“The UK has had a long and prosperous history in science and technology. From Alan Turing’s Enigma machine to the discovery of the structure of DNA, the invention of the world wide web and Stephen Hawking’s theories of quantum gravity, Britain’s scientific minds have changed the world.

That heritage continues in the entrepreneurs and start-ups developing the critical technologies of the future. The UK is one of the only three economies in the world with a $1 trillion tech sector, after the US and China. Microsoft recently announced it would invest £2.5 billion in the UK’s AI industry; there are more than 70 start-ups working on semiconductor technology (the most in Europe); and the start-ups Quantum Motion and Oxford Quantum Circuits both raised multimillion-pound rounds in 2023. The UK has more “unicorns” (companies valued at $1 billion or more) than Germany, France and Sweden combined.”