Digital Catapult celebrates decade of accelerating digital adoption
The catapult has driven earlier adoption in sectors such as telecoms, defence and the creative industries
Digital Catapult, the digital accelerator, celebrated ten years yesterday of fostering innovation, developing new industrial sectors and driving early digital adoption across the UK.
Digital Catapult is part of the Catapult Network, founded in 2013, that supports businesses in transforming ideas into valuable products and services. It is part of a network of technology and innovation centres established by Innovate UK.
Over the last five years, Digital Catapult has helped 174 startups to raise £555 million, engaged with nearly 3,000 companies, and delivered 303 projects and programmes. Since its inception, Digital Catapult has opened 20 facilities across the country and quintupled its headcount from 50 in 2013 to over 250 this year. The amount of private investment raised by companies who have worked with Digital Catapult over the last 10 years is around £4bn.
Digital Catapult has identified three major areas of applied technology where the UK has an opportunity for global leadership. These cross-sector application areas combine advanced digital technologies like 5G and AI to generate tangible benefits in the real world. They are in digital infrastructure, virtual environments and in digital supply chains.
Across these three areas, Digital Catapult is driving over £270m worth of major collaborative R&D and commercial programmes, which are helping hundreds of companies to be successful early adopters, increasing interoperability between their products, reducing carbon emissions and demonstrating the market value of new approaches. One such company is Carbon Re, profiled by Computing earlier this year as part of several articles focusing on industrial decarbonization, and the application of AI to reduce the emissions embodied in buildings and materials.
The AI space was an early focus for Digital Catapault, with the Machine Intelligence Garage, programme being one of the first accelerator programmes in the world to prioritise AI ethics and responsible innovation amongst AI startups. It laid the foundations for Innovate UK's £100 million BridgeAI programme, which Digital Catapult is delivering in partnership with the Hartree Foundation and the Alan Turing Institute.
Digital Catapult has grown its presence across the country with the opening of a Northern Ireland centre in 2016 and the subsequent launch of the Smart Nano Manufacturing programme, funded by UKRI's Strength in Places fund, the launch of the £8 million PROTO studio funded by Gateshead City Council, and in 2022 the MyWorld programme launched with the goal to boost the UK economy by £223 million, with creative technology development focused on the West of England.
Commenting on the ten-year anniversary, Jeremy Silver, CEO of Digital Catapult, said:
"Reaching our ten-year milestone is a testament to the talent, expertise and vision of an amazing team. I am immensely proud of the impact we are making in a range of emerging industrial sectors such as open networking in telecoms, immersive media and quantum. There is still so much more to do. As we look to the future and the increasing challenges of climate change, we will continue to drive innovation, foster collaboration, increase investor confidence to support the growth of the UK economy and help ensure that the digital transition is also a green transition."