which have long been the envy of many – it feels remiss that this niche would not be in our R&D capabilities.
This was, after all, where Arm – a Chip business the UK can be proud of – was able to insert itself as a vital player in the global supply chain.
Chips: A strategic imperative
There are few sectors that require international collaboration quite like Chips.
This London Tech Week, representatives from across the global ecosystem have gathered in London, facilitating much needed discussion and hopefully enabling partnerships that will develop over the years to come.
On Monday I had the privilege of meeting a handful of these global leaders at the semiconductor roundtable for the Global Leaders Summit where once again my belief in the ability of this sector to look to the future and navigate the tech landscape was reinforced.
For the UK, the impetus to improve our sector remains as strong as it was a year ago.
It is crucial that the vigour that has driven British AI capabilities over the last year is replicated in chips; the rewards of concerted and consistent effort will pay for years to come.