What will determine if Britain succeeds or fails in the next 20 years? Listen to Ian Hogarth, as government ministers, experienced entrepreneurs and investors do, and the answer is simple: back the new breed of patriotic, ambitious tech founders who want to make the country wealthy again.
Many observers of Britain’s technology scene rue losing DeepMind to Google in 2014. Its capable founders had ambitious plans and could not find anyone in Britain who had the vision and cash to help them make them happen. They sold for £400 million when a cheque from the government or a smart domestic investor could have seen DeepMind become Britain’s OpenAI — the latter, set up in 2015, was valued at $500 billion last year.
Why let history repeat itself, argues Hogarth, who founded the concert discovery app Songkick, which he sold to Warner Music in 2017. He went on to cofound the venture capital firm Plural, become chair of Phasecraft, a promising quantum software firm, and chair the government’s AI Security Institute, which advises on AI risks.
“If you’re lucky enough to be a country that starts to see something emerge that could be [trillion dollar in] scale, it feels fairly obvious to me that you need to do something about it,” Hogarth says. “It still to me feels tragic that nobody in the UK really realised how important DeepMind was.” While DeepMind’s cofounders Sir Demis Hassabis and Shane Legg are exceptional, others are following in their path, inspired by what the pair have achieved. In response the government should get behind them, Hogarth says. It can do that in a number of powerful ways, just as the Americans and Chinese already do. Sir Demis Hassabis of DeepMind, which was sold to Google in 2014 CHRIS MCANDREW FOR THE TIMES “The primary driver of economic growth in the UK was the City and finance. That has been superseded by technology, globally,” he says. “Fundamentally what the UK needs is a government that has an understanding of technology embedded in every aspect of what it does. It’s not a bolt-on advisory council but actually a mindset that this is something we have to win. “You want the prime minister to be waking up thinking about who are the five companies that could really, really matter. This is actually the meat and potatoes of the next 20 years of the UK’s success or failure.” Where possible, government spending should be directed at this small group of “winners” to help create $100 billion-plus national tech champions, he argues. Giving lucrative computer contracts to Microsoft, Google, Nvidia and the like, or drone contracts to US defence companies, actively hinders the development of their UK-based rivals. • A third of British businesses plan to invest in AI in 2026 As an example of good practice Hogarth points to Germany’s decision to set aside €1 trillion over the next decade to accelerate its defence industrial base, support its technology base and increase its energy independence. “That procurement pull is part of why you see this explosion in interest in funding European defence start-ups.” Britain should adopt similar national missions, he says, citing the example of the NHS. “If we made a national mission to figure out how to accelerate our best medical start-ups via procurement through the NHS, I think we would create something extraordinary. That requires state capacity, but it is a challenge a great government should set itself.” In a well-received essay for the Financial Times in 2024, Hogarth set Europe the challenge to build a trillion-dollar tech firm. He thinks progress is being made, with more promising companies reaching valuations that suggest they have a stab or making it: “The chances of another $10 billion company coming out of the UK this year is higher than last year.” • UK is falling behind in the use of AI, says Google chief But he is also clear that progress is relative. The US, he points out, is more focused on winning than Britain and is pulling ahead. Donald Trump’s administration is alive to using federal policy to support the country’s tech giants. “That is what we should be obsessed about,” Hogarth says. “Silicon Valley has to a meaningful extent gained considerable influence over the White House. It is a big development that has happened in the past year.” Some changes in the UK have caught Hogarth’s eye: he likes the expansion of venture capital and improved share option incentives announced in the budget, as well as the use of “advanced market commitment” public procurement to give domestic tech firms the confidence to invest. “What [this] does is let the state take an active role in laying out a vision, but it also allows for competition for the prize.” Hogarth: “The UK needs a government that has an understanding of technology embedded in every aspect of what it does” PLURAL In November the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology committed to buy £100 million of advanced chips and computer systems, contingent on the products meeting agreed technical specifications. The US, through agencies such as Darpa, has used this mechanism to good effect for years. But more needs to be done to market Britain as a great place to live, to tackle the perception that petty crime is rife in the capital and to get behind a select few individuals who, like Hassabis and Legg at DeepMind, show promise. Like the scientists in Jurassic Park, Hogarth believes in the power of keystone species: individuals who have the capability to go all the way in business. The Elon Musks and Jeff Bezoses of this world. • Keeping control of AI: the chronic risks to UK data infrastructure Hogarth says Britain should bend over backwards to accommodate those following in their footsteps. “You just need one or two extraordinary individuals who have the talent to end up in the situation where they could build a trillion-dollar company and who are willing to keep going. It takes this quite extraordinarily driven person, with the ambition to build something very large. “There’s an extra prize for that British founder, which is that it is going to be such an incredible thing to build the first trillion-dollar company in the UK. The impact on this country will be huge. There are some founders in our portfolio, I can just see it in them, they want that.” He points to James Dacombe, who founded the neurotechnology company CoMind in 2018 while still a teenager. Plural, Hogarth’s firm, led a $60 million investment round last October. “[Dacombe is] a British founder with just extraordinary ambition. [The country] has a number of founders like him where you can feel there really is no ceiling on their ambition. They just want to go as far as they possibly can. “What’s exciting is I can see a renewed patriotism beneath that. They understand that it is consequential for this country that they build as big as they possibly can.” Overall, Britain needs to toughen up, fight its own corner, and be less naive in its dealings with inward investors and rival tech hubs. “The biggest risk is we like to pretend tech is this big happy positive sum game where there is no competition,” Hogarth says. “In practice we are competing. If our most incredible founders can’t raise the capital they need, can’t find the talent they need, can’t get the regulation that they need to scale, then they will move to the US.” Explore the Sunday Times 100 Tech — interviews, company profiles and more
