60 seconds with… Peter Brady

Peter Brady brings a wealth of experience in innovation and technology to the Suffolk Business Board, including a deep understanding of AI and the role it plays in driving our businesses forwards. Read on for a 60-second snapshot of his life and career.

How would you sum up your role and experience in a couple of sentences?

I’ve spent 25 years innovating, developing and commercialising technologies, with a particular focus on AI, extended reality and gamification, through Orbital Global, VirtTuri and as a Visiting Professor in digital innovation. That lets me bring a digital economy voice to the board, grounded in what it takes to move a technology from concept to deployment and commercial scaling.

What motivated you to join the Suffolk Business Board?

I joined the Suffolk Business Board because I am passionate about the region and its enormous potential. By bringing grassroots insight and feedback from the digital sector, I hope my input can help define support and strategy that will best harness the talent, strengths and opportunities that already reside in Suffolk. I’d love to hear from businesses across the county about what’s holding their digital adoption back.

AI is on everyone’s radar at the moment – where do you think it can make the biggest difference for Suffolk businesses?

I’ve researched and developed AI technologies for many years, and Suffolk is unusually well placed to lead nationally on adoption as well as innovation. We have the research base at Adastral Park and the University of Suffolk, alongside sectors like agriculture and food production, logistics, clean energy, advanced manufacturing and healthcare where AI pays for itself quickly. Done correctly and safely, the biggest single difference will be productivity, giving smaller businesses capabilities and capacity they could never previously afford to buy.

Looking back, what career decision has had the biggest impact on where you are today?

After a difficult period personally, I decided to radically change my life. That meant a recalibration of my career path towards passions for innovation and technology, whilst aspiring to make a difference in the world. This decision was risky but transformative, allowing me freedom to pioneer a wide range of research and technologies. I haven’t regretted it for a moment.

What excites you most about Suffolk’s future?

Suffolk is a wonderful place, full of remarkable people, and its digital potential runs right across our industries. If we can fully harness that it will be transformative for living standards, healthcare outcomes, job creation and much more.

What’s one thing Suffolk should be shouting louder about?

That’s hard, because there’s so much we should be shouting about. But if you pushed me: Adastral Park is the crown jewel of the UK’s digital communications economy, and its growing role in national AI research deserves to be far better known, both in Suffolk and nationally.

What’s one technology or trend you think businesses aren’t paying enough attention to yet?

Quantum computing will eventually break the public key encryption that protects almost everything we send online, a moment security professionals call Q-Day. Nobody knows exactly when it will happen, but at some point in the not-too-distant future the data security businesses rely on could be compromised. Quantum resistant encryption is something we all need to be planning for now.

Find out more about all our Suffolk Economy board members here.