THE UK STILL HAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO BE A SUPERPOWER ON DATA AND INTELLIGENCE

Last week, we convened a private forum in London: off record, under Chatham House Rule - focused on the evolving edge of defence, AI, and national capability.

This wasn’t a panel event. Not a showcase. We didn’t livestream. We didn’t even promote it.

What came out of that was exceptional clarity. We filled the room with people who’ve spent their careers inside the system—political, military, intelligence, and industrial—and people now trying to rebuild it.

We’re not in a position to attribute what was said—but we are in a position to share signal. What follows is a distillation of my five takeaways from day: not exhaustive, but structurally honest—and directionally precise.

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The SDR Said It Quietly. But Clearly: We Are Not Safe

The Strategic Defence Review doesn’t just map capability gaps. It says plainly: we are not currently positioned to defend ourselves. Not with our posture. Not with our pace.

To change that, culture and bureaucracy must shift. Not tweak-transform.

But the opportunity is real. AI, autonomy, and digital warfare offer asymmetric leverage. We are living through a rare moment in history where small, capable states can compete with giants.

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The Bureaucracy Is Not Designed for Velocity. Yet.

Procurement outside of urgent operational theatres still takes an average of six years. Even as Ukraine has forced fast-track behaviour in parts of government, the rest of the machine still runs slow by design.

This is not a question of policy, it’s a question of posture.

In the US, velocity has a seat at the table. Failure is permitted. In the UK, it’s still an exception. That must change.

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Governments Have More Than Money. They Have Signal.

Real leverage doesn’t come from capital alone. It comes from access-to data, to sensors, to intelligence, to context.

The UK still holds meaningful advantages:

• A global network of bases and geo-strategic positioning
• Intelligence architecture trusted across Five Eyes
• Classified datasets that, used well, could train sovereign capabilities faster than open systems ever could

Used poorly, they’ll atrophy. Used well, they’re a force multiplier.

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Growth Is Now Part of the Mission

We heard it directly: growth is no longer someone else’s remit.
It is now a standing order.

Defence is no longer just about protection. It’s about industrial capacity.
It’s about domestic leverage. About not being forced to buy critical infrastructure from strategic adversaries.

This is not just a tech race. It’s an economic and security imperative.

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The Talent is Here. But the Rails Aren’t.

We will not outpay the private sector. But we can outproblem it.

Classified data, real-world complexity, and the legal authority to engage in hard problems-these are things only government can offer.

What we lack is a clean, repeatable pathway for that talent to engage. Security clearance is still treated as a moat, not a bridge. And as long as the moat holds, the old system does too.

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From Operator to Operator: Afternoon Signals

One of the clearest signals came in the afternoon.
We hosted former UKSF & US SOF who’ve made the move from elite service into building.

Some now run venture-backed companies. Some work inside scaled defence tech firms. All made it work, but none had a clear path.

In the US, that path is well-worn. In the UK, it barely exists.

Founders want harder problems and simpler access. Operators want to serve again-just in a different uniform. We need to build the rails. Not just for them, but for the ones coming next.

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A Final Note: This Isn’t Private Sector Noise

The most optimistic part of the day wasn’t the ambition from founders. It was the alignment from inside the system.

Military leaders. Branch heads. Senior policymakers. Not just entertaining change, driving it.

There is clearly a movement underway. Not performative. Not press-driven. Internal, deliberate, and real.

And that’s what left me most optimistic. For once, not looking across the Atlantic and thinking “they’ve done it again.” But thinking: “we can do this here-if we want to.”