The Turing Innovation Catalyst (Manchester) (TIC or TIC-M) aims to accelerate the commercial exploitation of productivity-enhancing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital trust technologies in Greater Manchester (GM). The two-year Innovation Accelerator project will fund innovation activities with regional businesses and R&D stakeholders, as part of the Alan Turing Institute's national strategy to increase the benefit, and accelerate the impact, of the application of data science and AI across the UK economy and society. The University of Manchester-led project builds on existing strengths in the city region by bringing together a consortium of leading AI-focused businesses (including Graphcore, BAE Systems, Matillion and Peak AI), regional R&D organisations (Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Salford, and the Hartree Centre), accelerators (Capital Enterprise and Conception X), investors, and specialist skills providers. It will provide businesses with access to cutting-edge R&D capabilities, high-specification premises for collaboration, innovation finance, skills training, and specialist support and advice. TIC will create a pipeline of commercially exploitable deep digital technologies needed for the UK to realise its ambition to be a global AI research and innovation superpower. It will accelerate the use of AI in key GM growth sectors including health innovation, advanced materials and manufacturing, creative and net zero -- all of which are critical application areas for the technology. It will help create a resilient and trusted domestic AI sector and supply chain, growing exports and protecting the UK against future threats. Headquartered on the new ID Manchester innovation district in Manchester city centre, TIC will catalyse a dynamic cluster of entrepreneurs, business leaders, scientists, engineers, investors, and creatives -- united by a culture of ethics, diversity, and openness -- at the heart of the north's digital economy. It will have spokes in town centre locations to help grow emerging digital clusters across the city region. It will connect local people to opportunities and create an inclusive and diverse pipeline of AI practitioners with the technical and commercial skills demanded by industry. The TIC project is expected to directly stimulate £24 million of co-investment, create up to 200 jobs and give a GVA uplift of £35 million, generating 7:1 economic return to public investment over the medium term. It will have a long-term legacy by helping to establish the TIC as an independent and business-led digital deep tech centre of excellence.

"The 'AI for SMEs' programme will trial two methods of increasing productivity in London's SME retail and hospitality sectors, through the adoption of AI 'chatbots' and marketing automation systems. These are products which can supplement and improve the customer experience, increase their marketing reach and effectiveness, and which are tried and tested means of converting enquiries/leads into paying customers.They are particularly effective technologies for retail and hospitality SMEs, which have similar routes to customer discovery, marketing and converting leads into paying customers. Moreover, though every company is different, the technologies themselves augment the value of existing employees and existing workflows, rather than replacing the need for human staff. Using a RCT, we are testing the effectiveness of two alternative methods of increasing the adoption of AI chatbot and marketing automation technologies. Stream 1 will use a market convening methodology, which involves matching SMEs with AI vendors via a series of events, and allowing the supplier market to explain the opportunity through case studies and live demonstrations. This light touch method is based on 'letting the tech speak for itself' in order to encourage uptake. Stream 2 is a more targeted intervention, which will provide SMEs with a £1,000 innovation voucher, which they can use to install, test, or deploy the AI technology, and access an expert caseworker. This approach is based on the idea that expert technical and business advice is needed by the SME to assess the suitability of AI as a solution to enable the SME to calculate the ROI and to assist with implementation. By providing external expert support we will see if we increase uptake of AI amongst SMEs, and to realise the productivity potential of the technology. A control group will be established, who will receive basic information about the relevant technologies as an incentive to participate, but no further support. They will be tracked and used as a baseline to assess the effectiveness of the interventions on technology adoption, perceptions and performance. Lessons from this RCT will provide valuable insight into the most (a) effective and (b) cost effective means of driving adoption of AI; whether education and convening is sufficient to drive adoption or whether a degree of 'hand holding' is needed when seeking to drive adoption of perceived cutting edge technologies. Moreover, the findings from this experiment will have value for other geographies, technologies and sectors across the UK."