Since Issue 24, the Microsoft Cloud (South Coast) User Group's two-day flagship at the Hilton at the Utilita Bowl has been and gone, and Basingstoke Business Week is now under way. Its AI sessions on 11 and 12 November fall too close to this issue to list. The big stretch is 17 to 19 November: Hampshire AI now has a registration link for its cyber security evening, Venturefest South marks its tenth year at the Utilita Bowl, and Developer South Coast has posted its November session.
Some groups are still quiet. PyData Southampton has no in-person meetup listed, only the online PyData Global from 9 December. The Microsoft Cloud (South Coast) User Group, AI Chinwag, Women in Tech Hampshire and South Coast Technology Leaders have nothing posted yet either.
The AiLab construction workshop near Romsey on 26 November now shows as sold out on Business South. December now has two confirmed dates, both from the University of Southampton. On the 1st, the AI and Education White Paper and Benchmarking Forum at the Axis Centre presents a roadmap for responsible AI in higher education, with policy and industry panels on buying and evaluating GenAI tools. On the 15th, a hybrid workshop looks at work, automation and AI. Looking further ahead, Solent FutureScape 2027 runs on 16 March at King's Conference Centre, Hedge End.
⭐ Top Picks
Tue, 17 Nov · Southampton, Axis Conference Centre
Hampshire AI – Cyber Security in the Age of AI
Marc Woosnam, CTO at Centerprise International, looks at how AI is being used in cyber attacks, how it can strengthen detection and defence, and how to secure your own AI adoption. He brings nearly 30 years in infrastructure, cloud and security, including defence and public-sector programmes.
Wed, 18 Nov · West End, Utilita Bowl
Venturefest South's 10th Anniversary Festival of Innovation
A full day of talks, pitches and an AI & Gaming cluster zone, with sessions including The Business of Creative: Navigating AI Disruption and Opportunity at 11:15 and Intelligent Innovation at 15:00. Useful for founders and anyone meeting investors and support organisations.
Thu, 19 Nov · Southampton, United Reformed Church, Alma Road
Sorry About the PRDs & Scaling Delivery When AI Writes the Code
Developer South Coast closes its year with Ollie Dawes (Heidrick & Struggles) on replacing product requirement documents with AI briefs and prototypes, and Rado Mroz (Nourish) on scaling delivery when AI-assisted pull requests double in size.
🗓️ Full Event Listings (Nov-Dec 2026)
Date & Time | Event (Host) | Venue / City | Type | Cost | RSVP / Info |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Wed 11 Nov, 08:30–10:00 | AI & Cyber Security: Is your business ready for what’s coming next? (Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council / Basingstoke Business Week) | The Square, Basing View, 3rd Floor, Basingstoke RG21 4EB | Fireside chat | Free | |
Wed 11 Nov, 11:00–12:30 | AI in the Workplace: Helpful Tool or Legal Timebomb? (Phillips Law / Basingstoke Business Week) | Belvedere House, Basingstoke | Talk (AI and employment law) | Free | |
Thu 12 Nov, 08:30–13:00 | Basingstoke Skills Summit (Luke Murphy MP / Basingstoke Business Week) | Apollo Hotel, Basingstoke | Summit (includes AI breakouts) | Free | |
Tue 17 Nov, 18:00–20:00 | Hampshire AI – Cyber Security in the Age of AI (Hampshire AI / Spectrum IT) | Axis Conference Centre, 3 Venture Road, Chilworth, Southampton SO16 7NP | Talk & networking | Free | |
Wed 18 Nov, 09:00–17:00 | Venturefest South's 10th Anniversary Festival of Innovation (Venturefest South) | Utilita Bowl, Botley Road, West End, Southampton SO30 3XH | Festival (talks, pitches, AI & Gaming cluster) | From £43.37 | |
Thu 19 Nov, 19:00–21:00 | Sorry About the PRDs & Scaling Delivery When AI Writes the Code (Developer South Coast) | United Reformed Church, Wessex Synod Office, 120 Alma Road, Southampton SO14 6UW | Meetup (two talks + lightning talk) | Free | |
Thu 26 Nov, 09:00–13:00 | Responsible Generative AI in Business Workshop: Construction Sector (Business South / AiLab) | Kimbridge Barn, Kimbridge, Romsey SO51 0LE | Workshop | £200 + VAT (Business South Champions), £300 + VAT (standard) | |
Tue 1 Dec, 09:30–13:00 | AI and Education White Paper and Benchmarking Forum (AI and Education Standards Development Team, University of Southampton) | Axis Conference Centre, 3 Venture Road, Chilworth, Southampton SO16 7NP | Forum (white paper launch, policy and industry panels, networking lunch) | See Eventbrite | |
Tue 15 Dec, 09:00–17:00 | Work, Automation, and AI (University of Southampton) | University of Southampton Avenue Campus, Southampton (online option too) | Academic workshop (hybrid) | See University of Southampton | University of Southampton (register by emailing the organiser) |
📰 Hampshire AI in the News
University of Southampton uses AI to read two centuries of handwritten port books
Historians scanned about 100,000 pages of port books held at the National Archives and trained AI to read the handwriting of different port officials and spelling that changed over the decades. With the university's GeoData Institute, they turned the records into a database and interactive map of hundreds of thousands of voyages from the late 16th to the mid-18th century. The lead researcher said the output still needed manual checking, but AI cut years off the work. It's a useful local example of handwriting recognition at archive scale, with people still checking the results. Published 19 October 2026.
Southampton AI tender-writing start-up mytender raises £1.4m
mytender began as a University of Southampton student start-up and went through Southampton Science Park's Catalyst programme. It has now raised £1.4m in follow-on investment for its AI tender-writing business. It shows the local route from student project to funded AI company, and it's a product category worth watching for SMEs that bid for public contracts. Published 26 October 2026.
🌎 Worldwide AI News
Autumn Budget puts £700m into sovereign AI and AI security
Chancellor John Healey's Budget on 28 October set out a £700m AI package. It includes £140m for the Sovereign AI Unit to help UK firms scale, £120m for the AI Security Institute and £40m to investigate incidents involving autonomous AI agents. The detail of how the money will be allocated is still to come.
Why it matters: Hampshire AI SMEs should watch for Sovereign AI Unit calls, and public-sector teams should expect more scrutiny of agentic systems.
Mistral releases the open weights for Large 4
Last issue we said to wait for the weights. They arrived on 29 October on Hugging Face, after three more weeks of training, under a modified MIT licence. Running it yourself still needs serious hardware: Mistral says the quantised version runs on four Nvidia B200 or B300 GPUs. Offering it to others as a hosted model service needs a separate commercial licence.
Why it matters: regulated and public-sector teams now have a large European model they can host themselves, if they have the compute. Independent testing is still the next step.
Google announces Gemini 4 Carbon, starting with cyber defenders
Google announced Gemini 4 Carbon on 28 October, two weeks after Gemini 4 Argon, with a focus on coding, long agentic tasks and cybersecurity. Access starts with a small group of cyber defenders, and there is no date yet for developers or the public. The benchmark results are Google's own.
Why it matters: vendors are now releasing their strongest models to security teams first, so expect security tooling to change before general AI products do.
⏰ Deadlines & Opportunities
Innovate UK BridgeAI Deployment Catalyst, Phase 1
Three competitions, each with up to £5 million, fund AI deployments in assurance and compliance, decision-critical systems and operational systems.
The lead must be a UK AI SME with an existing solution at technology readiness level 5 to 6, partnered with a UK medium or large organisation that will deploy it.
Deadline: Tuesday 8 December 2026, 11:00.
Knowledge Transfer Partnership 2026–27, Round 4
Universities, research organisations and Catapults can apply with a business partner for a share of up to £12.5 million. Grants cover up to 67% of costs for SMEs. This is a practical route for Southampton, Portsmouth and Solent academics to run AI projects with local firms, and the application form has changed this round.
Deadline: Wednesday 27 January 2027, 11:00.
Citations & Sources
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