The UK Cyber Flywheel, hosted by Harmonic Security, will take place on 9 October at the National Theatre in London. This one-day event is designed to inject momentum into the UK’s cyber security start-up ecosystem by bringing together government leaders, investors, founders, and senior CISOs to chart a path for global market leadership in areas such as secure AI adoption and cyber resilience.
The program will feature heavyweight voices from the national cyber stage, including CTOs from the UK Government and the National Cyber Security Centre, alongside the CISO of the newly established AI Security Institute. They will be joined by the CISOs of OVO, CFC, and Close Brothers, as well as eight innovative UK start-ups and a group of founders who have already scaled successful security companies. This mix of policymakers, practitioners, and entrepreneurs aims to create a dynamic exchange on how to accelerate innovation in the face of fast-shifting threats and opportunities.
At its core, the event is focused on the conditions that allow start-ups to scale faster and stronger. With world-class engineering talent and a legacy of AI research, the UK already has fertile ground for security innovation. Yet the discussions at Cyber Flywheel will revolve around why talent and history are not enough to seize global leadership, and how the ecosystem must evolve to close the gap—whether through early enterprise adoption, stronger investor pipelines, or deeper collaboration with government.
As Harmonic Security’s CEO Alastair Paterson framed it, the stakes are high. “AI is redefining both the opportunities and threats in cyber security. UK Cyber Flywheel is about ensuring the UK doesn’t just watch this shift but leads it. We’ve been talking about this for years but now it’s time to do something about it.” With that, the event positions itself as more than just another conference—it’s a call to action for the UK to take the next leap forward in cyber security leadership.