Tech Industrial Strategy | Economic security | Tony Blair institute
Joined January 2025
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This is a corker of a paper
Jun 11
When I met Will, for perhaps the first time in my life I thought ‘someone get this man a substack’
So pleased that @sci_works can be the venue for his thoughts 💭
Read the paper if you’re interested in how innovation creates prosperity (or doesn’t)
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Technological disruption is inevitable. British prosperity is not.
Rather than talking about tax vs spend / trickle down economics vs 'good growth' / culture wars / ai x copyright etc etc -- can we please start discussing the century defining question which is...
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Can the UK (& europe) sustain its social contract, security, and prosperity in an age of rapid technological change?
institute.global/insights/te…
@KeeganMcB
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People who constantly compare now to the industrial revolution miss the fact that we did not have universal suffrage, and many other things, back then.
That means this time requires better leaders and better political arguments.
ft.com/content/f8379b23-f029…
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"Disruption is inevitable. Prosperity isn't". It couldn't be more important for the UK to get this right @KeeganMcB
Britain can become Europe’s Silicon Valley – but only if political leaders are prepared to seize the opportunity and grip technology for economic growth.
Read more from TBI's @KeeganMcB 👇
independent.co.uk/voices/bri…
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People should be very excited for this.
Jun 8
Today @Lyan82 and I launch SCIENCE WORKS – a new policy and research studio for accelerating progress in British science and tech.
The UK is fundamentally a scientific nation. Our place in the world was built on our creativity and imagination.
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Government AI strategy docs often talk very vaguely about "leveraging data" as a way for middle powers to build comparative advantage.
But what does that actually mean, and what types of datasets are 'leverageable'?
Some rough thoughts - guywj.substack.com/p/how-to-…
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Huge win for uk tech
Jun 3
An Oxford University spin out has just raised a $350m Series C! 🇬🇧
It’s the largest round ever raised by a European Quantum computing company.
The company builds quantum computers using superconducting qubits.
So far it has deployed quantum systems in data centres across London, Tokyo and New York.
Europe is producing a lot of great quantum companies. The difficulty is that they’re often backed by US investors and there’s a risk they could get bought early by US companies early.
Either way it’s a VERY exciting area.
Congrats to the team
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giftarticle.ft.com/giftartic…
I think this piece exemplifies the fact that no one has decided what the UK's industrial strategy is optimising for... scaling national winners or supporting the long tail of SMEs.
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- "Critics have also said larger companies too often secure funding ahead of smaller regional businesses."...
- "...concerns that some have failed to deliver on the goal of supporting regional economic growth and building national champions."
Which is it?
@lhenryli @KeeganMcB
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“Both sides hold weapons of economic or financial mass destruction. But this mutual restraint does not produce peace. It instead produces a permanent environment for sub-threshold geoeconomic aggression.”
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My latest on why the Cold War’s stability-instability paradox is back—and why middle powers like Europe will bear the costs.
guywj.substack.com/p/the-lon…
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Come join us for a TBI x ARIA x Cafe event at London tech week.
We'll be discussing how the UK can build national winners and capture the value of the tech revolution -- with an all star panel including ARIA, NSSIF, Oxford Quantum Circuits, and Local Globe!
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Great FA piece - building a niche doesn't guarantee autonomy for middle powers.
"...niches do not guarantee autonomy. They generate security and prosperity only when plugged into larger systems of protection, technology, finance, and markets"
foreignaffairs.com/united-st…
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"Sometimes the best move is not to build the bomb, but to be able to".
Check out my prizewinning essay on U.S. economic security for ChinaTalk: chinatalk.media/p/a-us-econo….
Opinions my own
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Guy Ward Jackson retweeted
Congratulations @goodwin_ml and team @fractile_ai!
This $220m raise is proof of exceptional British AI bringing investment and jobs to the UK.
Britain has a deep heritage in semiconductors - and we are now renewing it for the age of AI inference 🇬🇧
wsj.com/tech/ai/chips-startu…
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Some personal thoughts on the UK VC and public financing ecosystem -- and how we can optimise for the power law.
Opinions my own.
open.substack.com/pub/guywj/…
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Some low-hanging fruit:
- Back ex-founders to launch funds.
- Build a BBB-SovAI data library to track outcomes.
- Carve out £5bn subunit of the National Wealth Fund to invest in enabling infrastructure for critical technology.
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More low-hanging fruit:
- Outline broad, flexible criteria for what a "national winner" means so we can sing from the same hymn sheet.
- Foreign VC landing scheme to attract top VCs to set up satellite offices in the UK.
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