The Inmos office opened in Bristol in December 1978. This was the starting point for Bristol’s microelectronics industry, leading to the development of the Inmos Transputer, the first microcomputer designed for parallel computing. It was used by thousands of researchers and students around the world. It was used both in high-performance computers and consumer products; over 1 billion products incorporating the Inmos technology were shipped. The many highly skilled technologists who joined Inmos went on to form new companies and enabled the region to attract investment from global technology companies.

About The Speaker

David May is Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at Bristol University. He is known for numerous innovations in computer architecture including the Inmos transputer, the occam concurrent programming language, the ST Chameleon system-on-chip architecture and the Xmos multi-threaded multicore processor. He is the author of over 100 papers and 50 patents. David was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1990 for his contributions to computer architecture and parallel computing, and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2010. His interests are in computer architecture; design and verification; mobile and wearable computing; robotics; high-performance computing. He maintains active relationships with technology industry and investors, and has acted as an advisor to several early-stage companies. Alongside this, he has advised on intellectual property issues and acted as an expert witness in litigation.