
Trust Everything, Everywhere
Trust 'building blocks', like encryption, enable digital industries to flourish securely, but they don't extend into the physical world. With emerging technology blurring the line between digital and physical, a new trust infrastructure that straddles both worlds could unlock cyber-physical markets.
What is an opportunity space?
Opportunity spaces are areas of research that we believe are ripe for breakthroughs. They are defined by our Programme Directors, and must be highly consequential for society, under-explored relative to their potential impact, and ripe for new talent, perspectives, or resources to change what’s possible.
Core beliefs
The core beliefs that underpin this opportunity space:
Creating a new trust infrastructure will unlock the cyber-physical economy. The trust building blocks that enabled today’s £24-trillion digital economy, like encryption and cryptographic signatures, do not extend to the physical world.
Formal security reasoning is key to designing new cyber-physical trust building blocks: rooted in different assumptions (e.g. quantum physics instead of computational hardness), and living in alternative informational substrates (e.g. DNA instead of bits).
AI will make secure cyber-physical interactions accessible to everyone. The next generation of trust infrastructure will allow AI systems to generate customised, on-demand protocols in situ for any given cyber-physical interaction, spanning atoms, molecules, waves, and bits.
Give feedback on this opportunity space
Help inform the development of the programme thesis by providing feedback or registering interest in taking part in a roundtable.
Meet the programme team
Our Programme Directors are supported by a core team that provides a blend of operational coordination and highly specialised technical expertise.
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