Summit Spotlight – AI & Digital technology

In a series of five Summit Spotlights, we’re distilling the expert perspectives of our panellists shared on the day to help continue the conversation and inspire even more collaboration.

On the panel

• Sarah Windrum, Future Mobility Cluster Lead, Horiba Mira
• Robert Franks, CEO, WM5G
• Marika Beckford, Innovation Manager, Birmingham Metropolitan College
• Yiannis Maos, Founder and CEO, TechWM
• Jon McLoone, Director of Technical Services, Communication and Strategy, Wolfram Europe

On the agenda

The Midlands accounts for 11% of companies in the UK’s £4bn artificial intelligence (AI) sector and more than a quarter of domestic capital investment in digital industries in 2017-2021. With an emerging cluster of well over 300 AI companies employing 11,000 people, the Midlands is in a good position to capitalise on the AI opportunity. How can the region harness the power of new technologies to accelerate regional productivity and inclusive growth?

Identifying challenges

Delivering data skills
As evidenced by the rise of generative AI as a mainstream productivity tool, AI technology is rapidly expanding beyond traditionally tech-bases sectors.

As new technology uptake accelerates across sectors, a broad range of people will need to develop data and AI skills to avoid being left behind by digital transformation. Adequate skills provision is therefore crucial to seizing the potential of new technology to drive inclusive growth.

Increased demand on digital infrastructure
Machine-learning requires vast amounts of RAM and often relies on data being transmitted through the cloud. Other applications of AI, such as chatbots, also need a lot of processing power. Digital connectivity is therefore critical to unlock the AI opportunity.

The Midlands Engine explored this digital theme in our March Economic Briefing. To hear more from panellist Sarah Windrum, you can watch the recording of the fascinating discussion here.

You can also download the full write up of the briefing here.

Exploring opportunities

Leveraging ‘collaboraction’ to deliver the skills need
The term ‘collaboraction’ (collaboration in action) was coined – where businesses and higher and further education providers need to continue working together to help deliver the skills needed for the AI revolution. An example of this already in action is Skills West Midlands.

Connecting education and industry means that the skills challenges experienced by companies can inform the curriculum, realigning the skills supply with what the economy needs.

Exploring the growing possibilities of AI and overcoming the creativity gap
Once confined to automating physical processes and analysing past data, rapidly advancing technology now enables us to automate repetitive intellectual processes, transfer information without human input, optimise decision-making and even make predictions about the future. These new capabilities make AI applicable to solving more problems than ever before – and the possibilities will only keep growing.

Panellists advocated creativity, suggesting that a little outside-the-box thinking could discover new ways to use the data we already have, and even entirely new questions we should be asking data science and machine-learning.

The Midlands Economic Summit is the Midlands’ largest pan-regional business forum. Convening over 500 business, academic and public-sector leaders, the Summit provides a unique space to celebrate the region’s strengths and discuss its strategic priorities.

This year’s summit, held on 10 June at the Vox Conference Centre Birmingham, explored the theme of ‘Driving Investment, Powering Growth’ through a diverse programme of expert speakers and panels.