This brains trust gives HP an insight into where technology might take us in the next 3-15 years. This foresight can be invaluable – sometimes avoiding failure can be as important as backing success. As one scientist explained: if a quantum computer can be built, we need to know; if it can’t, we need to know that too. It also gives the company unique technology that can differentiate its products or create whole new markets, as happened with the phone cameras.

A bridge between academia and business, it compares with establishments like IBM’s software development lab near Winchester, Microsoft Research in Cambridge and BT’s Adastral Park, near Ipswich. It often collaborates with other labs and with the dreaming spires, but among top-tier PC companies, HP Labs is unique in its size and scope.

While much of its work goes on behind security-controlled doors, some of it emerges in the form of prototypes or academic papers. These glimpses reveal what HP thinks might be important in IT over the next few years. They read like a geek’s dictionary: virtualisation, utility computing, trusted computing and the semantic web.

If the phrases seem strange and awkward now, it’s worth remembering that in 1984 when the Bristol labs opened, there were some equally avant-garde phrases knocking about: the internet, networking, cellular phones and graphical user interfaces – the familiar things that shape the IT landscape today.