Dr Biswa Sengupta

Dr Biswa Sengupta is an Indian-heritage engineer, theoretical computer scientist, and AI executive who co-founded Stanhope AI, a UCL and King's College London spinout applying the Free Energy Principle to build brain-inspired AI for autonomous physical systems. He holds a PhD in dynamical systems, optimisation, and energy efficiency from the University of Cambridge, and completed further training in Bayesian machine learning and differential geometry at University College London.

Sengupta has spent more than two decades working across academia and industry at the frontier of artificial intelligence. His research career spanned the University of York, the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, the Hertie-Institute for Clinical Brain Research, UCL, and the Indian Institute of Science, before he moved into applied AI leadership at major corporations. He has held senior roles at AXA XL, Huawei Technologies (as Global Head of Machine Learning), Zebra Technologies (as Technical Fellow and Global Head of Machine Learning), and most recently as Managing Director for AI Products and Cloud Platform in the Corporate and Investment Bank at J.P. Morgan, where he oversaw development of AI products at institutional scale.

Sengupta co-founded Stanhope AI in 2023 alongside Professor Rosalyn Moran and Professor Karl Friston, combining his deep expertise in applied AI systems with Friston's foundational theoretical work on the Free Energy Principle and Moran's specialisation in Active Inference and its application to AI. His role as Technical Advisor brings industrial-scale AI product experience to the company's academic research foundations.

Stanhope AI's approach — running on-device, adapting in real time, and operating without GPS or cloud connectivity — directly reflects Sengupta's career-long focus on energy efficiency and deployability in constrained real-world environments. The company raised £2.3 million in 2024 and closed a £6 million seed round in February 2026 led by Frontline Ventures, with backing from Paladin Capital Group and Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, to scale field trials across defence, robotics, and industrial automation.