Building an AI database for life on Earth – Glen Gowers, Co- Founder, Basecamp Research

Jane Wakefield talks to Simon McIntosh-Smith about the role the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing is playing as the UK builds it own AI economy. The supercomputer is the UK’s fastest - and we discuss its size, why it is helping monitor a herd of dairy cows, and how the centre is dealing with the challenges of power-hungry AI. 

Dr Anne Lane, chief executive officer of UCL Ventures, discusses why commercialising research at British universities remains a challenge despite significant will and the enormous impact of spending money on cutting-edge research.  UCL Ventures, formerly UCL Business, is the commercialisation arm of one of the world’s most prestigious universities. 

Katie King, co-founder and chief executive of BioOrbit, discusses how her company is building pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities designed to operate in space and why that could fundamentally transform how the production of medicine works. BioOrbit is a British space tech company that aims to use the irreplicable conditions of outer space to improve the development of drugs that could massively shape how humans treat some of Earth’s most dangerous conditions. 

Basecamp Research’s co-founder Glen Gowers discusses the firm’s ambitious plans to sequence a trillion genes. Gowers talks about how he lived his business idea by taking a portable lab onto an icecap, how he defied investor’s advice and employed field scientists and diplomats ahead of computer scientists, and how he hoped the firm will one day help solve the antibiotic resistance crisis in healthcare.

Chris Donnelly, co-founder of Searchable, discusses the wild ride of growing a business in a matter of months to a valuation of $85m. He shares his thoughts on the radical overhaul to search announced by Google and offers tips of what every brand, big or small, needs to know in the age of AI and we hear about the not often talked about dark side of starting a business and how it can be undermined by rivals. 

Virgin StartUp’s managing director Andy Fishburn discusses how the non-profit is helping a new generation of entrepreneurs. He talks about its programme designed specifically for dyslexic entrepreneurs, what he thinks we need to do to make Britain a better place to scale, and why a simple walk in the park with 100 founders proved to be a powerful experience.

Michael Herron, the CEO of Atos UK and Ireland, discusses what keeps him awake at night, how Atos is moving towards a human/AI agent world and why he is an optimist about his sons’ futures in the job market. Plus, Herron discusses the rising costs of powering AI and Atos’s surprising role in the Premier League, something that has impressed his 14-year-old son far more than his lead job at Atos.

Greg Jackson reflects on his journey building one of the UK’s largest double unicorns Octopus Energy. He reflects on how he wishes he had started the firm earlier and explains some of his unique ways of running a company, from how a telling off in a previous job made him realise the power of people in an organisation to why he has no HR department. Plus, he discusses how the firm is using AI, including a cautionary tale about how an over-enthusiastic AI system started selling customers a product which didn’t exist.

Emily Turner, CEO of HSBC Innovation Banking UK discusses what makes it a go-to bank for start-ups and how her natural optimism means she sees plenty to celebrate in the UK tech scene, from more and more deals happening outside London, to the impact of AI and why she thinks we should celebrate an influx of foreign capital. 

The Right Honourable Ian Murray, MP and Minister of State at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology discusses the challenges that lie ahead in implementing AI both in government and wider society. He explains why some projects were abandoned and how government procurement is now being refocused on frontier technologies.   Murray talks about the practical applications of AI, from introducing AI tutors to help some of the most disadvantaged pupils and the call for edtech firms to help make that a reality to the ways the NHS is using the tech. The minister also discusses the “disappointing” decision from OpenAI to abandon its Stargate project but urges the sector to “concentrate on the 90% that is going really well”.