Dyson has said it is working on new products with “intelligent, self-improving” technology as it enters the next stage of a multi-billion pound investment plan. The company - known for its vacuum cleaners and fans - gave a behind-the-scenes look at its campus at Hullavington Airfield in Wiltshire.
Chief engineer Jake Dyson said the business had been developing “top secret, cutting edge future projects” for a 10 to 15 year product pipeline at its growing robotics and machine learning hub in the former air hangars.
Dyson said among the projects its engineers and researchers had been working on, included products that use software and data science, designed to solve problems “before the owner is even aware of them”.
The household appliances giant was providing an update on a five-year, £2.75bn investment plan announced in 2020, as part of which it hopes to double its product range and enter entirely new fields by 2025.
In the video update, chief engineer Jake Dyson, son of founder Sir James Dyson, said: “Where software and data science take us isn’t about gimmickry or fruitless features. It’s about bringing purpose and making people’s lives easier – we look after the product without you having to worry.
“We’ve invested in our laboratories and Campuses in the UK, Singapore, Philippines and Poland for our growing engineering team working on top secret and sustainably smart technologies, with a 15-year outlook.”
Some of the more recent innovations Dyson discussed was its self-cleaning 360 Heurist robot vacuum. The firm said it had become the first in the world to have the capability to alert people about pollution events, such as wildfires or sandstorms, based on air quality data gathered from 200 million air quality signals its purifying fans send to its engineers every day.
Earlier this year the company unveiled a set of air-purifying headphones, the Dyson Zone, as its first wearable technology product.
Chief executive Roland Krueger said: “In November 2020 we announced that we are investing into new technologies such as energy storage, robotics, machine learning and e-commerce. We are now delivering on our promise.
“These investments will lay the foundation of expanding our product categories and entirely new fields of products for Dyson. Our ‘Drive to Digitalization’ with a focus on software skills across the entire company is a core element of these investments and will be instrumental to write a new chapter for Dyson.”
Earlier this year Dyson relocated its global headquarters to Singapore and launched its largest ever recruitment drive for engineering and digital roles to date, as it looked to take on more than 2,000 staff globally this year - of which 900 would be based in the UK.
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