Scaling up the AI ecosystem: is there a frugal way?

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly transforming economies, governance and industry. Yet scaling AI adoption sustainably, balancing innovation with accessibility, efficiency and long-term societal benefit, remains a global challenge.

The current AI landscape is shaped by 2 dominant models:

• United States: AGI-driven, venture-backed and compute-intensive
• China: large-scale industrial deployment supported by state-led investment

Against this backdrop, the UK’s ecosystem presents a distinctive opportunity, which is to develop a sustainable, ethical and globally competitive approach that harnesses innovation while working within real-world resource constraints.

This discussion brings together voices from policy, academia and entrepreneurship to explore practical levers, including capital and incentives, adoption and commercialisation, compute infrastructure and talent retention and how approaches like Frugal AI, who are doing more with less and scaling under constraints, can open new pathways for growth and impact.

Programme

Panellists and speakers

Nicky Buckley

Director, Fellowships and Networks, CSaP

Dani Dhiman

Senior Associate, Formation Advisory

Tim Flagg

CEO, UKAI

Serish Gandikota

Co-Founder and Co-Director, Frugal AI Hub at Cambridge Judge Business School

Gareth Lomax

Incubator for AI, Cabinet Office

Dr Jakob Mökander

Director, Science and Technology Policy, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

Professor Kamiar Mohaddes

Director, Global Executive MBA, University of Cambridge

Co-Founder, King’s Entrepreneurship Lab

Elizabeth Osta

Co-Founder and Co-Director, Frugal AI Hub at Cambridge Judge Business Cchool

Jaideep Prahbu

Professor of Marketing

Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business & Enterprise

Read more about Jaideep

About Jaideep’s research

Jaideep’s research interests are in marketing, innovation, strategy and international business. In particular, he studies various cross-national issues concerning the antecedents and consequences of innovation. His current research is mainly on innovation in emerging markets and innovation by, for or with low income communities worldwide.

View profile

Discussion themes

• Productivity: lessons for scaling AI responsibly across sectors
• Start-up Ecosystem: accelerating innovation under constraints
• Sovereignty: building accessible and energy-efficient infrastructure
• Talent: developing AI skills as a lasting driver of growth
• Future of Work: creating sustainable, human-centred transitions

Organisers

Frugal AI Hub

The Frugal AI Hub at Cambridge Judge Business School is an initiative co-founded and co-led by  Serish Gandikota and Elizabeth Osta. It focuses on making AI affordable, energy-efficient, and socially responsible through research, adoption labs and ecosystem-building across the UK, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP)

The Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) at the University of Cambridge connects academic expertise with policymakers and industry leaders, fostering evidence-based dialogue and collaboration on emerging science and technology issues.

Get in touch

This is an invite-only event.

For enquiries or to express interest, please contact either Christian Neubacher (CSaP) or Serish Gandikota (Frugal AI Hub).