NCPI report offers solutions and opportunities

Final NCPI report points to solutions and opportunities

Impact driven innovation and R&D

In 2024-2025 the National Cyber-Physical Infrastructure Consortium, comprising Digital Catapult, Connected Places Catapult through the Digital Twin Hub and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult convened a series of interviews, meetings and workshops to gather insight across the ecosystem. These focused on key enablers for an effective cyber-physical infrastructure:

• Overarching challenges and opportunities for development and deployment of connected cyber-physical systems and cyber-physical infrastructure capabilities
• Interoperability between cyber-physical systems
• Security considerations
• Regulations, standards and framework requirements
• Skills and talent development in connected cyber-physical systems development and integration
• Novel value propositions and business models for connected cyber-physical systems and cyber-physical infrastructure.

In its final report from this phase of work, the consortium recommends building on the momentum of established programmes and aligning with the UK Industrial Strategy ‘Invest 2035’. It proposes a systems based approach that both the public and private sector can use to establish scalable innovation for a cyber-physical future in the UK. Recognising that digital twins, data sharing infrastructure and common frameworks for security, interoperability and innovation will be transformative enablers of economic growth, societal resilience, and environmental sustainability, a strong cyber-physical infrastructure ensures that the UK’s industrial and innovation ecosystems are equipped to thrive in the rapidly evolving global landscape.

Overall guidance is to:

• Embed resilience into future infrastructure. Future infrastructure projects must mandate cyber-physical infrastructure frameworks and guidance from the outset and, critically, use them within procurement activities to enhance security, operational value and overall adaptability.
• Support long-term innovation and system design. Public and private sector should seek to build frameworks for distributed and federated data ecosystems, avoiding compromising shortcuts towards broader long-term objectives.
• Establish clear standards for interoperability. Develop and mandate minimum interoperability standards across physical, digital and organisational aspects to ensure systems and technologies can work seamlessly together.
• Prioritise clear and enforceable regulations. Regulations, especially personal and sector-specific, should be unambiguous to universally ensure testable compliance for any future requirements around a cyber-physical infrastructure.
• Encourage and regulate data sharing. Promote data sharing frameworks that can demonstrate and articulate the value of shared information while addressing legal, contractual, and governance challenges fostering collaboration between sectors.

The following near-term opportunities will sustain momentum and further build the ecosystem:

Data Sharing

To tackle systems based challenges in the development, interoperability, security and scalability of cyber-physical systems, we have to address the fundamentals of data sharing and the infrastructure to ensure that cyber-physical systems can be developed, adopted and connected more easily. We can achieve this through a techno-social capability, exploring not only the technical barriers to data sharing but also addressing the issues impeding any breakdown of barriers between systems and systems of systems. Our challenges include fragmented data ecosystems, inconsistent standards and frameworks, outdated and incompatible infrastructures, security concerns and missed opportunities. To overcome these, we recommend:

• Establishing a Data Sharing Infrastructure Hub to bring together key stakeholders across the UK and across sectors – led by an independent set of organisations across sectors such as the Catapult Network. As part of this hub, we should address and build out insights for future data sharing innovation across the UK with particular focus on the data interface between digital and physical systems.
• Establishing a Data Sharing Deep Tech Experimentation Programme. This should explore use cases of AI, distributed ledger technologies and other privacy and security enhancing technologies that explore identity, authentication, authorisation, data preparation, data analysis, data or information transportation / secure channels, standardised data formats, messaging protocols and data endpoints.
• Exploring how data sharing infrastructures for connected cyber-physical systems and a future cyber-physical internet can be built and considered as part of a Digital Critical National Infrastructure. This should look to leverage the private sector, but be built with public purpose with key principles, protocols and innovations set out and adhered to that ensure sovereignty and resilience.
• Ensuring development of the UK Government’s National Data Library to incorporate considerations around the common building blocks for innovation and R&D in cyber-physical systems – particularly where it relates to national infrastructure.

Living Labs

• Creating a set of Cyber-Physical Living Labs for innovation that accelerates the time to market for new to solutions, supports the rapid development of solutions and crowds in multidisciplinary companies, investors and innovators across key areas. These living labs as proposed and championed by the Robotics Growth Partnership, have in the past 18 months started to be explored more meaningfully in other areas to create a lasting footprint of modular and flexible multi technology to test, develop, deploy, connect and scale cyber-physical systems in the UK.
• Establishing a Spatial Computing and Future Internet Living Lab and Technology Access Programme. This should seek to make the UK a lightning rod for international investment in this growing area and ensure that a range of cyber-physical applications and new human machine interaction tools and creative technologies are tested in real world environments to explore what future innovation, safety, security, and interoperability should look like to inform new business models, the underpinning infrastructure and enable content creation. This living lab would be an R&D environment and safe space to explore the key aspects of developing a deploying a complex set of connected cyber-physical systems, data architectures and networks.
• Forming a Cyber-Physical System Living Lab for Advanced Manufacturing and Defence. This should seek to ensure that all development interactions are built upon robust, data-centric digital foundations, developing appropriate software tools, enhanced user experience, and comprehensive education within a collaborative “live” environment. It will feature digital tooling that facilitates seamless interaction between diverse users and connects end-users with industrial proprietary modelling and simulation environments. This will enable whole-life asset feedback and parallel co-development activities, where models, requirements, and capabilities can be dynamically modified through a holistic team approach. This collaborative methodology will improve operational, design, and strategic risk trade-offs serving as a practical experimental development platform. It will be underpinned by academic rigor, actively developing tools, processes, and eventually standards when proven by advanced trials as a socio-technical approach.

Read the full report

We would like to thank everyone who has contributed to, or supported this programme.