Funded digital innovation projects for SMEs

Scale-up your small business with digital technologies. 

This programme is funded by Innovate UK and will offer SMEs collaborative projects with our team of experts to help them adopt and scale up using HPC, AI and frontier technologies.

We’re particularly keen to connect with high-growth SMEs who want to use digital technology more effectively in:

• Advanced Manufacturing
• Clean Energy Industries
• Creative Industries
• Defence
• Financial Services
• Life Sciences

The programme will deliver targeted innovation support and digital asset creation in collaboration with SMEs, centred around four key themes:

• Building solid technical foundations: getting the right infrastructure, data systems and architecture in place to support growth
• Smarter decision-making in complex systems: using AI and digital technologies to make faster, more reliable decisions in real time
• AI that understands your industry: applying AI and other frontier technologies in a way that reflects the specific context and needs of your sector
• Preparing for emerging technologies: understanding and safely adopting technologies like quantum computing before they become mainstream

Application Round 2 

The current round of applications is open between 20 August 2026 – 4 September 2026 

This application round is focused on the theme: 

• Preparing for emerging technologies: understanding and safely adopting technologies like quantum computing before they become mainstream 

For this round, we welcome proposals from SMEs exploring emerging computing technologies, including quantum computing and neuromorphic computing, where there is a clear pathway from technical innovation to business scale-up. This could include specialist deep-tech start-ups developing quantum or neuromorphic products, as well as SMEs seeking to become quantum-ready or emerging-technology-ready. Projects might identify and benchmark suitable use cases, develop quantum-classical or neuromorphic workflows, build software infrastructure and hardware-agnostic interfaces, establish data and deployment pipelines, or integrate emerging technologies into existing HPC, cloud or AI workflows. 

 Applicants should demonstrate a relevant technical challenge, sufficient internal expertise to support adoption, and a clear view of how the resulting capability will support future products, services or scale-up. Projects will have meaningful, measurable outputs that can be delivered within the programme timeframe rather than relying on speculative future hardware capability. 

Due to the limited nature of the programme, we reserve the right to close applications at any time.

If you have any questions, please email them to hartreecentre@stfc.ac.uk