Event round-up: Digital Infrastructure 2035 report launch

On 16 September, techUK convened industry and government figures at 10 St Bride Street to launch Digital Infrastructure 2035 — The backbone of Britain's future economy. The report argues that digital infrastructure is not an input to the technology sector but the foundational layer on which all future economic activity is built, and that the UK's position is one of genuine strength set against mounting risk. 

The afternoon brought together stakeholders from across government and industry, from operators and infrastructure providers to hyperscalers and compute firms. Across an overview of the report, a keynote speech and two panels, the discussion moved from the report's findings to the harder questions of what it will actually take to build the infrastructure the next decade demands. 

Report overview 

The report treats connectivity, compute and data infrastructure as three interdependent capabilities rather than three separate policy areas, and the case for doing so framed the whole afternoon. The UK has the largest data centre market in Europe, a research base at the frontier of quantum, photonics and neuromorphic computing, and digitally enabled activity worth an estimated £286 billion a year — around 13 per cent of UK GVA. Against that sit industrial electricity prices some 63 per cent above the IEA median, grid connection waits of up to eight years, and a planning system never designed for this kind of development. 

The report sets out twenty-seven recommendations, six of them headline asks, and proposes five tests against which progress to 2035 can be measured. 

Connecting intelligence to economic opportunity 

In his keynote, Paul Alexander, VP and Managing Director of Nokia UK and Ireland, argued that the current wave of AI adoption is, from where he sits, a network wave. Having moved through an era shaped by voice and then one dominated by video, networks now face different demands again as more data travels between the physical world and the systems that make decisions about it. 

What that changes, he suggested, is what we should be asking of infrastructure. Capacity still matters, but so does predictable performance when the network is busy, and continuity when something fails. A business investing in AI needs the whole system to work reliably every working day, and it is that dependability rather than any single technology that determines whether the investment is worth making in the first place. 

He endorsed the report's argument that the experience behind the coverage figures is what counts, and made the case that computing will increasingly run wherever an application needs it to: sometimes in large, centralised facilities, sometimes much closer to where the data is produced. Connecting those environments, and helping customers use them together, is where he sees the work ahead and where the UK's existing infrastructure gives it something real to build on. 

Connectivity as an enabler  

The first panel, chaired by Sophie Greaves, Associate Director for Digital Infrastructure at techUK, took as its starting point one of the report's central findings: being connected and being well served are not the same thing. Emma Shearer, Head of Public Affairs at Virgin Media O2, Paul Alexander of Nokia, and Jesam Eyong, Public Affairs Lead at Cornerstone, brought perspectives spanning operators, vendors and infrastructure providers. 

The session moved beyond headline coverage figures to the harder questions of performance, resilience and the conditions under which networks actually get built and upgraded. The National Planning Policy Framework published in August was welcomed as a genuine step forward, and one the industry has argued for over many years — though much of what happens next depends less on further policy change than on whether planning authorities are equipped and supported to apply it consistently. Running underneath the whole discussion was the cost of power and the time it takes to secure a grid connection, a constraint the second panel returned to as well. 

Building compute at scale 

The second panel, chaired by Kir Nuthi, Head of AI and Data Policy at techUK, moved the discussion to compute. Dominic Stewart, Senior Director for Cloud Engineering at Oracle, Nick Reid, Public Policy Lead at CoreWeave, and Dave Strong, Director of Advisory and Professional Services at HPE, brought perspectives spanning cloud infrastructure, GPU compute and enterprise delivery. 

The session examined what it actually takes to build and sustain compute capability in the UK, and how the demands on that infrastructure are changing as the market matures. Policy designed around one phase of AI development does not automatically suit the next, and the panel tested whether current programmes are flexible enough to move with it. The discussion also looked honestly at where the UK is genuinely exposed rather than simply behind, including its dependence on international supply chains for the hardware everything else rests on. 

Frontier compute and the next phase of work 

Closing the afternoon, Ella Shuter, Junior Programme Manager for Emerging Technology at techUK, introduced the Frontier Compute Focus Series and set out the emerging technology team's work in this space. Photonics, neuromorphic computing and quantum sit at different levels of maturity and serve different applications, but each offers the UK a route to a more robust position in global supply chains, provided research strengths translate into companies that can scale and export. 

techUK is now calling for contributions from members and stakeholders on how the UK can lead on the development and deployment of these technologies, and on how organisations are turning that ambition into practice. 

Looking ahead 

The report is a baseline rather than a conclusion, and several decision points fall within the next eighteen months. The Budget on 28 October arrives alongside reforms to the Green Book that will shape how infrastructure is appraised. The Mobile Market Review remains open. And in 2027 both a Spending Review and NISTA's confirmed refresh of the 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy land together 

Government has set its own markers too: standalone 5G in all populated areas by 2030 and nationwide gigabit-capable broadband by 2032, both now embedded in national planning policy. The distance between those targets and today's coverage is the practical measure of what this decade has to deliver. 

techUK will look to continue this workstream beyond the report as we push government on our recommendations. Members and stakeholders who would like to contribute to that work, or to the Frontier Compute Focus Series, should get in touch with the team.