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By Megan Carnegie
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Atop an extinct volcano sits Edinburgh Castle, one of the oldest fortifications in Europe, which last night hosted a select guest list of ministers, investors and founders at the forefront of technological change. Attendees included Mario Viviani, senior developer relations manager at NVIDIA; Alistair McFarland, head of U.K. strategic liaison at Leonardo; Roy Raanani, founder of Chorus.ai; and Adrian Gillespie, chief executive of Scottish Enterprise.
Guests were piped in from a sun-drenched Crown Square for dinner in the Great Hall, where instead of kings, clans and statecraft, the discussion centered on AI, robotics and advanced manufacturing. The setting for the first night of the “World of Tomorrow” conference was symbolic: a reminder that Scotland wants to shape the next industrial era, not watch it unfold. Scotland’s pitch isn’t just its geography, or heritage, but a smaller, well coordinated ecosystem where AI and robotics companies can work closely with governments, universities, investors, and industry.
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With dinner prepared by acclaimed Scottish chef and restaurateur Tom Kitchin, a haggis ceremony (complete with a reading of Robbie Burns’ Address to a Haggis,) and a harp performance, the evening leaned deliberately into Scottish tradition. As the Tartan Army charms audiences around the world, the message inside the castle was clear: Scotland wants the same kind of global attention for its role in the next wave of industrial technology.
“The kind of people you want to do business with”
Hosted by AI-first robotics company Launchpad Build AI, with sponsorship from Nebius, Orrick and Dunbar Brown Group, the location makes strategic sense. In 2024, the firm opened an R&D center in Edinburgh, in addition to its headquarters in El Segundo, California, secured grant funding from Scottish Enterprise and in autumn 2025, raised $11 million (or about £8.2 million) in a Series A funding round co-led by Lavrock Ventures and Squadra Ventures, with notable participation from the Scottish National Investment Bank.
“I grew up in Canada, so our cultures are similar, and I’ve found the Scots to be such earnest, high-quality people,” Launchpad Build AI CEO Jon Quick told Newsweek. “They’re the kind of people you want to do business with, and we’ve got big plans for the relationship here.” He highlighted the thought leadership, research ecosystem and talent density—Launchpad now has 35 employees, half of which are in Edinburgh—as well as the appeal of being a small fish in a big pond. “I didn’t want to compete with the Teslas, Metas and Googles of the world, and I wanted people who wanted us to be successful,” he noted.
Launchpad’s choice fits a broader pattern of firms choosing regional U.K. hubs. Universal Robots, the Denmark-based robotics company, opened a Sheffield hub intended to serve British manufacturers and strengthen the region’s robotics cluster. AMD, the California-based semiconductor company, has an Edinburgh R&D facility focused on 5G wireless technologies. In Glasgow, ZeroAvia is building a major manufacturing facility to produce hydrogen-electric powertrains.
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EY data released in 2025 showed that nearly one in six inward investment projects in the U.K. from the previous year were secured in Scotland, cementing the country’s position as the U.K.’s top destination outside of London—for the 10th year in a row—while Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow remained among the top 10 U.K. cities for foreign direct investment projects outside the capital. “We have a pipeline of 26.4 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, which is one of the largest in Europe, particularly relative to our population, and what that can do to assist and fund technologies is really significant,” explained Ben Macpherson, the Scottish government’s minister for innovation, technology and tertiary education.
Macpherson pointed to Scotland’s long legacy of AI growth and innovation research, noting that Professor Donald Michie set up Europe’s first AI research group at the University of Edinburgh in 1963. “That makes Edinburgh the second university in the world after Stanford to offer AI as a research subject, and we’re looking to build on that history,” said Macpherson. “Scotland's social history evidences our pride in the responsible delivery of services for the public good in areas like housing, health care, and water, making Scotland an attractive place to be and do business.” That heritage, he argued, also underpins public trust, a fundamental factor in how AI is adopted and used for the common good.
A supportive ecosystem
Yet Scotland’s position in the AI and robotics race isn’t guaranteed. “The robotics talent pool is younger and smaller, compared to some other areas in the U.K., despite its fast growth,” said Andrew Dunbar, managing director and co-founder of Dunbar Brown Group, an Edinburgh-based recruitment firm that specializes in technology, software and R&D hiring across the U.K. and for international companies building a U.K. presence.
The more fundamental drag, though, is capital and pay. Manufacturing salaries “typically lean on the lower end, compared to other sectors,” and several robotics startups have “done well, had investment, and then haven't then pushed on to get the next round, and that's caused them to effectively fail,” leaving a gap between promising MVPs and fully funded scale‑ups.
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Overlaying this is a competitive global incentives landscape: tax regimes and grants in cities like Houston and in countries such as Switzerland have fueled local tech booms and offer richer salary subsidies than Scotland can currently match. “Incentives and grants from the Scottish government are essential, and if those get dropped, there will be a very direct correlation of these companies not coming into Scotland,” warned Dunbar.
Gatherings like “The World of Tomorrow” can bring together the people needed to advance Scotland’s ambitions. The real test is whether those conversations translate into follow‑on investment, stronger talent pipelines and new projects rooted in the country’s industrial base.
Updated 6/25/26 at 10:04 a.m. ET: This article was updated for clarity.
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