Rob Miller

Professor of Aerothermal Technology & Director @whittlelab @AIAZero – net zero flight, UK Disruptive Innovation Labs, accelerated policy & tech development.

[Rob Miller @Rob__Miller]

Link for @DrEoinOSullivan and my paper on the importance of a new generation of UK ‘Disruptive Innovation Laboratories’ https://t.co/979Ew2Ortl

[Roger Highfield @RogerHighfield]

Thrill to show brilliant @Rob__Miller, who runs the @whittlelab, the world’s foremost centre for jet-engine research, his favourite engine (a Whittle, of course!) and around an amazing new gallery that opens next spring in the @sciencemuseum

[Rob Miller @Rob__Miller]

Can we imagine AI-powered autonomous labs developing aerospace, energy and defence technologies 10–100× faster?
Yes. The experiment now moves at the speed of AI. The decision still moves at the speed of institutions.
One is physics. The other is choice. Watch 👇
#ActionThisDay

[Rob Miller @Rob__Miller]

@s8mb I had thought the palace systems collapsed a century or two before iron weapons became common in the eastern Mediterranean?

[Cambridge University @Cambridge_Uni]

Today, we welcomed back His Majesty King Charles III @TheRoyalFamily to Cambridge for the formal opening of the New Whittle Laboratory at the West Cambridge site.

The New Whittle Lab is the world's leading research centre for jet engines and power generation.

The £58 million facility has been designed to transform and accelerate the UK's approach to innovation in hardware development and manufacturing across aerospace, energy and defence.

Focusing on missions and collaborating across the UK, it will design, develop, test and deploy new innovations at record pace.

Read more about today's event: https://t.co/2M93VRMkax

@BizTradeGovUK @RollsRoyce @Airbus @Boeing @MHI_Group @Siemens_Energy @NATO @TheSMI

[The Sustainable Markets Initiative @TheSMI]

"I don't think you're thinking about this in a big enough way," HM King Charles III to @Rob__Miller, CEO of @whittlelab. That conversation led to a world-leading aviation model and a pathway to net zero flight by 2050. #TheSMI #SMITerraCarta

[Ben Johnson @ersatzben]

I clearly recall the discussions that led to the Faraday Discovery Fellowships being created. The argument was that there was a cadre of truly exceptional researchers, often a postdoc or two into their early/mid career, who - with the right level of independence - could pivot into exciting new research directions. But the landscape of fellowships that could support such people was very thin – particularly with UK participation in the European Research Council then in doubt.
What the UK needed was a new platform to support the most exceptionally talented individuals transition into research independence: a very generous fellowship that could run over a longer time period, with high flexibility, high risk tolerance, and low bureaucracy. Such a thing would need to be deliberately 'elite' – but in order to avoid capture by processes that would naturally select for a longer track record, the plan was to tighten the funding criteria very meticulously around those at the early-to-mid point of their career.
A number of very senior and highly accomplished scientists raised the same issue of low support for early-to-mid career researchers in 2020, with the Royal Society putting it in their submission to the Spending Review in 2021. Such "Faraday Discovery Fellowships" could usefully fill the gap we were all pointing to. With this level of establishment support now in place, the idea of creating new and prestigious Discovery Fellowships for the most unusually talented researchers was worked into various government documents – from the 2020 R&D Roadmap through to George Freeman's Pioneer alternative to Horizon Europe.
Eventually, the opportunity arose to actually do it. In 2023, we had a significant underspend to deal with arising from delays to Horizon association. We had already proven, with the RAEng Green Futures Fellowship, that fellowships could be designed quickly and funded via an endowment to the national academies. Here was a clear opportunity to repeat the trick for discovery science - we could resurface the issues, give everything a scrub, endow the RS, and let the magic happen.
I do not doubt that the awardees from the first and second rounds of FDF are brilliant scientists. Two of them even have the FRS to prove it! But these are established individuals with their own groups, managing large teams and PI to large grants already! These people have already achieved independence! Many of them are, by the definition of most other research funders, senior and established in their career!
It is bitterly disappointing. We took our one chance to solve the problem that we all agreed we faced, and we chose not to do it. It may only be £250 million (!), but it represents a very severe policy failure, and should be a source of great shame and regret to all of us who worked so hard on this over many years.

[Laura Ryan @Lyan82]

Last week, @sci_works & @wellcometrust hosted a group of fifty scientists, policymakers, & funders to discuss whether we have the right mix of scientific organisations in Britain, & if not, what can be done 🏗️

We polled attendees to gauge the mood. Here are the results 🧵...

[Reza Zadeh @Reza_Zadeh]

The Whittle Lab at Cambridge has aspirations of creating a hydrogen jet engine. Exhausts water. Many other inventions and exciting research topics will benefit from the new Whittle lab building at Cambridge. It was an honor to be part of the opening with King Charles III's visit. Congratulations to @Rob__Miller and @TheSMI for making it happen!

Matroid is proud to partner with the attending organizations on AI for their aerospace factories, including Boeing, and others.

[Shakeel @ShakeelHashim]

News! Lord Vallance is chairing the new AI Taskforce.

[The Sustainable Markets Initiative @TheSMI]

As @SKYNRG marks the beginning of construction at the DSL-01 SAF facility, we reflect on insights from @Rob__Miller, CEO of @whittlelab, who reasons that decarbonization demands CEO‑level nuance, insights and action. #TheSMI

[Cambridge University @Cambridge_Uni]

We were delighted to welcome DSIT Director Eleanor Taylor and colleagues to the Cambridge West Innovation District.

This included an excellent discussion following news that Cambridge's Cavendish Lab will be home to the UK's most powerful quantum computer, and the arrival of a 60-tonne pressure vessel at the @WhittleLab, part of a 4MW rapid test facility.

[Cambridge University @Cambridge_Uni]

A new kind of engineering capability has arrived in the UK ⚙️

A 60-tonne pressure vessel delivered to @WhittleLab is part of a 4MW rapid test facility – bringing Formula-1-style iteration to aerospace, energy and defence.

We also took delivery of a @RollsRoyce Trent XWB.

Read the full story 👉 https://t.co/z5uEegIEAw
#ActionThisDay

[Charlie Harris @charlieharris01]

Amazing to visit the new @whittlelab (Cambridge Aero department) - two of my favourite topics in one go: AI + aerospace ✈️🤖

Great to hear the progress on agentic design, and how it plugs into rapid prototyping (wind tunnel pictured). Watch this place!

Thanks to @Rob__Miller!

[Rob Miller @Rob__Miller]

Action this day. The old @whittlelab is being dismantled — and a new era of UK technological ambition has risen beside it — the objective, to ensure the UK can once again builds the industries of the future in energy, defence and aerospace @BILCambridge @Cambridge_Uni

[Cambridge University @Cambridge_Uni]

We were delighted to welcome Mayor @paulbristow79 and colleagues from @CambsPboroCA to the Cambridge West Innovation District and @Eddington_Camb, to showcase our world-leading research facilities and opportunities to boost growth in the region through innovation.

[Packy McCormick @packyM]

a16z: The Power Brokers

There is this story about Marc Andreessen that I think perfectly captures a16z.

in 2015, when New Yorker writer Tad Friend sat down to breakfast with Marc Andreessen while writing Tomorrow’s Advance Man.

Friend had just heard from a rival VC who wanted to get a word in: that a16z’s funds were so large, and ownership percentages so small1, that to get 5-10x aggregate returns across its first four funds, they’d need their aggregate portfolio to be worth $240-480 billion.

“When I started to check the math with Andreessen,” Friend writes, “He made a jerking-off motion and said ‘Blah-blah-blah. We have all the models—we’re elephant hunting, going after big game!’”

The aggregate portfolio did not end up being worth $240-480 billion. a16z Funds 1-4 had a total enterprise value of $853 billion at distribution or latest post-money valuation. Since distribution, Facebook alone has added $1.5 trillion in market cap.

Some form of this pattern keeps playing out: a16z makes a crazy bet on the future. Those in the know say it’s stupid. Wait some years. Turns out it’s not stupid!

Which is why, as a16z announces $15 billion in fresh funds, it is probably a mistake to dismiss them as greedy or stupid.

It's probably worth understanding just exactly what IT'S TRYING TO BUILD.

That's what I do in today's not boring deep dive:

a16z: The Power Brokers

[Math, Inc. @mathematics_inc]

🚨 FULL CONVERSATION

Fields medalist Terry Tao sits down with Math Inc's @jessemhan and @jdlichtman for a conversation on the future of mathematics.

"I got convinced that this was the future of mathematics [...]

It's a different style of writing proofs that actually is in some ways easier to read—harder to check by humans, but you see more clearly the inputs and outputs of a proof, which traditional writing often conceals [...]

I think the definition of a mathematician will broaden."

[Rob Miller @Rob__Miller]

@AnEmergentI “We sought to energise high-quality development through innovation. We integrated science and technology deeply with industries and made a stream of new innovations.”

[James W. Phillips @AnEmergentI]

Xi Jinping's 10 minute New Year speech has their progress in science and technology right at the center of it.....

NB - Taiwan unification 'unstoppable'.

https://t.co/JKzpajqMl6

[Aeron Laffere @aeronlaffere]

Laura Ryan on why academia's economic incentives are backwards—and why we need Lovelace Labs.

This and more in part two of our conversation with @AnEmergentI and @Lyan82, out now!