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Great Innovations in British Business:

4 Examples from AWS

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Great Innovations in British Business: 4 Examples from AWS

From the industrial revolution to television, radar and medical breakthroughs - like the discovery of DNA - Great Britain has always been a hub of innovation.

There must be something in the tea that gives Britain a restless curiosity, the vision to spot an opportunity and the sheer grit to see it through to fruition.

Whatever the reason, as we transition from the industrial to the digital age, those qualities are more valuable than ever. All around us we see more and more examples of British ingenuity and opportunism harnessing the boundless potential of technology.

As companies are making the journey from disruptive outlier to become the ‘new normal’ in their category, together we are delivering more value to customers everyday.

So here, in celebration of that spirit, are four examples of how cloud technology and business creativity are driving Great British innovation at its best.

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Formula 1 racing is one of the most popular spectator sports in the world, with more than 500 million fans around the globe.

Not only is F1 a battle between the world’s best drivers, but it’s also a battle of some of the world’s most innovative engineers. No other sport has been as dynamic in its evolution and embrace of new technology. While some of the tech goes to helping drivers, who are hitting speeds as high as 230 MPH, taking pit stops in under 2 seconds, and flying around corners with a force of 5 g, much of it goes to enhance the experiences of its growing base of fans.

300 sensors on each car generate 1.1M telemetry data points per second throughout a race, captured and processed with every twist and turn of the course. This information is then turned into on-screen statistics, race

Great British Innovation in Sport: Formula 1 revolutionising race competition through technology

predictions and insight into the split-second decisions on which a Grand Prix can turn.

The processing power of AWS helps make all this possible. Data from the track is streamed in real time to AWS, where it is analysed and combined with over 69 years of historical race data. Advanced machine learning then allows F1 experts to pinpoint a driver’s performance and whether or not they have pushed themselves and their car to the limit.

For a global fanbase following a race on TV and digital platforms, this extra layer of rich data adds even more to the excitement. Yet also provides trackside insight and better understanding of the split-second decisions made by their favourite teams and drivers, that can dramatically affect the outcome of the race.

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In F1, overtakes are a large part of what makes F1 so exciting to watch. The cloud is also helping F1 to take competition to the next level by altering some of the rules around car design. Downforce pushes the car into the ground for increased speed, grip and high cornering speeds. But those same corners are where cars need to be close to make overtakes happen, and the current generation of cars suffer a significant loss of downforce and therefore, loss of speed when running in the wake of another car. The inability to sustain close racing reduces the chance of overtaking, so pole positions often become predictable indicators of the race winner.

Predicting and addressing this issue is where Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can help.

While CFD has been used for over 20 years to create a virtual wind tunnel to test the aerodynamics of cars while racing, Amazon High Performance Computing (HPC), a leader in recent HPC advancements, has opened up opportunities to solve problems that once seemed impossible and reduced the average time of a CFD simulation.

With six months of continual refinement, the system delivered a performance equivalent to that of a supercomputer costing millions of pounds. The team developed insights that led to a new car design for the 2022 racing season featuring a brand-new bodywork design and running on 18-inch wheels with low profile tyres for the first time. But the best part? The loss of downforce for a following distance of one car length was reduced from nearly 50% to around 10% - likely to significantly increase the prospect of wheel-to-wheel racing in 2022.

Learn more about Formula 1.

Pat SymondsChief Technical Officer of Formula 1

This project with AWS was one of the most revolutionary in the history of Formula 1 aerodynamics. Nobody designs a car to come in second, but for this CFD project we were looking at how cars perform in the wake of another, as opposed to running in clean air.

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Great British Innovation in Energy: Lightsource BP Energy Saving Smart App

Lightsource BP is a global leader in the funding, development and management of solar projects and smart energy solutions, that aims to ensure that everyone has access to affordable and sustainable energy resources. By combining their advance technology development capabilities with extensive renewable energy experience, they develop creative solutions to help customers reduce their monthly electricity bills and carbon footprint.

One such method is to take advantage of variable energy pricing that incentivises energy consumption during non-peak times. Using home battery systems that are powered by solar energy when the sun is out, and topping up with power when the prices are optimal. In practice, this requires customers to monitor weather forecasts and energy prices to see when the optimum time is, day or night, a task that is complex and unmanageable for most.

Now, thanks to Lightsource Labs, the innovation arm of Lighthouse BP, they don’t have to. Instead, Lightsource BP created Tribe, the company’s system for intelligent home energy management. Tribe is an AI-powered app that learns a household’s energy consumption pattern and automatically manages that consumption based on electricity-market price signals, carbon intensity profiles and weather information.

Comprising a small in-home hub and smartphone app, Tribe puts the customer in control. Leveraging AWS worldwide reach, it enables customer households to monitor the energy generated by solar panels, manage smart appliances, and schedule the charging of electric vehicles – in the palm of their hand.

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This control allows customers to optimise electricity costs, see a faster return on the usually substantial upfront investment required for solar panels, and reduce household carbon footprint, making solar energy a more viable option for everyone.

By developing and deploying Tribe on AWS, Lightsource Labs brought the product to market much faster than would have been possible using traditional methods. Not only speeding up time to market in half the time they initially expected, but also at a third of the cost of developing in their own data centre.

Helping Lightsource Labs reduce its overhead costs, has helped the company make Tribe even more appealing to customers.

Learn more about Lightsource BP.

Menelaos IoannidisChief Technology Officer at Lightsource Labs

AWS helps us maintain low, competitive subscription costs by consulting with us to make sure we are utilising our infrastructure optimally and to show us where we can make improvements. That’s a big win for our customers.

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One of the biggest transformations of the digital age has been the rise of the independent artist. In every field from literature and film making to music and performance art, the internet has passed control from a narrow band of gatekeepers to those who create and consume original content.

Among the first to capitalise on this was Artfinder, an online art marketplace that connects artists and buyers in the fine art world. Artfinder’s online community includes more than 500,000 global subscribers and 300,000 works for sale.

Bypassing critics, agents, gallery owners and other ‘tastemakers’, Artfinder gives artists a much broader market for their work and offers art enthusiasts almost half a million pieces to choose from. At the same time, it makes fine art more affordable by dispensing with gallery and auction house fees.

A key part of the Artfinder offer is displaying to buyers the works of art they’re most likely to appreciate. The challenge here is twofold. First, managing the sheer volume of artwork on the company’s servers. And second, anticipating buyers’ personal taste in the samples of work that are served to them.

Taste in original art is, of course, subjective. Artfinder asks its artists to supply information about each work to help people find it, but that information isn’t always the best description of the piece, Artfinder also quickly discovered an ‘if you liked that, you’ll like this’ automation simply wasn’t equipped to process the subtleties involved. What was needed was a ‘deep dive’ image analysis of every piece of art. One that compared colour palettes, texture, brush strokes, contrasts and artists’ subjects in forensic detail.

Great British Innovation in Arts & Culture: Artfinder Revolutionise Art Buying

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They use AWS services to analyse images to extract information for their recommendations. For example, if there’s a dog in the picture, we can make sure it comes up when people are looking for dogs, even if the artist hasn’t specified that information. Amazon Machine Learning is also used to refine its algorithms around what behavioural criteria carry the most weighting when recommending pieces.

The tool also tracks user behaviour on the site to see what products they view, what artists they follow, what they buy, what they like, and what they search for.

Where recommendations were by no means guaranteed to hit the mark before, the advanced technology that now matches artists with buyers is introducing more people than ever to the joys of art ownership.

The scale of AWS allows Artfinder to expand operations and launch into the US market. This combination of innovation and scalability helped Artfinder to grow revenue by 75% in the UK and 190% in the US, with 60% of traffic now coming internationally to British based Artfinder.

Learn more about Artfinder.

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Advancements in technology have had an enormous impact on medical developments, from robotic surgeons to bionic limbs, and now, we’re beginning to see the evolution of imaging software for diagnosis and surgery.

Formed in 2012, UK clinical applications firm Cydar provides advanced 3D visualisation software driven by high-performance AWS systems. Its technology matches live X-ray images with CT scans and other 3D images, giving surgeons in the operating theatre access to real-time visualisations that increase accuracy and the chances of successful patient outcomes.

What would have been a limitation for Cydar’s technology in the years before readily available cloud supercomputing – its need to draw on huge computing power in very short bursts during surgery – now makes it a positive asset for hospitals under financial pressure.

Their software does something incredible for surgeons. It watches live X-ray images, using bone anatomy to detect patient position and generate up-to-date 3D Maps for them and their teams. Unlike the old way (mechanically-tracked systems), Cydar EV is the world’s first AI-powered image-based tracking platform. It corrects errors caused by patient movement and postural differences, allowing surgery to be more accurate, and even faster, which can reduce radiation exposure for staff and patients.

The traditional healthcare procurement model of CAPEX-based investment means it’s difficult for hospitals to act quickly when innovations (that can ultimately improve patient outcomes) reach market. Especially if they require complex and expensive on-premise server hardware that is only used for a few minutes each day.

Great British Innovation in Medical Care: Cydar bring 3D Visualisation to Surgery

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From the initial software development and build, Cydar was hosting its first cloud-based surgeries in just 3 months. This knowledge is empowering Cydar to develop additional products that push the boundaries of technology in medicine. Dr Malas (Chief of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at UCSD) has highlighted how the use of Cydar’s technology has enabled him to “fix aneurysms that were very difficult to fix before”2

“… we would sometimes have to say, ‘We’re sorry, but we just can’t help.’ This technology has opened up a new way for us to treat people we couldn’t previously.”2 – Dr. Malas.

Cydar’s new technologies have the additional benefit of reducing risk to patients with decreased radiation exposure and procedure times. Dr Malas has observed that “In the past, we would use a significant amount of contrast to just localize the visceral vessels, which could damage the kidneys. This is significantly more accurate than before, and I get into the major vessel with my catheter within a minute and without any contrast. We used to spend eight-to-10 hours on these procedures. Now we can do them in half the time.”²

Learn more about Cydar.

Tom CarrellCo-founder & Executive Director

The beauty of AWS and the cloud is that we can use the computing power across a number of operating theatres at the same time. It’s no exaggeration to say that our technology has the potential to change the way healthcare providers work.

2 https://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/2019-09-16-3D-tech-repairs-aneurysms-deemed-inoperable.aspx

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SummaryFrom energy to medicine, fine art to Formula 1, cloud computing is woven into the fabric of success for UK businesses in almost every sector.

Like the laser, originally dubbed ‘an answer in search of a problem’, its potential for future commercial applications lies in the imaginations of entrepreneurs and innovators.

At AWS, we work closely with well established enterprises and those in exciting new markets to help them realise that potential, however it reveals itself.

We’ll continue to do that for as long as the appetite for innovation is there. Judging by the examples here, and the many others we encounter every day, that’s going to be a very, very long time.

Reading ListLearn more about speeding up innovation with these excellent books:

Leadership systems and feedback

Ahead in the Cloud, by Stephen Orban

A Seat at the Table, by Mark Schwartz

War and Peace and IT: Business Leadership, Technology, and Success in the Digital Age, by Mark Schwartz

Related Content:

Cloud for CEOs, by Adrian Cockcroft

Tuning up the High-Frequency Enterprise, by Philip Potloff

Becoming a Data-driven Organization, by Joe Chung

Leading Transformation, by Miriam McLemore

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