Scotland’s tech sector has weathered a challenging year. 

It’s not something that’s unique to us, turbulence in the ecosystem has been seemingly inescapable, whether it’s this week’s latest geopolitical upending or the continued proliferation of the most disruptive technology of a generation. 

It can be easy to lose your bearings and forget the resilience that’s inherent in this country – in fact, despite an undoubtedly challenging year, high-tech industries still delivered a £3.7 billion boost to the Scottish economy. 

Beyond this, hundreds of millions in fresh funding have poured into homegrown firms, and some high-profile deals has Scotland very much in the conversation for the coming wave of AI-led transformation. 

So, we can either lament the combustible environment our businesses are working through, or we can celebrate the people and organisations in Scotland that have succeeded and excelled in the last 12 months, in spite of the challenges. 

There’s few nights in the Scottish tech calendar that accommodate that better than ScotlandIS’ Digital Tech Awards.

Now in its 16th year, the ScotlandIS Digital Technology Awards shines a spotlight on “the great kind of innovation” happening across the country’s tech sector. 

Karen Meechan, CEO of ScotlandIS and all-around champion of the ecosystem, describes the Awards as a showcase of excellence – from startups to large enterprises – and an opportunity for every corner of Scotland’s digital industries to network, learn and take pride in each other’s achievements. 

This year’s iteration will see finalists (whom you can check out in full here), representing a plethora of digital tech touchpoints – from Tech for Good to Product Innovation.

DIGIT sat down for a chat with Meechan to not only talk about the awards and its new category for 2026, but also a soupçon of Scottish tech issues that will no doubt direct the discourse for the rest of the year. 

New Award Category Puts The Spotlight on New Innovations

This year sees ScotlandIS expand the honours on the night, introducing a brand-new “AI Trailblazer” award. The goal is to recognise businesses that harnessed AI in the past year to drive genuine transformation – from boosting efficiency to creating novel products. 

As Meechan puts it: “We should be celebrating the businesses in Scotland who are creating or harnessing the power of AI, creating new products and services that are going to be beneficial to the wider ecosystem.” 

In other words, the new category recognises local AI “powerhouses.”

The shortlisted finalists vividly illustrate this diversity in approaches to getting viable (and actually useful) AI solutions to market. One finalist, 2i Testing, is an Edinburgh-based tech firm that applies AI to software testing; Apsis Business Components of Glasgow, builds intelligent, data-driven software for construction and finally, Leidos, a US-headquartered tech company with 30 years experience in Scottish operations, brings AI into sectors like public safety and engineering. 

Meechan hopes this category sends the message that Scotland is ready for AI: the aim is both to celebrate existing achievements and to encourage others to follow suit.

That’s just one of 11 awards, mind – the finalists across every category are all doing fantastic work in the Scottish ecosystem.

Scottish Data Centres: Powering AI Ambitions (and a Wee Bit of Debate)

Whether it’s awards, news announcements or around the water cooler (if that’s still a thing?) AI is inescapable and our conversation with Meechan felt a great opportunity to get the ScotlandIS CEO’s take on the country’s approach to accommodating the nascent (yet seemingly all-encompassing) technology.

Essentially, Scotland’s ability to be in the conversation when it comes to AI relies on underlying compute infrastructure, and Meechan underscores that point emphatically. 

She points to recent major investments as evidence: notably, a partnership between DataVita and CoreWeave to fund a large AI-focused data centre in Scotland (roughly £1.5 billion – thought to be the largest technology investment in Scotland’s history). 

Such deals, Meechan notes, “further validate Scotland’s cool climate and renewable energy as strategic assets”. 

In fact, there’s a compelling case to say that Scotland’s climate and clean power are a competitive advantage for hosting data centres (in 2024, Scotland generated 73.1% of its energy from renewable sources, and 91.5% from low carbon sources). While these assets and their leveraging for data centre use are a boon for Scotland’s potential within the AI space, there’s quite a bit of nuance to how this all potentially plays out.

Meechan is clear that the debate around data centres isn’t black and white. There is opportunity – but also scrutiny.

“I appreciate that there are rules and regulations, and rightly so, when it comes to planning permission, looking at sustainability,” she says. “And that’s absolutely right.”

While the DataVita deal promises a project that will deliver ‘one of the most carbon-efficient AI deployments in the UK’, the recent rejection of a proposed data centre in Edinburgh over environmental concerns is part of a wider tension that must be overcome. 

But for Meechan, the bigger risk is inertia. “What we do not want to do is lose the opportunity to bring in things like that £1.5 billion of investment into Scotland,” she says. “Because that impacts the whole ecosystem.”

She points to the practical knock-on effects. “We appreciate that building data centres creates employability when the infrastructure is going in,” she explains. “And then you don’t have teams of four and five hundred people working in the data centre thereafter. 

While acknowledging that impact and the need to manage the transition to Scotland being AI-ready, there’s an element of pragmatism required – that opportunity we’ve found ourselves in of somebody going, ‘Well actually, when we look at the UK and Scotland, they have the compute capacity for us. So why wouldn’t I bring a base here?’”

That, she argues, is where the real value lies: “That then brings employment. That brings more people in jobs that spend their money in Scotland, mortgages being paid, rents being paid, and spending in our local high streets. So there’s potential there for so many facets of the Scottish economy.”

At the same time, Meechan acknowledges the infrastructure challenges we face to stay competitive: “When we’re looking at power accessibility – we know that the planning process is difficult and arduous.

“It’s difficult because (as the recent rejection of a proposed Edinburgh data centre arguably illustrated), there’s maybe not some really clear guidelines around sustainability for some of the local authorities who are trying to deal with these requests.”

For Meechan, clarity is key. “We need to make that a bit clearer for them as well,” she says, arguing that uncertainty risks sending investors elsewhere. 

“If we don’t get it right, they’ll go elsewhere – and then we lose that investment into Scotland and we’ll lose that opportunity for other inward investment.”

Scottish Budget 2026: “Hand-Ups, Not Handouts”

ScotlandIS has had a long and fruitful relationship with the Scottish Government, offering insight and advice that’s representative of its members. With that in mind, it made sense then to get Meechan’s steer on January’s budget announcement – specifically, how the Scottish Budget addressed (or failed to address) the tech sector. 

She was frank: the tech industry’s response was one of disappointment. In her view, Scotland’s tech cluster already contributes almost £6.9 billion in GVA annually, so she expected targeted support to help it grow even faster. 

Yet, the budget allocated just £126 million for digital, data and AI initiatives – a figure Meechan described as inadequate given how often ministers had touted technology’s importance.

“We’re not looking for handouts,” she said. 

One major suggestion Meechan posited was public procurement. She argues that since the public sector has a large purchasing budget, it should source more tech products and services from Scottish companies.

“The public sector has their biggest piece of budget in procurement,” Meechan says. “Use that budget to support the innovation in our ecosystem.” 

In practice, that would give domestic tech firms a valuable first customer and help them scale; it doesn’t cost extra money, just a shift in buying practices. She emphasises that these firms have often invested decades of private effort in developing their products – they need “hand-ups” through contracts and pilot projects, not unconditional grants.

Recommended reading

• Digital Connectivity Vital Part of Scot Gov’s National Islands Plan
• Scots Gov Exceeded Broadband Connection Target Last Year
• New UK Deal to Eliminate Mobile Blackspots on Busy Rail Routes

As ScotlandIS continues to engage with government, Meechan says their message is clear: enable homegrown digital businesses to thrive. 

“I stand on stages and talk about how innovative Scotland’s tech ecosystem is,” she points out, “but then we go elsewhere for some of this technology.” 

She hopes that mindset can change. 

In practical terms, she’s calling for specific support structures to be formalised by the next Budget – for example, better links between public-sector projects and local tech suppliers, and investment in digital infrastructure and skills. 

Meanwhile, ScotlandIS will keep its dialogue open: “We will continue to push for change,” Meechan affirms, ensuring policy and budget choices truly “unlock growth, innovation and competitiveness” for Scotland’s tech industry.