We could tell by the positive energy in the room that the urgency of this mission is understood.

With BIL — and the Lovelace Labs to come — momentum is building for a new era of UK innovation.

bennettinnovationlab.com

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Each year we will launch 2 to 3 bold missions across aviation, defence, and energy, moving from concept to hardware in weeks, not years.

Embedded in the New Whittle Laboratory at Cambridge, BIL integrates three capabilities:

• AI-accelerated design–prototype–test loops
• World-class engineering and rapid-testing facilities
• Systems modelling to choose missions big enough — and buildable in the UK

... and that’s exactly what we launched last night. The Bennett Innovation Lab (BIL) was born from a single strategic imperative: To own the industries of the future, the UK must be able to build hardware-intensive technologies at unprecedented speed.

It feels as though the UK is beginning to embrace a new model of growth: taking risks, backing talent and building institutions built for speed.

Discover more → www.bennettinnovationlab.com

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Tonight, Professor Rob Miller will speak at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’s launch of their new paper on disruptive innovation labs at @rigb.org, where he will announce the launch of BIL alongside Co-Director Elliott Grant.

Sitting at the heart of the New Whittle Laboratory in Cambridge — a £58M investment completed this October — BIL embeds disruptive innovation capability inside one of the world’s most advanced centres of aerospace, energy and defence research...

Each year, the lab has the capability to launch 2–3 bold missions, led by small, world-class teams capable of moving from concept to hardware in weeks, not years...

BIL extends this tradition into the machine-learning era: fusing Frontier AI with rapid build–test loops to accelerate hardware breakthroughs in energy, defence and aviation...

Throughout history, the world’s great innovation engines — Bell Labs, Power Jets, Bletchley Park, Skunk Works, Xerox PARC and Google X — proved that small teams, given talent, freedom and rapid iteration, can deliver breakthroughs that reshape entire industries...

The inspiration came after Wilkins had debunked the idea that the Germans could develop a ‘death ray’ - but realised that radio waves could be used instead to detect aircraft. 
 
On 20 November, we’ll be powering up the insights again.

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Their breakthrough Pegasus engine featured four rotating nozzles that vectored thrust - the first and only truly successful Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing (V/STOL) design of its era.
 
On 20 November we’ll be jumping into risk again.

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...where the air intake system had to slow the supersonic air down to subsonic speeds before it hit the compressor.

Something audacious is coming on 20 November.
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They showed remarkable audacity in pursuing an engine for a passenger aircraft that could operate reliably and efficiently across an extreme operational envelope: from ground static to cruising at over Mach 2...