COMMENT UK INNOVATION
Boosting innovation
HOWEVER THE UK GOVERNMENT RESPONDS TO THE PROPOSED
ACQUISITION OF ARM BY NVIDIA, IT RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT ITS PLANS
TO BOOST INNOVATION IN THE UK
The UK government talks a lot about nurturing science and innovation in the
UK and is keen, post-Brexit, to pour hundreds of millions of pounds into tech
start-ups with the aim of creating businesses capable of challenging the world’s
very best.
Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief adviser, is known to be a keen supporter of
science and technology and is said to be determined to use the state’s resources to
make strategic investments in the sector. In fact, reports suggest that civil servants
will use a combination of research into social trends and algorithms to spot the early
adoption of new technologies in order to shape and sanction investment at every stage
of development.
Can the state provide a launchpad for innovation? Should it be involved in selecting
‘winners’? Could Brexit negotiations, in which state aid is proving a major stumbling
block, cause the policy to ounder?
It’s known that Cummings wants to replicate the success of the US’s Advanced
Projects Research Agency, set up in the 1950s and which was the driving force behind
the development of drones and the Internet, and to use such an agency to turn the UK
“into the best place in the world to reinvent the future.”
Lofty ambitions aside, such a policy does have its supporters. A number of
economists believe that many entrepreneurs, in the technology space, tend to exploit
technologies that were rst developed using public funds.
Critics of the policy, however, hark back to the failed state policies of the 1960s and
1970s when ministers and civil servants attempted to identify and then fund ‘winners’. It
didn’t end well then and, no matter how clever the algorithms, they view the involvement
of the state in business matters as anathema.
While the government has made much of its industrial strategy and ambition to
make the UK a superpower in science and technology, critics of Nvidia’s proposed
acquisition of Arm suggest that those ambitions would be undermined if Arm and its
workforce were left solely to the whims of the market.
“The ramping up in public sector science spending is welcomed, but we cannot get
to where we need to be on R&D spending without signi cant action from the private
sector,” said Mike Clancy, Prospect general secretary. “It would be irresponsible for the
government to take a hand’s-off approach to a company that accounts for around 2% of
total UK private sector R&D spending.”
Should the UK government intervene then? There are suggestions that the deal will
be referred to the CMA, but in an interesting twist to the story it now emerges that China
could step in and look to block the sale of Arm.
The state-backed Global Times has called the takeover ‘disturbing’ and called on
global regulators to exercise caution.
The Chinese are worried that should Arm fall into the arms of a US company then
access to its technology could be curtailed.
An interesting twist to an already complex story.
Neil Tyler, Editor (neil.tyler@markallengroup.com)
“Can the state
provide a
launchpad for
innovation?
Should it
be involved
in selecting
‘winners’?
Could Brexit
negotiations,
in which state
aid is proving a
major stumbling
block, cause
the policy to
fl ounder?”
www.newelectronics.co.uk 22 September 2020 5
/www.newelectronics.co.uk