PRESENT & FUTURE
5.46pm Tuesday 30 April 2024
Three ministers on Friday to kick off AI4Industry. At the head of the Foundation comes Fabio Pammolli, economist from the Polytechnic of Milan and advisor to Giorgetti. Probable location in the skyscraper of the Piedmont Region
The long wait will end on Friday 3 May. It is the date set for arrival in Piedmont of ministers Giancarlo Giorgetti, Adolfo Urso And Anna Maria Berniniowners respectively of the Economy, of Made in Italy and of the University, to sign the birth of the Foundation that will manage the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Turin. Everyone, godmothers and godmothers, at the baptism of AI4Industry, as the newborn reality was called, arriving after a four-year gestation. Born precisely under the Mole but it will be led by a Tuscan, Milanese by adoption and Roman by occupation: Fabio Pammolliclass 1965, full professor of Economics and Management at the Polytechnic of Milan and economic advisor to Giorgetti at the Mef. Political logic and territorial weights have led to the choice of a figure who is certainly of a high level, but little inserted into the Piedmontese fabric (although his wife is a manager of PoliTo), such as, for example, Guido Saracco, former rector of the Polytechnic of Turin who was among the eligible candidates for a long time. “The center is national – the entourage of the Northern League minister cuts short from the capital – it cannot respond to localistic logics”, which coming from an exponent of a party that advocates Autonomy is surprising. But that’s it. The weight of Turin and Piedmont can be measured in these circumstances.
The meeting is scheduled for the afternoon at the Risorgimento Museum where the official presentation is scheduled in the presence of the mayor Stefano Lo Russo and the governor Alberto Cirio. There will be around a hundred people employed within the I3A which should be located in the premises of the skyscraper of the Piemonte regionin the so-called “butterfly”, a location that seems to have won the competition from other spaces taken into consideration for a long time such as those of the former Olivetti in Ivrea, the Ogr in Turin, Mirafiori, where the Competence and Manufacturing Center already exist, the City of the Aerospace and the Holy Face, made available by the Curia.
The idea of creating a national hub for artificial intelligence began to take hold in 2020. Many and heterogeneous subjects have dedicated themselves to the project: institutions, curia (with don Luca Peyron), industrial associations and universities of Turin. The goal was to create a center where the most advanced research in the field of AI and robotics could be hosted and become a driver of innovation in various fields. Two years later, and as many governments, nothing, or almost nothing, remained of that project. I3A (this is the acronym chosen for the institute) envisaged initial investments of 60 million and 600 researchers hired. The headquarters in Turin had been assigned as a sort of compensation for having lost the tender with Milan to host the European Patent Court. At the Ministry of Economic Development there was Luigi Di Maio. Chiara Appendino, then mayor and his party partner, gives the thing (almost) done. In February 2021 Mario Draghi goes up to Palazzo Chigi and Giggino moves from the Mise. A month later, in a draft of the Pnrr where, in the meantime, the creation of the center is conveyed, the indication of Turin as the headquarters disappears. The automotive and artificial intelligence hub appears in place of the I3A with a budget that has dropped to 20 million. In this project AI is barely mentioned. The focus is on mobility, the automotive industry and (perhaps) aerospace.
