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Who

Chris Herd speaks from a perspective rooted in Aberdeen and Scotland’s manufacturing legacy. He brings a direct, high-conviction view on AI and robotics as civilisation-level forces and what that means for national strategy.

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What is the core argument?

AI and robotics are so consequential that every country has to choose: build real capability or buy it from elsewhere. Scotland has energy as a strategic advantage. The nations that choose to be “makers” will set the rules, capture the margin, and compound advantages. Scotland needs to decide now.

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What are the key themes?

AI and robotics are the defining forces of the next 30 to 50 years. This is not a sector trend. It is the organising context for the economy. Small, incremental positioning is not a strategy at this scale. Every nation must choose maker or taker. Neutrality is not stable. You either build core capability or become dependent on those who do. The framing shifts the debate from support programmes to industrial intent and sovereignty. Scotland’s energy is a differentiator. Power supply becomes a strategic input when computing and robotics are energy-hungry. Scotland’s renewable energy surplus is not an infrastructure footnote — it is a competitive advantage at global scale. Industrial depth still exists. Aberdeen’s oil and gas legacy represents manufacturing capability, not just history. Scotland has been close to advanced manufacturing including semiconductors. Other parts of Scotland have manufacturing capacity too. Advanced manufacturing needs honest assessment. Whether Scotland could manufacture semiconductors is a legitimate question, but it needs a hard-eyed assessment rather than assumption. The important behaviour is willingness to test difficult industrial options against reality. The mission: the world’s first AI-first country. Build compute infrastructure underneath it and make Scotland the best place for AI startups to build. This is a capability build with physical infrastructure, not a branding exercise.

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What ideas were discussed?

  • Make a deliberate national choice to be a builder, not a consumer, in AI and robotics.
  • Start from real constraints and assets: energy, factories, existing industrial expertise.
  • Treat ambition as delivery: compute and manufacturing capability first, narrative second.
  • Optimise for founder outcomes so Scotland becomes the default place to build an AI company.
  • Test hard options in public, including what is feasible and what is not.

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