Industrial Strategy for the UK

A strategy to grow, empower, make resilient, and secure all of UK's industrial sectors. This perspective is based on experience of many innovation paths and companies including RealVNC, lowRISC, and especially CommonAI where this approach has been established and is being followed.

Perspective

1.    All aspects of wealth creation, in today's economy, are now almost completely dependent on digital technologies, in particular AI.

2.  Examples of dependency include car or chip production in the manufacturing sector, health data in the health sector, access to case law and judgements in the legal sector, as well as products in software technologies themselves.

3.   To maximise the benefits that can come from these technologies requires scale which can be achieved and delivered more readily and cheaply by collaboration.

4.   The Industrial Strategy will incentivise the creation of a new kind of national infrastructure as a collaborative public-private partnership - in the context of the UK as a Digital Commons (UKDC) of bedrock digital assets.

Concept

1.    A sector-by-sector infrastructure of underpinning components consisting of programs, data, systems, design examples, tutorials, maintenance, and support. An AI related strategy is particularly important.

2.    Industry, the service sector, the not-for-profit sector, and academia are all incentivised and contribute.

3.    The UKDC provides the underpinning technologies and makes it easier to start a venture. Companies retain and keep as private whatever differentiating IP they possess but collaborate on the underpinnings.

4.    UKDC implementation is based on not-for-profit engineering companies which cannot be bought and therefore will remain in the UK.

5.    The industrial strategy is catalysed and accelerated by government, while resources must be largely provided by the private sector.

6.  Over time there is a build-up of knowledge, knowhow, and practical skills by users who take advantage and contribute to the UKDC infrastructure. Such human capital is going to be largely sticky to the UK.

7.    Inherently there is equal opportunity for all geographic and societal parts of the UK because the UKDC infrastructure is available anywhere there is broadband. The need for internal migration is reduced and business opportunities with consequent growth are empowered to flourish anywhere.

Operation

1.    The use of Community Interest Companies (CIC) is central to the industrial strategy. In most ways these are conventional companies with a command line which can deliver industrial outputs. They provide the core engineering effort and coordination of partners. At the same time, they do not have shareholders so cannot be bought and will remain UK assets. In some ways they are the modern-day equivalent of National Labs'.

2.    The Boards of Directors can be incentivised to deliver robust products.

3.    Participants in individual CICs are partners with their own commercial reasons for participation and support.

4.  Such partners form the Technical Committees which decide roadmaps.

5.    Participants have privilege by control of roadmaps, early access to results, as well as sharing costs. They benefit from a collective approach to areas such as cybersecurity.

6.    The components making up the UKDC are likely to be open sourced after a period because they are not the basis of competitive differentiation. Business reasons may well dictate wider promulgation and landgrabs.

7.    Contributors such as regulation agencies can participate without appearing biased.

8.    Dual-use actors may well find CICs attractive intermediary organisations.

9.    Governance is transparent so such organisations are trustworthy and seen as honest brokers.

Incentives

1.    Companies already have incentives to collaborate and form coalitions. In the past this has been done, for example, around standards. The UKDC is a forward-looking contemporary version.

2.    Government can provide incentives in the form of R&D tax credits which are specifically for collaboration. Sign-off to the UKDC codebase provides a robust contribution audit.

3.    Private venture capital is attracted by a quicker path to growth for new ventures they fund.

4.  Companies receiving government support are encouraged to use the UKDC and join the industrial strategy.

5.   The public sector is encouraged to use products from companies participating in the industrial strategy.

6.    Research funding agencies make participation in the UKDC a condition of their funding.

7.    Universities are incentivised to contribute and use the UKDC. Direct contributions can be rewarded financially and are a form of impact, while use is intrinsically attractive by facilitating better research outputs.

Outcomes

1.   A burgeoning, self-sustaining, industrial coalition and UK Digital Commons infrastructure for wealth creation and growth. Many more companies able to enter the innovation race and flourish.

2.    More assured, efficient, and trustworthy technologies easily available to fuel UK competitiveness.

3.    Reduced reliance on the vagaries of international players and governments.

4.  A mid-term and long-term strategy relevant in all political circumstances.

5.  Imagine a world where access is democratised whether you are an ordinary citizen, a start-up, or an existing enterprise, in the same way as exists today for roads or electricity.

Sir Andy Hopper
07.01.2026
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