AI, Ambition and Aberdeen: Charting the next digital decade

This November, Aberdeen will host The Future of Digital Tech summit, an ambitious gathering that aims to position the city and its region as a serious player on the stage of digital innovation.

The North-east of Scotland is staking its claim as a high-growth tech cluster. Next month’s Future of Digital Tech summit will bring together founders, investors, and industry leaders to showcase the strengths of a high-growth cluster and explore what it takes to compete with the world’s best.

At its heart are two big themes: how to use artificial intelligence responsibly and effectively to drive growth; and how to build ecosystems that support entrepreneurial growth and allow companies to thrive.

These are the focus of two of the conference’s most prominent speakers: Professor Andy Pardoe, who will deliver a keynote on “AI and the future: navigating the digital decade ahead”; and Emily Arnold, who will join a specialist panel on “Growing enterprise technologies from the regions: challenges and advantages.”

“The big tech firms make it look super easy, but they’re making really simple use cases look super easy. The devil is in the detail, and there is a lot to be done to make the technology work for you and your business.”

For innovative smaller companies – precisely the kind that Aberdeen is nurturing – AI offers extraordinary opportunities. The technology has moved beyond basic chatbots to what Pardoe calls “agentic platforms” – AI that can automate whole workflows of complex tasks. “There’s been research done where agentic agents could do an eight-hour day’s work. That’s pretty impressive when you think about that.”

This democratisation of AI power could be a game-changer for smaller businesses competing against larger rivals. “It’s a fantastic opportunity for SME businesses that are typically resource-constrained with people. They can augment their team with these technologies and be able to do more faster."

Building thriving regional ecosystems

While AI provides the technological fuel for innovation, Emily Arnold brings crucial insights on the infrastructure needed to nurture and retain successful tech businesses in regional centres.

A former senior associate at Founders at the University of Cambridge, Arnold helped launch three accelerator programmes in 18 months and now runs ecosystem development consultancy Noema Studios.

Her experience spanning Washington DC and Cambridge ecosystems has shown her what separates thriving innovation hubs from also-rans. “A well-functioning ecosystem requires political leadership and vision, a strong research engine, a commercialisation engine, access to talent and ecosystem supporters, patient stage-appropriate capital, and a culture of risk-taking and collaboration.”

The commercialisation engine proves particularly critical, encompassing not just supply chains and manufacturing access, but the full support infrastructure. “That includes talent, ecosystem supporters, the lawyers, the accountants, but also the accelerators, the incubators, the people driving culture change in the area.”

For regions like Aberdeen that are diversifying their economy, Arnold’s advice is practical: build on what you’ve got. Rather than trying to copy Silicon Valley wholesale, successful regions should “look at what you have, what is the advantage of where you are, and what already exists that’s amazing, and how can you amplify that.”

For Arnold, the human element still matters a great deal amid all the technology: “Being a founder can be a very lonely journey. Being part of an ecosystem with other founders, other people who are going through a similar experience to you… feeling like you’re not alone, having that support, knowing that the struggles you go through are not unique.”

This extends to professional services tailored for startups. “You have specialist startup lawyers and startup accountants who’ll understand what you’re going through, and it just makes everything so much easier versus the friction it can create if you’re in an environment where you constantly have to be explaining yourself.”

She warns that talent retention is the Achilles heel of many hubs and sees Cambridge’s struggles as a cautionary tale: “We lose a lot of people out to London and other places because we don’t have the infrastructure for young people. How do you make this a great place to live for people who are young?”

Arnold also challenges some of the assumptions about entrepreneurial culture, particularly the Silicon Valley model of relentless hustling. “We’re not in Silicon Valley and we shouldn’t try to be Silicon Valley. What’s going to work here is going to be totally different and actually it’s really nice to have a human approach where people understand that you might have other obligations or a family.”

The retention challenge extends beyond individuals to companies themselves. Scotland has a track record of nurturing brilliant early-stage technologies that then move to larger markets. Arnold asks: “How do you not lose those companies to the US where there’s more capital?”