Nine23 Innovation Day 2026

Join us for a curated Innovation Day at Bletchley Park, bringing together our partners, senior leaders and technical experts to share practical insight around today’s most pressing cyber and technology challenges, latest innovations and collaboration opportunities.

• 10 carefully selected speakers delivering short, thought leadership-led sessions
• A highly targeted audience of decision-makers, senior leaders, and practitioners
• A format designed for clarity, not noise - no sales pitches, just real-world insight
• Time built in for valuable conversations and networking

• True UK Sovereignty
• Cyber Security & Resilience
• Secure by Design
• Emerging challenges and innovations shaping the future

This event is designed for professionals working across:

• UK Government and Public Sector
• Defence and National Security
• Regulated industries and Critical National Infrastructure
• Cyber Security, Technology, and Risk Leadership roles

Attendance is limited to ensure the right people are in the room and that conversations remain relevant and valuable.

All places must be registered in advance.

Hosted at the historic Bletchley Park, the home of British codebreaking, this event brings modern innovation into a setting defined by collaboration, ingenuity, and problem-solving at the highest level.

• Access to all speaker sessions
• Networking with a highly relevant peer group
• Light lunch and refreshments
• Entry to the Bletchley Park Museum

Please note: Due to the curated nature of this event and limited venue capacity, all registrations are subject to review and confirmation. Attendance is not guaranteed until confirmed by Nine23.

Info: In an increasingly connected world, an organisation's security is only as strong as the ecosystem around it. This session explores how Organisations can harness emerging technologies such as automation and threat intelligence to deliver a truly contextualised view of enterprise and supply chain security. Moving beyond fragmented dashboards and endless alerts, we'll examine how organisations can gain real-time visibility across infrastructure, software, networks, people, processes, physical assets and third-party relationships. Discover how a holistic, intelligence-driven approach can transform cybersecurity from reactive defence into proactive resilience, enabling better decisions, faster responses and greater business trust.

Info: As AI and Large Language Models rapidly transform how organisations operate, they are also creating new cyber risks and attack opportunities. This session explores how businesses can harness the power of AI while maintaining cyber resilience in an increasingly complex threat landscape. From prompt injection and data leakage to AI-powered cyberattacks and evolving governance challenges, we'll examine the key risks organisations face and the practical steps needed to stay secure. Discover how security teams, Managed Service Providers and business leaders can use AI responsibly, implement effective controls, and build resilient organisations that can innovate with confidence while protecting their people, data and reputation.

Info: As Defence and Government organisations work towards a more connected and resilient digital future, the concept of a Digital Backbone is becoming increasingly important - enabling systems, forces and departments to securely share and use data at scale.

But the strength of any digital backbone depends on the trust layer beneath it.
Paul’s session will examine the critical role of encryption, confidential computing and identity in creating trusted digital infrastructure, and what this means for those responsible for building secure capabilities across Defence, Law Enforcement, National Security and Government.

Drawing on real-world challenges and examples from the Defence environment, Paul will share insights into how organisations can strengthen resilience and address the evolving demands of a digitally connected world.

Info: The technologies that will define the next decade are no longer advancing in isolation. Rory will take the audience across the landscape techUK convenes - - AI, quantum, robotics, photonics and semiconductors - separating real capability from expectation, before turning to what happens where they meet. Drawing on techUK's work with industry, BIST and UKRI, he'll map where the UK's genuine strengths sit, where dependencies remain uncomfortable, and what convergence could mean for resilience, security and national capability.

Info: As governments embrace digital transformation, AI is reshaping how public sector organisations secure services, manage risk and demonstrate compliance. This session explores Google's perspective on the future of public sector security, where AI, automation and compliance-as-code come together to strengthen resilience, transparency and trust. Discover how policy controls, governance frameworks and security requirements can be embedded directly into cloud platforms and development pipelines, enabling continuous assurance rather than periodic audits. Learn how AI can help identify risks, improve decision-making and reduce operational burden, allowing public sector organisations to innovate faster while maintaining the highest standards of security, compliance and trust.

Info: As organisations adopt new technologies and run increasingly critical workloads, the infrastructure supporting the UK’s digital future must continue to evolve. Resilience, connectivity, location and control are becoming just as important as performance and capacity when planning for what comes next.
In this session, Steve Spittal, Technology Director at Pulsant, will explore the infrastructure behind the UK’s evolving digital landscape and the role data centres play in supporting resilient, connected environments. He’ll consider where critical workloads are hosted, how they are connected and the infrastructure they depend on.
Steve will also look at how AI, GPU and high-density compute are changing infrastructure requirements, from power and cooling to connectivity and capacity, and the role regional data centres can play in providing greater geographic choice, resilience and control.

Info: Sovereignty is too often defined by where data sits but, the harder, less-asked question is whether anyone can actually see how the system underneath is built. Architecture changes daily, so a point-in-time audit is out of date the moment it’s filed; real resilience means continuous, verifiable proof that sovereignty claims are still true today. In practice, this gap shows up in systems where every individual component is fully compliant, UK-hosted, encrypted, yet a data flow or dependency quietly reaches outside the sovereign perimeter, because compliance at the component level doesn’t guarantee sovereignty at the system level. Closing that gap is a collaborative problem: infrastructure, encryption, and verification partners each own a piece, and it only holds together with shared visibility across the supply chain rather than siloed point solutions.

Info: AI is advancing faster than the rules, governance models and organisational understanding needed to manage it. In this session, Brainwave Asset Intelligence explores "The AI Grey Space": the uncertain territory between AI opportunity and AI risk.

Looking beyond the headlines, the session examines the questions organisations are struggling to answer around trust, accountability and governance when AI is already in use. Drawing on a career spent driving digital transformation across government, defence, critical infrastructure and asset-intensive global enterprise, including multinational programme delivery across 55 countries, the talk challenges the assumption that AI is primarily a technology problem. Instead, it argues that sustainable AI success depends on strong data foundations, human judgement and effective governance.

Info: The timing is strategically advantageous for Austability because UK Defence and Government are placing increasing emphasis on sovereign digital capability, cyber resilience, secure cloud environments and trusted domestic suppliers, creating a strong market opportunity for a scaled UK-based provider with both technical depth and international Defence experience.
Austability’s acquisition of a controlling interest in Nine23 represents a strategic investment in UK sovereign capability, cyber resilience and secure digital infrastructure. Nine23 brings an established UK-based, high-assurance managed services capability supporting Defence, National Security and other sensitive government environments, including secure cloud, cyber assurance, protected collaboration and interoperability with government networks.

Info: Opportunity to ask questions on the speaking sessions, or that inspire thought leadership, encourage lively debate, and spark meaningful conversations around the subject matter.

Event venue & nearby stays

Bletchley Park, Sherwood Drive, Bletchley, United Kingdom

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