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In a new policy brief published by the Bennett School of Public Policy, University of Cambridge, StateUp Founder and CEO Dr. Tanya Filer looks to Argentina. She examines the attempt under President Mauricio Macri, a metropolitan mayor turned head of government, to scale an innovation and modernisation model developed in Buenos Aires nationally.
The comparison provides a lens onto the UK’s changing technology architecture following the abolition of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
Rather than claiming that Prime Minister Andy Burnham is attempting to scale Greater Manchester’s model nationally, the brief argues that his early technology choices reflect some recognisably mayoral instincts: visible delivery, concentrated innovation, trusted executive teams and direct political sponsorship. It asks which of these qualities can be adapted across the far greater complexity of national government, and what else is needed. Argentina provides a comparative stress test for the transition.
The brief considers how governments build technology systems that can coordinate, adapt, and deliver across institutions, places, and borders.
1. Political authority is not delivery capacity.
Strong sponsorship from the centre can accelerate action, but must be matched by clear decision rights, operational capability, and durable cross-government arrangements.
2. Government restructuring carries a delivery cost.
Moving teams and responsibilities can disrupt reporting lines, procurement, recruitment, budgets and external partnerships. Technology programmes need protected continuity while institutional structures change.
3. Build beyond AI.
AI may offer political momentum, but long-term resilience and competitiveness depend on a wider stack: semiconductors, quantum, HPC, cyber security, energy and compute infrastructure, and advanced skills, which must receive resources and attention.
4. Devolution needs capability, not only powers.
Regional technology policy can reinforce existing inequalities if places lack the institutions, skills, infrastructure and absorptive capacity needed to use new powers effectively.
5. Coordination must be designed.
National technology systems need explicit mechanisms for standards, data-sharing, dispute resolution and alignment between central and devolved institutions. The objective is coherence without uniformity.
6. International cooperation is part of domestic capability-building.
Few countries can build or control every capability they need across the critical technologies' supply chain. Partnerships work best when organised around specific capability gaps, complementary assets, and shared or complementary missions.
For national governments: institutional architecture is a crucial part of strategy. Technology priorities need articulated decision rights, protected delivery capacity, and coordination across departments, infrastructure and places.
For cities and regions: new powers are valuable only where institutions are equipped to absorb investment, retain skills, and connect technology programmes to local economic and public-service needs.
For technology companies and investors: government structures shape routes to procurement, infrastructure, finance, and market access. Understanding where authority and capability sit becomes increasingly important, and challenging, as technology policy is distributed across multiple institutions and jurisdictions.
The coordination problems described in the brief are not unique to Argentina or the UK. Any government building technology capability across levels of government faces versions of the same challenge: how to combine national strategic direction with uneven regional capabilities, long investment horizons, distributed infrastructure and international dependencies.
The brief’s conclusion is therefore broader than machinery-of-government design. National technology capability has to be built across levels of government and beyond the state itself. The UK and Europe have long had tremendous convening power, but convening is not enough. The brief takes this argument into national policy, from dialogue to operating models: shared infrastructure, procurement, standards, talent, research links, supply chains and market access organised around defined capability needs.
Dr Tanya Filer is Founder and CEO of StateUp and Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Cambridge Forum on Technology and Global Affairs. She leads work on critical technologies and the policies, trade strategies, and alliances needed to develop, scale and deploy them.
Interested in a briefing on national technology capability, institutional design, or international technology cooperation? Contact research@stateup.co.
