Enabling a National Cyber-Physical Infrastructure Consultation | Briefing Video Recordings | techUK and BEIS
Enabling a National Cyber-Physical Infrastructure to Catalyse Innovation
Understanding the opportunities for connected digital twins and other advanced cyber-physical systems
As part of our digital twin programme, we held two focussed sessions in collaboration with the team in BEIS on their consultation on a national Cyber-Physical Infrastructure.
On 1 April we held a briefing session on Security and Resilience and People and Culture.
Security and Resilience
This theme examines how secure and resilient systems will underpin Cyber-Physical Infrastructure.
Risks and Challenges
- Increased connection, automation and data availability can give hostile actors greater insights and potential impact
- Increased risk of cascading failures from more connected systems
- Technical systems requirements will be needed for secure and resilient systems (e.g. autonomous monitoring, fail safe mechanisms and partitioning)
Questions
- Increasingly connected cyber-physical systems
- What are the greatest security risks?
- What are the greatest resilience risks, including cascading failures?
- What should industry, academia, government and wider society do to address these?
- Greater automation across cyber-physical systems
- What are the greatest risks and benefits of increased automation?
- What should industry, academia , government and wider society do to address these?
People and Culture
This theme examines how people engage with cyber-physical systems and the socio-technical challenges involved.
Challenges
- CPI will require a broad range of roles (e.g. developers, operators, business implementation, end-users)
- Skills may include data modelling, business analysis, commercial, analytics and intelligence
- Digital and data skills are already in high demand (greater than supply)
- Business models will need to change to adopt cyber-physical systems
Questions
- Technical and non-technical skills requirements
- What are the greatest unfulfilled technical and non-technical skill requirements for developing, implementing and utilising cyber-physical systems?
- What should industry, academia, government and wider society do to address these?
- Business models
- How will businesses models need to adapt to adopt these systems and CPI - and what will be the greatest barriers?
- What should industry, academia, government and wider society do to address these?
On 12 April we held a briefing on Connection and Interoperability and Sustainable Markets
Connection and Interoperability
- What are your current approaches to connecting cyber-physical systems (e.g. bespoke integration, conformance to industry standards, use of single-provider solutions, shared/common architectures and interfaces with partners etc.)?
- What value and risks do you see in greater interoperability and sharing of data between your and/or your partners’ cyber-physical systems, and for what purposes?
- What are the current barriers to greater interoperability and data sharing between your and other organisations’ cyber-physical systems?
- What are specific examples of data that you need but can’t access?
- Where and how are government, industry and academia best placed to help overcome these?
Sustainable Markets
Cyber-Physical Infrastructure will need to be commercially sustainable and well-functioning technology and data markets will be critical to this.
- What are the specific challenges you face to securing investment to develop, procure or implement cyber-physical systems (investment from within your own organisation or from external funding sources)?
- Where and how are government, industry and academia best placed to help overcome these?
- What are the specific barriers you face to developing, procuring and adopting cyber-physical systems?
- Where and how are government, industry and academia best placed to help overcome these?
techUK will be collecting members' views on this consultation and submitting an official response.
The full consultation document could be found here.
Teodora Kaneva
Teodora’s rich background varies from working in business development for a renewable energy lobbying association in Brussels to the fast moving technology innovation startup scene in the UK.
