Under this year’s theme, How Deep Tech Changes the World, the newly unveiled agenda goes well beyond simply showcasing technology to ask the harder questions around who controls it, funds it, powers it, regulates it and, crucially: what does it really take to turn deep tech into something that changes the world?
Cambridge Tech Week 2026 will put that question at the heart of its biggest and most wide-ranging programme to date as it brings together entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and technology leaders from across the global innovation ecosystem for a week of debate, challenge and practical insight.
BenevolentAI Founder and Executive Director & Chair, Kenneth Mulvany and leading AI/AGI author, Calum Chace head a diverse list of authoritative speakers and panellists at this year’s event - which also features quantum pioneer, Sir Peter Knight; Cambridge LiFi pioneer, Professor Harald Haas; entrepreneur/ investor, Sherry Coutu CBE; academic pioneer turned chief executive of The Metaverse Institute, Dr Christina Yan Zhang; CMR Robotics co-founder and CMO, Mark Slack; Balderton General Partner and technology entrepreneur, Suranga Chandratillake; and Industrial Technology Investment Corporation (ITIC) President, Karen Yu, a pioneer of social entrepreneurship having co-founded the first Fairtrade company, Okogreen coffee.
Other notable keynote speakers include Anna Knack, Defence and National Security Grand Challenge AI for Data-Driven Advantage (AIDA), Alan Turing Institute; His Excellency Mr Teemu Turunen, Ambassador, Embassy of Finland, London; Daanish Masood Alavi, Founder & CEO, Cygnus X-1; Debbie Toms, Chief of Staff, Cusp.ai; Dr Carina Kern, Founder and CEO, LinkGevity; Sara Duodu, Programme Manager - Quantum and Digital Twins, techUK; and Suhair Khan, Founder, Fractal brain & @open-ended.
The week opens with Showcase Cambridge, putting Cambridge’s own technology ecosystem under the microscope while examining its place in a much wider global innovation race. Delivering the keynote will be Phil O’Donovan FREng, co-founder of Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), who was central to one of Cambridge’s most successful semiconductor companies, which became one of the defining technology success stories to emerge from the region.
Tuesday’s Visionary Tech Day moves firmly into the technologies and infrastructure likely to define the coming decade. In the headline discussion, How Deep Tech Changes the World - chaired by Suhair Khan, Founder of Fractal brain & @open-ended - Lucy Yu, CEO, Centre for Net Zero (Octopus Energy Group) will lead the panel in a global conversation on how AI, compute, connectivity and infrastructure will reshape economies and societies.
Also making an appearance on Tuesday is Professor Harald Haas, who pioneered LiFi (using light rather than radio waves) to transmit data. Popularising the technology through his famous 2011 TED Talk, his technology story resonated far beyond academia. Now Van Eck Professor of Engineering at University of Cambridge, Professor Haas will take part in the ‘Building the Next Deep Tech Platforms (2026–2030)’ discussion chaired by Dame Hayaatun Sillem DBE, former CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering, exploring what it takes to turn breakthrough research into platforms capable of changing industries.
Keynotes for Visionary Tech Day include Tim Fowler, Chief Commercial Officer Cambridge Consultants who will be exploring The Innovation Psyche (and sponsored by Cambridge Consultants) - while closing keynote, Kenneth Mulvany, founder and Executive Director & Chair of one of the UK’s best known AI platforms for drug discovery, BenevolentAI, will be exploring Intelligence as Infrastructure.
Wednesday’s Startup to Scaleup Day will address the UK’s most persistent innovation problem: why can Britain produce extraordinary science and promising technology companies, but struggles to create the next generation of global technology giants?
Suranga Chandratillake, General Partner at Balderton Capital, brings an unusually relevant perspective given he isn’t just an investor talking about scale - but founded and built the Cambridge-based global technology company, blinkx, taking it through international expansion and a London listing before moving into venture capital. Suranga will be contributing his expertise to a discussion on ‘Building the Next Global Tech Champions’.
The UK’s ability to turn innovation into growth will also be examined by Tom Adeyoola, Executive Chair of Innovate UK. A technology entrepreneur himself, Tom founded fashion-tech company, Metail, before joining Innovate UK as it seeks to strengthen the country’s ability to turn cutting-edge innovation into businesses capable of competing globally.
A further highlight on Wednesday will be the fireside chat with Conscium co-founder and globally renowned author, Calum Chace, whose books on artificial intelligence (AI) and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) - Surviving AI, Pandora’s Brain and the soon to be released, Perspectives on Machine Consciousness - have earned him the moniker ‘the AI Guy’.
Across Tuesday and Wednesday, Innovation Alley will once again provide a diverse showcase of innovative technology companies - with His Majesty's Government Communications Centre (HMGCC) the Innovation Alley Headline Sponsor on Startup to Scaleup Day, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), a Gold Sponsor as well as sponsoring an Innovation Alley Zone sponsors exhibitor.
Simon Fabri, CEO, HMGCC said: “This will be HMGCC’s first time at Cambridge Tech Week, and we are thrilled to be taking part. The city of Cambridge has long been associated with so much amazing tech innovation, within both industry and academia. I think this will be an event rich in technological discovery. I look forward to meeting many incredible innovators and exploring how they could work with HMGCC in the future, using the best technology to keep the UK safe.”
On Thursday, Tech Deep Dives Day, Cambridge Tech Week splits into two specialist programmes examining technologies with potentially enormous consequences for society: Med Tech & Health Tech and Quantum & AI – both sectors where the Cambridge ecosystem features strongly.
The Med Tech & Health Tech programme, sponsored by technology and product development consultancy, TTP PLC, opens with a keynote speech from Professor Shafi Ahmed, Consultant Surgeon and Senior Partner, Purpose Tech Capital ahead of a session exploring how health tech innovation operates within the realities of large-scale, complex healthcare systems.
The parallel Quantum & AI programme, meanwhile, will question whether two of the most hyped technologies of recent years are now ready to deliver meaningful industrial value. Sir Peter Knight, Chair of the Strategic Advisory Board of the UK National Quantum Technology Programme, brings considerable authority to the discussion, with sessions examining the hard problems driving adoption, the journey from proof of concept to deployment, and how AI and quantum can be developed responsibly.
Thursday also sees the return of the ever-provocative Big Tech Debate, this time discussing ‘Dual Use Tech: Redrawing the Line Between Civilian and Defence Innovation’ – and asking whether the traditional distinction between civilian and military technology is becoming impossible to maintain as advances in AI, drones and quantum increasingly come from commercial companies. The debate concludes with the event’s Gala Drinks Reception, which is co-sponsored by NatWest and Coutts.
Alongside the main programme, Cambridge Tech Week will feature a growing programme of fringe events including Austria x Cambridge: A Global Deep Tech Exchange sponsored by Advantage Austria UK, and roundtables covering subjects such as AI in Life Sciences, Trusted and Sovereign AI, European Deep Tech Collaboration, Gen AI & The Workforce, Manufacturing, IP, Defence and Security, Quantum and Genomics, and AI & Robotics.
New Speakers and further programme announcements will follow in the coming weeks. You can keep updated by visiting https://cambridgetechweek.co.uk/
In-person and virtual tickets for Cambridge Tech Week 2026 are available from: https://cambridgetechweek.co.uk/tickets.html The Virtual Pass ticket provides access to the live stream of Visionary Tech Day, Startup to Scaleup, Tech Deep Dives and The Big Tech Debate.
