From the floor at Cambridge Tech Week 2026
Having attended Cambridge Tech Week for the past few years, it’s been fascinating to see how the event has evolved alongside the innovation ecosystem it represents. What stood out this year was looking beyond Cambridge’s success as a technology cluster and exploring what we can achieve by building stronger connections across the UK and internationally.
It felt particularly fitting that this shift coincided with Cambridge Wireless rebranding to CWConnected. The organisation describes its new identity as connecting organisations, people, knowledge and ideas.
Walking around Cambridge Tech Week, you could see that happening in practice.
Tuesday: from breakthrough technology to the infrastructure powering it
Tuesday’s ‘Visionary Tech Day’ brought together founders, investors, researchers and policymakers to explore the technologies shaping the next decade.
Under the theme “How Deep Tech Changes the World”, discussions focused on how frontier technologies are moving out of the lab and into the real world. Ilana Wisby from Cambridge Innovation Capital joined the panel to discuss what it takes to turn breakthrough science into a scalable deep-tech company, while Innovation Alley showcased 50 businesses putting that innovation into practice.
As ever, much of the value of Cambridge Tech Week happened outside the formal programme too. The evening took us to the Tech Leaders Dinner and CommonAI’s event, continuing conversations from throughout the day and creating plenty of new ones.
Wednesday: how does brilliant science become a global company?
Startup to Scaleup Day tackled one of the UK tech sector’s perennial questions: how do we turn world-class innovation into world-class companies?
“The (UK) Deep Tech Playbook (2026–2030)”, moderated by Joanne Hosker from Northern Gritstone, explored what deep-tech businesses will need over the next five years, from investment and capital structures to international partnerships.
Against the backdrop of growing debate around the pace and safety of AI development, Calum Chace, Co-Founder of Conscium, and Paula Rogers-Brown explored what it means to build companies in the age of increasingly intelligent machines. Their conversation explored what it means to build businesses as AI systems become increasingly autonomous and capable, moving from questions around agent verification and control through to the much stronger possibility of sentient or conscious machines. The discussion also touched on the forthcoming book, Perspectives on Machine Consciousness.
Thursday: going deeper
Thursday took us into the Tech Deep Dives, with the team splitting time across the Quantum & AI programme at the Guildhall and Med Tech & Health Tech at Queen’s College.
At the AI and quantum event, sessions explored the hard problems driving adoption, the journey from proof of concept to deployment, responsible development and the road to 2030. Meanwhile, the Med Tech & Health Tech programme looked at how new technologies can move from innovation to real-world patient impact.
Of course, to round off a day of deep thought, we continued some of those conversations at the Gala Drinks reception at the Graduate Hotel. It was a great chance to catch up with people we had met throughout the week and reflect on the ideas that had kept cropping up across the programme. After a packed few days, it felt like the perfect way to close out the main Cambridge Tech Week programme.
From the Cambridge cluster to connected ecosystems
What stood out at Cambridge Tech Week 2026 was a growing focus on connecting Cambridge’s strengths with other ecosystems. International delegations and initiatives such as the Cambridge x Manchester partnership reflected a broader ambition to build stronger links across the UK and internationally.
That was perhaps that was the clearest takeaway from the week: the talent, research and ideas are already here. The next opportunity is to connect them more effectively, amplifying the UK’s strengths rather than developing in isolation.
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We’re proud to be a partner of Cambridge Tech Week, and it has been a delight to work alongside Michaela Eschbach, CEO of CWConnected, and her team. We’d love to see you next year at the event, held from 27th September – 1st October 2027.