UK opens new collaboration hub with industry under Project Fairfax

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has opened a new 'Collaboration Hub' in partnership with four defence industry partners, to help accelerate emerging tech innovation. 

The new hub, based at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire, comes as part of the MoD’s Project ‘Fairfax’, which was launched in October 2025. It involves developing the Cambridgeshire site to help bolster the UK’s defence intelligence ecosystem. 

The hub, opened on 27 August, will act as "a dedicated space [for the partner companies] to jointly drive innovation, run a development lab, and deliver outreach and STEM activities", the MoD revealed on 14 September. 

The MoD's Defence Intelligence organisation established the Fairfax Collaboration Hub alongside Huntingdonshire District Council and the following companies: 

• CDS Defence and Security, a UK-based SME providing consultancy services 

• CGI, a Canadian company focused on secure information systems, with a significant UK presence 

• MAIAR, a UK SME specialising in R&D, intelligence, cyber, and resilience 

• Vantor, an intelligence platform provider 

In terms of specific activities, Vantor says that the hub will "host operational sprints, technology demonstrations, engineering workshops, mission-focused experimentation, and innovation challenges". 

"These activities will connect operational users directly with developers and researchers, enabling technologies to be tested and refined around real defence needs and shortening the journey from concept to deployed capability," the company says. 

This is part of MoD efforts to deepen ties with industry and academia following the 2025 Strategic Defence Review's recommendation that the MoD transitions away from its transactional relationship with industry, and towards a partnership-oriented approach. 

What is RAF Wyton? 

RAF Wyton – which has decades of defence intelligence history, including acting as an air reconnaissance base in the Cold War – hosts the UK's National Centre for Geospatial Intelligence. 

Plans for development at the site were mentioned in the 2025 Defence Industrial Strategy, which highlighted its strategic position within the Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor. 

The new hub's establishment on the base is part of a wider "five to seven year" investment plan, intended to bolster the UK’s defence "intelligence ecosystem", the MoD says. 

Going forward, the MoD plans to turn the base's legacy airfield into a science and technology park, to further boost the site's ties to industry and academia.