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Digital Catapult > Our ambition

Who we are

Our ambition

Digital Catapult accelerates the practical application of deep tech innovation to equip the UK to be future ready.

We accelerate the practical application of deep tech innovation to drive innovation, enhance competitiveness, and create a more prosperous future for the UK. By bridging the gap between cutting-edge research and real-world deployment, we empower businesses, industries, and society to harness the full potential of emerging technologies.

  • We solve what matters by shaping and de-risking the early adoption of deep tech innovation in the form of products, services and solutions.
  • We partner for progress to deliver transformational deep tech solutions.
  • We challenge our partners purposefully to push new deep tech frontiers inclusively, responsibly and sustainably.

Our team work at the forefront of deep tech, from artificial intelligence and quantum computing to advanced networks and immersive experiences. Through collaboration with industry, government, investors and academia, we unlock commercial opportunities and create new market pathways for startups with pioneering solutions that drive sustainable economic growth.

Our approach is hands-on and impact-driven. We provide access to state-of-the-art facilities, expert knowledge and funding opportunities, ensuring that breakthrough technologies translate into tangible economic and social benefits for the long-term. By fostering a thriving ecosystem of innovators, investors, and policymakers, we enable our partners to think differently, build resilience and achieve success by challenging purposefully.

With a focus on sustainability, inclusivity, and economic resilience, Digital Catapult is committed to transforming the UK into a leader in deep tech adoption. Together, we are building a smarter, more connected, and future-ready nation.

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What is deep tech?

Deep tech refers to breakthrough technologies rooted in advanced scientific or engineering innovations that require extensive research and development, early-stage capital investment, and long development timelines before achieving successful commercialisation. These technologies typically involve complex development challenges and generate intellectual property that is difficult to reproduce, often disrupting existing markets or creating entirely new ones. Examples of deep tech include artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, photonics, and elements of advanced connectivity including Open radio access networks (O-RAN).

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Supporting and enabling deep tech companies to scale

Accelerating early-stage deep tech investment and enabling access to advanced facilities, research and development capabilities, and innovation programmes to help businesses grow and to take the products, services and experiences of the future to market. Our work helps maintain the UK’s position as a global competitor in deep tech, in addition to increasing investor knowledge about advanced technologies and confidence to invest in entrepreneurs and startups, which are helping create new products and services that address imbalances between supply and demand.

We offer tailored activities for entrepreneurs and small businesses to support their growth journeys:

  • Business growth accelerators
  • Investment readiness support
  • Accelerating industry partnerships
  • Access to R&D capabilities
  • Taking products to commercialisation
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Improving UK industrial supply chain resilience

Increasing supply chain resilience to grow inward investment, creating new supply chain ecosystems that deliver export growth, and supporting the green transition of supply chains in critical sectors.

Our work in this area includes international initiatives to transform global import and export processes and industry-led programmes to address critical minerals shortages and build a sustainable circular economy for waste textiles.

By creating these new supply chain ecosystems, we’re helping to forge deeper and closer partnerships between traditional industries and disruptive startups and SMEs.

  • Creating new UK-based supply chain ecosystems that deliver export growth;
  • Inward investment into the UK supply chain;
  • Innovative new digital supply chain businesses launched and scaled.
ambition-advancing-data

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

Increase diversity, investment and deployment of industrial research and development for future UK communications systems, and enable more resilient, secure connectivity. Future digital connectivity is underpinned by data, networks and artificial intelligence and is essential for the adoption of deep tech.

Our work at the forefront of future networks technologies like 5G, 6G and Open RAN, coupled with our expertise in applied artificial intelligence, is supporting increased investment in industrial research and development for future communications systems, boosting open, multi-vendor, resilient and secure networks, which are key to critical national infrastructure, and creating sovereign capabilities and opportunities for growth in deep tech.

Our interventions are helping to:

  • Support national security;
  • Develop a community of commercial partners, adoption partners and specific industry partners; and
  • Develop UK future telecoms global leadership.