The Federated Telecoms Hubs brings together telecoms research from universities across the UK in a one-stop-shop for investors.
The UK government is trying to accelerate the creation of new telecoms startups by pulling together a group of 27 universities into a testbed for these technologies. It is now inviting corporate VCs to engage with this initiative by coming to test and validate ideas at a new lab at the University of Bristol.
The so-called JOINER platform, part of the new Federated Telecoms Hubs initiative, provides real-life conditions for investors to experiment with academic research in areas such as AI for networks, integrated sensing and communications, quantum and physical layer security, and non-terrestrial networks.
The initiative aims to accelerate the number of commercial-ready UK spinouts in telecoms-related technologies.
“We aim to present a unified and collaborative voice for telecoms research and translational activity in the UK,” says Harald Haas, co-director of Federated Telecoms Hubs.
“We aim to create a big shopping window of innovative, game-changing research that has so far only been visible to the research community and make it visible to the investor community.”
The Federated Telecoms Hubs, launched in 2024, is grouped into four hubs headed by the University of Cambridge, University of Bristol, Imperial College London and University of Oxford. The Engineering and Physical Sciences and Research Council (EPSRC), a body that provides grants for research, funds the hubs.
The UK government has prioritised the build-out of telecoms infrastructure, which it sees as critical to economic growth. The future of telecoms technology, or 6G, is expected to underpin essential services such as healthcare, transportation and the electricity grid.
“My aim is to turn Federated Telecoms Hubs into a spinout factory.”
Muhtari Adanan, Federated Telecoms Hubs commercialisation director
Among the areas of telecoms research is the impact of 6G on the UK’s health system. The Federated Telecoms research hubs are looking at how 6G, for example, can help the UK’s National Health Service with its digital transformation, including making more use of telemedicine and sharing patient data over secure systems.
One of the project’s hubs is developing innovations in low-latency communication and edge computing to improve healthcare in rural areas. Research institutions such as the University of Glasgow, for example, are exploring real-time data processing at the edge of the network to reduce reliance on cloud services, cut latency and ensure health service is available when internet access is limited.
The UK is one a handful of nations including the US and China that lead in telecoms research. But it can be hard for telecoms startups to scale because of the market dominance that a few large telecoms players have in the market. By pooling university research IP together in a project like the Federated Telecoms Hubs, the idea is that spinouts can have a better chance of becoming commercialised.
“My aim is to turn Federated Telecoms Hubs into a spinout factory,” says Muhtari Adanan, the project’s commercialisation director.
“The telecoms sector is currently shaped by a small number of established players, which can present challenges for startups seeking to enter and grow within the market. Telecoms startups need a lot of support, so we have created a network where we are combining innovation from 27 universities. We can pool this innovation, which we can then turn into startups.”
Spinouts talking to corporate investors
The project’s commercialisation team is in talks with several CVCs about spinout technologies currently on its commercialisation platform. One of its startups, Madevo, is in talks with a large US telecoms and media company about using its AI-powered sensing technology in stadiums to improve communications during sporting events.
Another of its spinouts attracting corporate investor interest is a technology from the University of Glasgow which combines AI and a technology called integrated sensing and communication to monitor physical movement. Potential applications are in sectors such as healthcare and mining. The commercialisation team, for example, is speaking to pharmaceutical companies about how the technology could be used to monitor patients in clinical trials.
A third spinout is developing a technology that delivers optical wireless communications using solar panels. This could have applications in places like Africa, which are dependent on diesel to power telecoms infrastructure.
The JOINER platform, where investors can validate technologies in a lab environment, includes equipment such as mobile, cloud and radio interfaces.
