Frontier innovation is about discoveries and inventions: making scientific breakthroughs and turning them into commercial products and services.
Frontier innovation is highly productive and exportable[71], and London is brilliant at it. It will be our next superpower.
Why it matters
Frontier innovation includes life sciences and technologies including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, bioengineering, advanced robotics and materials science. A lot of frontier innovation is dedicated to addressing climate change.
London has important competitive advantages in frontier innovation: globally leading universities; a deep and diverse talent pool; access to global capital; a large market for innovation; and a culture of entrepreneurship.
London is already the leading city in Europe for life sciences and artificial intelligence[73]. Our world-class universities produce brilliant research and ideas. And we’ve got much better at turning our discoveries into products and services. The challenge for London now is to build truly global companies.
Places for growth
- Grow innovation districts and specialist clusters: Frontier innovation thrives in walkable districts that bring together research, investors, startups, corporates and, for life sciences, hospitals[74].
- Develop industrial innovation corridors: London will both build new industrial innovation facilities to scale up frontier innovation and support existing manufacturers to adopt innovation.
- Build advanced manufacturing partnerships with other parts of the UK: London develops innovative products but will rarely be the best place to manufacture them at scale, due to availability and cost of land.
Explore London’s innovation districts and corridors on the map.
What we will do
To grow London’s priority sectors, we will:
- Grow the skilled workforce: This is the primary task, as all our priority sectors rely on human capital. The plan for this is in the inclusive talent strategy.
- Promote the sectors to win international investors and customers: We will promote London’s strengths in the key sectors and focus our inward investment activity on them. The plan for this is in investment and promotion.
- Dramatically increase investment into innovative companies: This is especially relevant for frontier innovation, but is also critical to grow technology companies. The plan for this is in investment and promotion.
- Support our growth sector businesses to scale internationally: Exporting is key to our ambition to grow global companies. The plan for this is in backing our businesses.
- Set a City Innovation Strategy: Use the power of London’s public sector to accelerate innovation through procurement, data and testing. The plan for this is in backing our businesses.
Learn more about the growth sectors
Financial, professional and business
Learn how we will drive growth across finance, accountancy, law, consulting, built environment, IT, cyber and more.
Creative industries and technologies
Find out how we will grow our creative industries clusters for film, TV, gaming, music and more across London.
Experience economy
Uncover the importance of culture, hospitality, events and attractions to make London a brilliant place to visit, study and live.
International education
Explore how London’s international students feed our talent pipeline and why it’s a productive export sector for London.
Sources:
71. Stansbury, A., Turner, D. and Balls, E., (2023). Tackling the UK’s regional economic inequality: Binding constraints and avenues for policy intervention [PDF 4.8 MB], March 2023.
73. London & Partners (2024). London leading global city for AI businesses to grow, November 2024; and London & Partners (2024). London #1 in Europe for life sciences, November 2024.
74. See for example: Stansbury, A., Turner, D. and Balls, E., (2023). Tackling the UK’s regional economic inequality: Binding constraints and avenues for policy intervention [PDF 4.8 MB], March 2023; and The Productivity Institute (2024). Raising innovation and productivity through local business knowledge sharing, October 2024.