UCL AI Festival spotlights academic–industry links in growing Euston–King’s Cross innovation cluster

5 March 2026

The four‑day UCL AI Festival brought together students, researchers, industry and entrepreneurs to explore cutting‑edge research and real‑world applications across healthcare, climate, quantum computing, robotics and more.

The programme combined a two-day hackathon organised by AI Engine with two days of research presentations delivered in partnership with NVIDIA and HPE, hosted by British Land at One Triton Square, a joint venture with Royal London Asset Management. The event was a collaboration between UCL Innovation & Enterprise, who lead on strategic innovation partnerships including NVIDIA and HPE and the UCL London Office, who manage UCL's relationship with British Land.

Hackathon

The festival opened on Saturday with a two‑day hackathon that brought together more than 200 participants to prototype new tools and applications using the latest AI platforms. Led by AI Engine, the open-ended hackathon gave teams just 24 hours to create and present a working demo that that would contribute to real world impact. Teams worked across healthcare, climate, robotics and public‑service use cases, supporting rapid experimentation.

The winning team included three UCL participants – Lucas Lim, Joe Tan, Shashank Durgad all from the UCL Department of Computer Science, and as well as Desmond Zee from University of Cambridge. For placing first, they received tickets and funded travel to NVIDIA GTC 2026 in San Jose this March.

They built Sentrix, a next generational agentic police force designed to protect organisations when deploying autonomous agent workflows. Using patrol swarms and investigation teams, the system is designed to intercept criminals, through observation, malicious intent detection and rapid escalation. The hackathon was supported was supported by industry partners like Cooley, N47, Crane, Dawn Capital, powered by a large number of technology partners including NVIDIA, AWS and Anthropic, and leading European tech companies like Lovable, Prolific, Encord, Doubleword and Runware.

Research deep dives

The research programme opened with a welcome from Professor Geraint Rees, Vice‑Provost (Research, Innovation & Global Engagement), setting the tone for two days focused on the technical foundations and societal impact of AI. Talks highlighted accelerated computing for research, sovereign AI infrastructure, healthcare digital twins, climate and polar observation, quantum computing and robotics.

Professor Geraint Rees, Vice‑Provost (Research, Innovation & Global Engagement), said: “The UCL AI Festival shows both the power and responsibility of AI. From developers building new tools to researchers tackling unanswered questions, UCL is helping lead the field — advancing the science while ensuring AI delivers real‑world impact for people and planet.”

In her talk “From Lab to Market: The Synthesia Story,” Professor Lourdes Agapito (UCL Computer Science) traced Synthesia’s journey from 3D vision research at UCL into a global generative‑AI company with support from NVIDIA’s developer relations team.

Other talks highlighted the real‑world impact of AI, including how UCL, NVIDIA and Bangor University advanced UK‑LLM to enable AI reasoning in English and Welsh for public services, trained on Isambard‑AI with NVIDIA toolchains. Sessions also covered the implications of quantum computing for AI, how generative models of the human brain are enabling new interventional pathways, and deploying embodied AI and robotics beyond the data centre into clinical and industrial settings.

Building momentum: UCL–NVIDIA Robotics Day on 10 February

The festival built on the UCL–NVIDIA Robotics Day held on 10 February, also hosted at One Triton Square. The event convened students, researchers and engineers to discuss embodied AI, simulation, world foundation models and generalist robot learning, with contributions from the UCL Robotics Institute and UCL Advanced Research Computing.

Strategic partnerships powering impact

Events like these showcase what can be achieved when students, researchers, and industry collaborate. The partnerships involved include:

NVIDIA In June 2025 UCL was confirmed as the UK partner in NVIDIA’s Europe‑wide initiative to help countries develop sovereign AI platforms, building on work such as BritLLM/UK‑LLM trained on the Isambard‑AI supercomputer to enable AI reasoning for UK languages and public services. These collaborations underpinned several festival sessions on sovereign AI and scaled model training.

Steve Davey, Director, Higher Education and Research UK and I, NVIDIA, said: “Our partnership with UCL reflects a shared commitment to advancing the frontiers of artificial intelligence in ways that deliver real impact for society. UCL’s researchers are working at the cutting edge of areas such as robotics, sovereign AI and healthcare digital twins, and we are proud to support that work with the accelerated computing platforms that make this innovation possible. Events like the UCL AI Festival demonstrate how powerful collaboration between academia and industry can be, and we look forward to continuing to build the future of AI together.”

HPE The festival also highlighted HPE’s role in building the national and enterprise AI infrastructure stack. HPE and NVIDIA have co‑developed the NVIDIA AI Computing by HPE portfolio, including a turnkey Private Cloud AI solution and “AI factory” solutions that accelerate enterprise AI and research at scale; HPE systems power national platforms such as Isambard‑AI.

British Land and One Triton Square Since 2023, UCL and British Land have had a strategic partnership aimed at growing innovation in Euston and King’s Cross. Hosting the Festival at One Triton Square – a joint venture between British Land and Royal London Asset Management reflects the shared vision to create spaces where researchers, founders and industry partners collaborate and translate ideas into impact.

AI Engine is a fast‑growing initiative that brings together top technical talent, industry leaders and emerging builders to innovate with cutting‑edge AI tools through hands‑on workshops, high‑energy hackathons and fellowship support. UCL was the host for the first AIEngine event at UCL East in Feb 2025, and was proud to partner with AIEngine again for the hackathon element of the UCL AI Festival.

Strengthening the Euston innovation ecosystem

The festival underlined UCL’s role at the heart of the Euston and King’s Cross innovation corridor, where proximity to world‑class institutions and industry partners enables density, collaboration and translation. One Triton Square, within the Regent’s Place campus, is emerging as a focal point for science and technology activity, connecting talent, research and capital in London’s Knowledge Quarter. Prof Alan Thompson, Pro-Provost (London) said: “UCL is at the heart of an established life science innovation district spanning our campus in Euston and King’s Cross. Our deep commitment is to work closely with our neighbours, including British Land and our local partners across healthcare, innovation and real estate, to support the ecosystem to thrive.”

Simon Hepher-Davies, Head of Regent’s Place Asset Management, British Land added: “We are focussed on creating the conditions for innovation ecosystems to thrive. We’ve built a campus that supports every stage of growth — from coworking labs to global headquarters - bringing together talent, academia, founders and industry, with moments like the UCL AI Festival at One Triton Square.”

Real‑world impact: selected themes discussed at the UCL AI Festival

Sovereign AI and UK‑LLM: UCL, NVIDIA and Bangor University advanced UK‑LLM to enable AI reasoning in English and Welsh for public services, trained on Isambard‑AI with NVIDIA toolchains.
Quantum computing: Sessions covered hybrid quantum–GPU architectures and CUDA‑Q for simulation, control and error correction, and their implications for AI.
Healthcare digital twins: Researchers outlined how generative models of the human brain scale from a few GPUs to thousands, enabling new interventional pathways.
Robotics and physical AI: Building on the 10 February workshop, speakers explored deploying embodied AI beyond the data centre into clinical and industrial settings.

Looking ahead

With four days of collaboration, hands‑on experimentation and future‑looking discussion, the UCL AI Festival and the UCL-NVIDIA Robotics Day showcased the ambition and impact of UCL’s AI community as well as the strength of partnerships with NVIDIA, HPE and British Land in advancing research and innovation for the benefit of our neighbours in Euston, and beyond.