Deep Tech, Cambridge Style: The Bradfield Centre at Cambridge Tech Week 2026

From opening our doors for Day 1 to bringing University of Cambridge spinout companies into Innovation Alley, and sponsoring the AI day on Thursday, we are participating in the week in ways that we hope create real value for our community and for everyone attending.

Monday 14 September — Welcome to Cambridge

Cambridge Tech Week opens with Showcase Cambridge — a day designed to introduce delegates to the places and people behind one of Europe's most remarkable innovation ecosystems. Rather than beginning in a conference hall, the day takes attendees out across the city, to the labs, campuses, and workspaces where Cambridge's technology actually gets built.

The Bradfield Centre is one of those locations. Sitting at the heart of Cambridge Science Park — Europe's first science park, established by Trinity College Cambridge in 1970 — we'll be welcoming delegates, giving them a feel for the community that calls this building home, and helping set the tone for the week.

For those already working in Cambridge, Showcase Cambridge is also worth your time. It's an opportunity to see parts of the ecosystem you might not normally encounter, and to meet people who are arriving in the city for the first time. The conversations that start on Day 1 often turn out to be the most valuable of the week.

Tuesday 15 & Wednesday 16 September — Innovation Alley

On Tuesday and Wednesday, you'll find us at Innovation Alley at the Guildhall — the exhibition heart of Cambridge Tech Week, bringing together more than 80 startups, scaleups, and technology companies working across AI, MedTech, HealthTech, ClimateTech, and advanced engineering.

We want the companies in our community to benefit directly from our involvement in the week. So this year, three finalists of The Trinity Bradfield Prize — the annual entrepreneurship competition run jointly by The Bradfield Centre and Trinity College Cambridge — will be joining us on our stand, showcasing their innovations to an audience of investors, corporate partners, and potential customers.

Meet the Companies

All three companies emerged from the University of Cambridge research ecosystem. Come and find them at the Bradfield Centre stand throughout Tuesday and Wednesday.

OneCarbon  |  Trinity Bradfield Prize 2026 finalist

OneCarbon is tackling one of the defining challenges of our time: brain ageing and Alzheimer's disease. The company's founding research identified the metabolic pathways that govern neuronal resilience — how well neurons withstand stress — and demonstrated how these are disrupted in Alzheimer's across multiple peer-reviewed publications. Using machine learning and directed evolution, the team has developed 1C-01: a food-grade, non-GMO bacterial strain designed to support neuronal resilience through the gut, paired with a companion app for longitudinal cognitive tracking. OneCarbon is a member of the Alzheimer's Society Innovation Launchpad, based at the Milner Therapeutics Institute in Cambridge, and its founders have been recognised in the Forbes 30 Under 30.
Website: https://onecarbon.com

GreenMixes  |  Trinity Bradfield Prize 2026 — First Prize Winner

Concrete is responsible for over 8% of global CO₂ emissions. GreenMixes is making it carbon-negative. The company has developed an admixture that replaces 10% of the cement in a standard concrete mix with a functionalised biochar composite — sequestering carbon in the process while maintaining 95–100% of compressive strength. It's a dry powder that drops straight into existing batching plants with no new equipment and no process change, making adoption straightforward for manufacturers. GreenMixes is starting with non-structural precast applications — pavers, blocks, cladding, and landscaping — where the commercial case is clearest.
Website: https://www.greenmixes.com

Phaseshift  |  Trinity Bradfield Prize 2026 — Runner Up

Phaseshift is commercialising advanced metasurface technology — ultra-thin optical components that can precisely manipulate light at the nanoscale, enabling capabilities that traditional optical systems cannot achieve. The applications span next-generation photonics, quantum computing, and sensing technologies. Where conventional lenses are bulky and limited in function, metasurfaces can be engineered to perform multiple optical functions in a fraction of the space, opening up new possibilities in medical imaging, LiDAR, and quantum information processing. Phaseshift combines advanced nanoscale fabrication with system-level validation, taking the technology from academic concept to manufacturable product.
Website: https://www.phaseshift.tech

The Trinity Bradfield Prize is open to student and researcher-led ventures emerging from the University of Cambridge. Applications for the 2026–27 competition open on 1st September. If you are building something from within the University, visit trinitybradfieldprize.co.uk to find out more and apply.

For an early-stage company, visibility at an event like this can change the trajectory of a year. A conversation at an exhibition stand might lead to an investor introduction, a commercial relationship, useful product feedback, or simply putting the company in front of someone who needed to know it existed. We're looking forward to seeing where the conversations lead.

Thursday 17 September — The AI Programme

The Bradfield Centre is sponsoring the AI-focused programme on Thursday 17 September, and it's a natural fit. We have been building what we believe is the most active AI practitioner community in Cambridge. The Cambridge AI meetup group, The Claude Meetup, The Cambridge AWS User Group and Cambridge Software Crafters are just some of the groups that meet regularly at The Bradfield Centre, under the umbrella of the AI at the Bradfield Centre initiative.

The conversations happening in our building every day, about practical AI adoption, frontier models, commercialisation, and the talent market, are the same conversations that the Thursday programme at Cambridge Tech Week is designed to surface at scale.
If you work in AI, are building with AI, or are trying to understand how it applies to your field, Thursday is the day to be in Cambridge. You can browse our regular programme of AI events at bradfieldcentre.com/ai.

Cambridge Tech Week Is More Than a Week in the Calendar

Five days of concentrated activity, conversation, and connection. Cambridge Tech Week is one of the best weeks in the UK innovation calendar, and we are genuinely excited about what this year's programme looks like.

The businesses, ideas, and relationships that make Cambridge such an extraordinary technology hub are developing throughout the year — in labs, in meetings, in coffee queues, and in the kind of low-key, high-value conversations that happen when the right people are in the same building at the same time.

Sometimes that starts with a conference. Just as often it begins with a meetup, an introduction between two founders, or a researcher deciding to explore whether their work has commercial legs. The Bradfield Centre exists to give more of those interactions somewhere to happen, 365 days a year.

Find Us During the Week

• Monday 14 September — The Bradfield Centre, Cambridge Science Park (Showcase Cambridge site visit)
• Tuesday 15 & Wednesday 16 September — Innovation Alley, The Guildhall, Cambridge 
• Thursday 17 September — AI Programme

The views expressed in this Sponsor article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Cambridge Tech Week