Advanced technology is finding a home in Wales, with academia, government and industry collaborating eagerly in a Cardiff technology cluster
Wales is currently enabling a quiet industrial revolution, nudging forward the capabilities of the electronics inside nearly every piece of modern-day technology.
At its heart lie compound semiconductors, a new generation of materials enabling near-endless possibilities. Compound semiconductors (CSC) afford high-speed processing that is more than 100 times faster than silicon.
It’s quite likely that there is a little bit of Wales in your smartphone today
These materials have the ability to emit and sense light from the infrared to the ultraviolet and can be engineered to provide multispectral light tailored to stimulate plant growth, sterilise water or send huge volumes of data through pulses down fibre-optic cables.
Such advanced technology is finding a home not in Silicon Valley but in Wales, with academia, government and industry collaborating eagerly in a Cardiff technology cluster.
From its headquarters in the city, the St Mellons semiconductor wafer manufacturer IQE has carved out a 55pc global market share in CSC technology and is leading the way in developing the world market, making it quite likely that there is a little bit of Wales in your smartphone today.
Flying high
Wales has embraced high-tech industries in many areas. There are 160 aerospace and defence companies in Wales employing 20,000 people and turning over more than £5bn, and the region is well placed to be the home of the UK’s first commercial spaceport and take advantage of the advanced materials demand that the global commercial space sector promises.
Airbus has several thousand staff employed in its Broughton manufacturing plant. Steve Thomas, a government affairs executive at the company, says: “We have future bookings extending over 10 years. There’s a great level of optimism associated with that order book and the prospects we have. When we look up in the sky, it’s a great feeling to know that we’ve contributed in some shape and fashion to that success story.”
We keep the best local talent in Wales and attract the best from elsewhereLa-Chun Lindsay, GE Aviation’s UK managing director
Another major international player in aerospace is General Electric, with GE aviation making a home outside Cardiff. GE Aviation's former UK managing director, La-Chun Lindsay, says that the company gets a fantastic return from its significant investment in the area, most significantly in access to skills.
“There are a number of factors that have enabled us to continue investing in Wales,” she says. “Building good relationships with educational institutions has allowed us to secure a great pipeline of talent. We have excellent relationships with our neighbouring colleges and universities and are always looking for new ways to work together. We keep the best local talent in Wales and attract the best from elsewhere too.”
The local skill set
It is a similar story for the software business Bipsync, which provides research management software for investment management companies including multibillion-dollar hedge funds based in New York.
Craig Marvelly, head of platform and chief compliance officer at Bipsync, says the business’s recent relocation to Cardiff was an easy decision when looking at the skills available in the area.
“When it came to product development, rather than stay in the US – where it’s tough enough to hire experienced developers as an early-stage start-up, let alone compete for them with hundreds of [Silicon] Valley tech companies – we decided to base technical development in Cardiff,” he says.
“Our chief technical officer and technical director are both from here, so knew there was an existing network of great developers here in Cardiff eager to do interesting work, and that’s exactly what we found.”
Mr Marvelly says that Cardiff’s time zone is also a boon for the business. “We can do a lot of work before our clients are even awake, then we can have a solid few hours with America. It’s a great location for us as we expand into other financial markets in Europe. It works for everyone.”
Access to education
More than 6,000 science and engineering students graduate each year from eight Welsh universities. A UK-wide peer review of the quality of university research in 2014 confirmed that almost a third of research submitted by Welsh higher education institutions was considered “world-leading”.
Cardiff University is a significant research institution in areas from the fight against Alzheimer’s to climate change and space exploration. It is ranked fifth in the UK for the quality of its research and second nationally for its impact.
More than 6,000 science and engineering students graduate each year from eight Welsh universities
Wales’s industry specialists and highly skilled technical workforce have helped the region punch well above its weight in highly competitive industries.
ReNeuron in Bridgend is a pioneer in the life sciences industry, focusing on developing new stem-cell therapies to treat people suffering from brain damage and other conditions. The business is an active user of the Life Sciences Hub Wales, which connects businesses to academic and clinical and professional partners, and is supported by the Welsh government.
Chief financial officer Michael Hunt says: “There is a sense that Wales is trying to do something very significant in the life science sector. As Wales builds its life science infrastructure we would expect that to be much more significant, and we’re glad to be a part of it.”
Local support
The Welsh government has been a driving force for bolstering Wales’s business credentials.
Since 2015 it has supported the Innovation Wales initiative, which recognised innovation as something far broader than purely tech or science discoveries and made a commitment to promoting and enabling innovation across all major local government interventions.
Such support means that things continue to look up for high-tech businesses in Wales. Staff retention is higher in Wales than the UK average, and employers repeatedly praise the driven, loyal and hardworking attitude and approach of the Welsh workforce. If the strong level of investment continues, the prospects look likely to remain bright.