IT4LIA: The Italian AI Factory
IT4LIA is the Italian "AI Factory," funded by the Horizon Europe program, with the goal of promoting innovation and the adoption of artificial intelligence in the country and across Europe. The project involves a wide range of academic, industrial, and institutional partners, coordinated by CINECA.
IT4LIA aims to provide cutting-edge infrastructure, support services, and training pathways for developers, companies, and public administrations. The project focuses on strategic sectors such as agrifood, cybersecurity, earth sciences, and manufacturing, with a strong emphasis on ethics, data security, and the integration of social and human sciences to ensure responsible and inclusive AI development.
Selected by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EURO HPC-JU) of the European Commission, it plans to acquire a new supercomputer optimized for artificial intelligence and create a portfolio of services and initiatives for startups, SMEs, public administrations, and researchers.
The initiative, proposed by Italy with the participation of Austria and Slovenia, is co-funded by the Ministry of University and Research, the National Cybersecurity Agency, the Emilia-Romagna Region, the CINECA consortium, the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, the National Meteorology and Climate Agency, the Italian Institute of Artificial Intelligence for Industry, and the Bruno Kessler Foundation.
Other participants include the ICSC Foundation – National Research Center in HPC Big Data and Quantum Computing, Confindustria, ART-ER, the IFAB Foundation, the University of Bologna, the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, the University of Turin, and the University of Rome La Sapienza.
The project aims to build a qualified one-stop shop to support the national and European systems throughout the entire artificial intelligence value chain. The main objective is to contribute to the adoption of artificial intelligence in businesses, public administrations, and the academic world in key economic sectors, as well as to foster the growth of highly innovative companies, particularly startups.
The Role of ART-ER
ART-ER participates in the IT4LIA AI Factory with the aim of increasing the impact of the opportunities offered by the project for the benefit of the regional system of businesses, startups, public administrations, and research entities. It works to stimulate the development of the local ecosystem on Artificial Intelligence topics.
ART-ER thus plays a pivotal role through actions of open innovation, technology transfer, acceleration, and skills development, leveraging its experience in promoting innovation ecosystems, connecting stakeholders, and leading collaboration between universities, industry, and startups.
Thanks to its coordination of the European Digital Innovation Hub ER2Digit, ART-ER will develop awareness and knowledge actions targeting public entities and other Italian EDIHs.
Initiatives and in-depth sessions will be organized to promote services and facilitate access to the opportunities offered.
The Emilia-Romagna Region
Among the co-funders of the initiative, the Emilia-Romagna Region has been supporting the valorization of big data for the territory for years. In this context, the goal is to encourage the creation of innovation projects that allow all businesses and the territory to experiment with and introduce the use of tools based on generative artificial intelligence.
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