Opportunities for Growth and Scale-up in UK Photonics
The UK has many of the ingredients needed to become a global force in semiconductors. It has recognised strengths in semiconductor design, advanced packaging, compound semiconductors and photonics, supported by world-class universities, innovative companies and established regional clusters.
Semiconductors are a frontier technology1. They are foundational to modern economies, underpinning sectors including AI, communications, clean energy, transport and defence. That dependence is particularly visible in AI, where growth relies on increasingly advanced hardware to scale.
The UK already has a strong position in semiconductors, with UK-headquartered companies generating more than £4 billion in annual revenue and leading strengths in compound semiconductors, photonics and semiconductor design2.
The UK has strengths in photonics range from fibre optics, optical communications and laser systems to emerging fields including photonic integrated circuits, quantum photonics and neuromorphic photonics. The sector employs more than 84,000 people across 1,400 companies, while its output is projected to grow to £50 billion by 20353. Great ideas developed in the UK are too often manufactured, scaled and commercialised elsewhere.
In photonics, the barriers identified by TechUK include a fragmented cluster ecosystem, funding models that do not always align with the needs of scaling businesses, and insufficient infrastructure to help companies move from prototype to production4.Access to capital and specialist skills are also significant constraints.
The opportunity, therefore, is not simply to create more good ideas. It is to build the infrastructure, supply chains, skills and commercial pathways that allow more of those ideas to become deployable products, successful companies and high-value jobs in the UK.
The role of Semiconductor Catapult
The Semiconductor Catapult addresses a critical gap in the UK’s AI hardware and semiconductor infrastructure. Our key markets are AI infrastructure and defence. Our mission is to accelerate semiconductor technologies from concept to reality, building supply chains that deliver long-term economic benefit to the UK.
We solve the industrial problems that prevent breakthrough technologies moving from the lab into large-scale deployment, helping companies turn innovation into manufacturable, investable and commercially deployable products.
The transition from CSA Catapult to Semiconductor Catapult reflects the breadth of that role, our work now spans silicon, alongside our expertise in compound semiconductors, advanced packaging, system integration, photonics, power electronics, radio frequency and microwave technologies, quantum, testing and validation.
We are the only place in the UK, and one of the few places in Europe, with co located, multidisciplinary teams spanning radio frequency (RF) to microwave, photonics, power electronics, advanced packaging and quantum.
These technologies underpin critical applications across next-generation AI data centres and defence, supported by capital, equipment, proprietary processes and highly skilled engineers.
Serving the whole of the UK market from Newport, Bristol and Glasgow, we work with start-ups, SMEs and larger businesses to reduce risk, solve complex engineering challenges and strengthen sovereign supply chains. We accelerate development, support stronger UK supply chains and drive economic growth and high-value jobs.
The impact is already significant. Since becoming operational in 2018, the Catapult has supported more than 204 projects and worked with 215 organisations. SME customers that have worked with us have subsequently secured £643.8 million in private investment and £196.2 million in public investment. Our work has contributed £600 million in gross value added and supported the creation or safeguarding of 5,938 jobs5.
We are a UK-wide asset, helping companies scale and grow here by translating leadership in research and development into products, manufacturing capability and stronger domestic supply chains.
In June 2026, the UK Government published the AI Hardware Plan. It said Semiconductor Catapult would be “refocused around AI hardware, supporting companies to integrate and validate systems as they move towards deployment”.
We directly address that critical gap by combining world-class engineering expertise, specialist facilities and practical know-how.
From connectivity to capability
The Wales Telecoms Showcase provides an important forum for this conversation. Its programme brings together connectivity, AI hardware, telecommunications, data centres, regional investment and the physical infrastructure needed to support emerging technologies. Planned discussions include the physical layer supporting AI, what AI requires from networks, Wales’s digital infrastructure and the investment needed to support future growth.
Our message at the showcase is that connectivity and computing cannot be considered separately. The development of AI, advanced communications and secure digital infrastructure will depend on the semiconductors, photonics, power systems and integrated hardware beneath them.
In short, we turn UK innovation into capability: transforming concepts into deployable products, stronger companies and more secure, sovereign supply chains.
1. Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (2024), Semiconductor Sector Study.
2. Department for Business and Trade (2025), The UK's Modern Industrial Strategy
3. techUK, Photonics: A Vision for UK Leadership in Light-Based Technologies, 2026
4. Photonics Leadership Group, UK Photonics 2025: The Hidden Economy (2025). The report states that the sector employs 84,800 people across 1,400 companies and is on course to reach £50 billion by 2035
5. Semiconductor Catapult, Annual Impact Outcomes Report 2025/26; Cardiff University, Economic Impact Assessment on behalf of CSA Catapult (2024).
