Earlier this month, the Southern Manufacturing & Electronics Show brought thousands of engineers, innovators, and technology leaders to the Farnborough International Exhibition & Conference Centre—one of the UK’s largest annual industrial gatherings.
The event is recognised as a central meeting point for manufacturing, electronics, aerospace, automotive and wider engineering communities, drawing more than 10,000 visitors and over 550 exhibitors each year, and offering a platform to explore cutting edge technologies across design, engineering and production.
Against this backdrop, AESIN hosted a panel session on power electronics and photonics, featuring expert contributors Stephanie Morton (APC), Aidong Xu (Wave Photonics) and Kilian Stenning (Rayd Technologies). Their discussion highlighted how both fields are now critical enablers of the UK’s industrial future.
This panel marked the first step in AESIN’s broader mission to expand its support for electronics and software systems innovation across diverse industries. While AESIN has long been recognised for its leadership in automotive electronics, it is now amplifying activity across adjacent high growth domains, ensuring that knowledge, innovation and collaboration flow more easily between sectors where electronic systems, photonics and power technologies are increasingly converging.
Photonics alone contributes £18.5 billion to the UK economy and supports over 84,000 jobs, making it one of the nation’s most productive high value manufacturing sectors, with global market growth driven by data centres, telecoms, AI, quantum and next generation sensing.
The panel explored the rapidly expanding opportunity in power electronics, a foundational technology underpinning everything from electrified transport and renewable energy systems to robotics, industrial automation and defence.
UK industry already holds recognised strengths in semiconductors, advanced packaging, and converter design, placing it in a strong position to capture new global growth driven by the energy transition and digital transformation.
The strong reception at Southern Manufacturing & Electronics demonstrated both the appetite and the urgency: the UK has world class expertise, rapidly growing markets and clear industrial demand
