A selection of notable quotes and comments we’ve come across this month
By Marc Ambasna-Jones 05 Nov 25 Reading time: 3 mins
“The investment by the UK government in 1977 of £50m has led to well over £1bn of investment since then. Many tech start-ups directly span out of Inmos, including the one I co-founded [Motion Media Technology] and IPO’d in 1996, but the legacy of the talent here is more profound, with many globally-relevant innovations coming from those who learned the trade – and/or earned their £millions – from that Inmos investment.”
“The Transputer was a marvel of its time. A microprocessor so advanced it had features that were years ahead of its competition. Bristol’s importance to the tech industry has continued ever since, most recently demonstrated by the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing’s £225 million Isambard-AI project, one of the world’s most powerful AI supercomputers. Importantly, there are significant connections between Isambard-AI and the Inmos Transputer. The former would not have happened at all without the latter.”
Professor Simon McIntosh-Smith, director of the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing at the University of Bristol, notes that Bristol was already at the forefront of high tech in 1985, when the Inmos Transputer launched
“In quantum sensing and components, we are world leaders. Industry tells me we should specialise in big windows, like Taiwan does in chips. So we become indispensable in key niches.”
“He wanted a bike as light as an umbrella. The supplier said the wheels couldn’t take a man’s weight, so he tested them himself. That was Clive all over. If someone said it couldn’t be done, he’d do it anyway.”
“Unless the charging infrastructure is better, there’s no point me having an EV. We can probably do it better than many international players. We have some ideas on that. Can we build a better infrastructure for charging? Yes. Can we also think about wireless charging? Yes. All these parts will have compound semiconductors in there. An end user doesn’t care whether this is silicon carbide, gallium nitride or gallium oxide. They just want it to work efficiently. And we can do this in the UK.”
“We want to create an ecosystem and a pipeline that can support companies throughout the journey from research through to scale.”
Richard Duffy, head of Semiconductor Innovation and Ecosystem in the Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT), talking at an FS Live event this month about how the government is pushing semiconductor innovation and development through vehicles such as the newly created National Wealth Fund.
“If women started businesses at the same rate as men, and were able to access finance at the same rate, our economy would be so much bigger.”
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves speaking at the Women in Work summit on female start-ups and the intricacies of the gender pay gap.
“We need new ways of thinking and doing. Many organisations prioritise innovation but have little tolerance for what they perceive as ‘failure’.”
Jeanne Liedtka, co-author of The Experimentation Field Book and professor of business administration at Virginia University’s Darden School, on the power of experimentation in innovation
“I thought it was a prank. The quantum computer is not here yet.”
French-American physicist Michel Devoret, on the news that he had been awarded the 2025 Physics Nobel Prize
Working as a technology journalist and writer since 1989, Marc has written for a wide range of titles on technology, business, education, politics and sustainability, with work appearing in The Guardian, The Register, New Statesman, Computer Weekly and many more.
