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    • About us
          • Digital Catapult is a deep tech innovation organisation driving business value by accelerating the application of advanced technologies.

            3,000

            Companies supported since 2018

            £555m

            Investment raised by startups since 2018

            20+

            Advanced technology facilities nationwide

    • Our ambition
          • Our ambition is to realise the practical application of deep tech through four interventions

            ambition-scale-deep-tech

            Enabling UK deep tech companies to scale

            ambition-improving-supply-chain

            Improving UK industrial supply chain resilience

            ambition-decarbonisation

            Driving industrial decarbonisation

            ambition-advancing-data

            Advancing UK development and use of data driven and open future networks

    • Our people
          • susan-bowen

            We are an organisation made up of almost 300 innovators.

            We pride ourselves on the skilled and talented people from varied backgrounds that make up our team – we harness the expertise, perspectives and connections of people of more than 40 nationalities, thereby bringing together a diversity of skills, experience and backgrounds.

            Susan Bowen

            CEO of Digital Catapult

    • Our places
    • Startups and scaleups
          • bfp cover

            Black Founders Programme

            The Black Founders Programme is an accelerator targeted at pre-seed or seed stage, Black-founded companies creating innovative products and services...
            ORCA-020

            Quantum Technology Programme

            Separating opportunity from hype to understand industry challenges that may be best solved by quantum computing.
    • Government and Public sector
          • 3d,Illustration,Of,Hydrogen,H2,Molecule,Model,-,Clean,Energy

            Hydrogen Innovation Programme

            Discover more about the the Hydrogen Innovation Initiative and the deployment of hydrogen technologies to address pressing energy and environmental...
            London,Office,Building,For,Network,And,Future,Concept

            Digitalising Energy Programme

            Energy Systems Catapult and Digital Catapult have partnered to explore the groundwork for a UK-wide initiative to accelerate a digitalised,...
          • Banner website digital twin 3

            UK Digital Twin Centre

            Delivered by Digital Catapult and funded by Belfast Region City Deal and Innovate UK, the UK Digital Twin Centre makes digital twins more accessible and meaningful in the UK. It actively enable industries and innovators to safely embrace, explore and realise their dynamic power.
            Find out more UK Digital Twin Centre
    • Corporates and Industry
          • Transparent,Clear,Colorful,Glass,Or,Liquid,Waves.,Neon,Pattern,Abstract

            Green Hydrogen Certifier

            This report looks at the Green Hydrogen Certifier - an end-to-end demonstration of a potential digital certification solution for hydrogen production...
    • Academia
    • Investors
          • bfp cover

            Black Founders Programme

            The Black Founders Programme is an accelerator targeted at pre-seed or seed stage, Black-founded companies creating innovative products and services...
    • Services
          • Bespoke software & data systems

            Developing proof-of-concept demonstrators to showcase the viability and benefit of deep tech solutions.

            Platform engineering service

            Designing, building and operating physical and digital facilities. Providing testbeds for deep tech discovery and experimentation.

            Technology & innovation consultancy

            Consultancy services helping organisations addresses market preparedness gaps, evaluate financial viability and navigate technology change management.

          • Acceleration programmes for business

            Creating acceleration programmes to support businesses.Helping them grow through mentorship, technology support, networking, and investment opportunities.

            Facilitating and convening

            Bringing together and developing ecosystems of companies to explore, test and demonstrate how deep tech works in practice.

    • Technologies
    • Facilities
    • Opportunities
          • newsletter

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    • Current interventions
          • ORCA-020

            Quantum Technology Programme

            Separating opportunity from hype to understand industry challenges that may be best solved by quantum computing.
          • Banner website digital twin 3

            UK Digital Twin Centre

            Delivered by Digital Catapult and funded by Belfast Region City Deal and Innovate UK, the UK Digital Twin Centre makes digital twins more accessible and meaningful in the UK. It actively enable industries and innovators to safely embrace, explore and realise their dynamic power.
            Find out more UK Digital Twin Centre
    • Case studies
          • Black Founders Programme Showcase event.

            SymphoMe: case study

            Part of the FutureScope's Black Founders Programme, Digital Catapult supported Nyangibo Gallery to get investment ready and receive business expertise
    • Events
    • Blogs
    • Publications
          • Glass globe encircled by verdant forest flora, symbolizing nature, environment, sustainability, ESG, and climate change awareness, generative ai

            Get involved

            Be the first to know about upcoming resources, events and activities in the BridgeAI programme.
            Glass globe encircled by verdant forest flora, symbolizing nature, environment, sustainability, ESG, and climate change awareness, generative ai

            The Programme

            Find out more about how the Innovate UK BridgeAI programme and how it aims to stimulate the adoption AI and...
    • Press releases
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SONIC Labs

The Programme

Supporting vendors accelerate technology development and early stage integration work, with targeted innovation and acceleration activities

Collaborate. Test. Innovate.

SONIC Labs is a commercially-neutral, collaborative, environment for testing interoperability and integration of open, disaggregated and software-centric network solutions and multi-vendor architectures.

We enable and encourage innovative vendors to participate in the UK telecoms sector and facilitate a more rapid path towards deployment in UK networks, by taking early stage standalone products, integrating, and testing the end-to-end system in our groundbreaking testing facilities.

Through rigorous testing and measurement capabilities, SONIC Labs is contributing to the broader ecosystem by creating a path toward a more diverse and competitive supply base.

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SONIC-Labs-launch-Dritan-tour

Collaboration

A place for collaborative, peer-assisted, integration and interoperability testing of products and solutions at a pre-commercial development stage, addressing the challenges of multi-vendor end-to-end solutions.

Find out more about how your company can get involved through our programmes, as a PlugFest participants or a potential client user.

Contact us

Test

We provide a commercially-neutral, multi-tenancy open network testbed providing real world indoor and outdoor scale environments, including test and measurement capabilities.

This is coupled with our team of technical experts who are on hand at every step of the testing process.

Explore our lab and testing sites
SONIC Labs
SONIC-Labs-Ideate-event-2023

Innovate

We support vendors in growing their understanding of the UK Open RAN ecosystem, boosting their networking capabilities with potential customers, identifying how to penetrate the market with their Open RAN product and expanding their knowledge base.

Through a comprehensive series of events, hands-on workshops and webinars, SONIC Labs provides a dynamic space to collaborate, share expertise and learnings, encourage dialogue, explore new market opportunities and develop best practices for Open RAN deployment.

Read more about our Market Readiness Events

The benefits of SONIC Labs

By accelerating technology development, SONIC Labs supports individual Open RAN companies to grow and reach new markets, in addition to driving positive change across the UK and global telecoms ecosystem.

Enable and encourage innovative suppliers of 5G Open RAN products to participate in the UK telecoms ecosystem

Facilitate interoperability testing and collaboration across supplier products that may not otherwise have been tested for interoperability

Evaluate critical and longer-term advanced open and interoperable technologies, in mobile, fixed and media networks

Build telecoms skills and expertise in the UK

Provide UK mobile network operators with a pipeline of innovative and competitive suppliers and product, leading to potential cost reductions

Examine the reality of Open RAN and successive relevant technologies to facilitate open interoperability in mobile networks

Encourage growth and investment in the UK telecom sector

Support international companies to participate in the UK Open RAN market

Drive international growth through collaboration with other international Open RAN facilities

Our partners

SONIC Labs is a joint programme between ourselves and Ofcom, funded by DSIT as part of its 5G Diversification Strategy, to foster emergence of new solution providers in the telecom supply chain in the UK.

We are also proud to be members of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) and O-RAN Alliance, in addition to being a European PlugFest Lab host.

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