In Catania, the Vecchia Dogana becomes a hub for artificial intelligence

A 19th-century building inside Catania's port becomes a reference point for innovation and aims to be a meeting point for a number of existing entrepreneurial and technological realities. This is the meaning of Vecchia Dogana Hub, a project promoted by Aitho, a Sicilian company active in the development of AI solutions (it is an innovative SME and benefit company with offices in Catania, Milan and Lugano), which has set itself a clear objective: to be a point of reference in Southern Italy for emerging technologies and those who develop them. It is not just a physical space, but a fluid infrastructure designed to foster the hybridisation of knowledge and the integration of technology and Mediterranean culture. from now on, some fifteen companies will be established in the hub, including Mono Madfarm, Giorgio Commercialisti, Studio Scacciante & Associati, and Edgemony.

Vecchia Dogana Hub was thus born with a profoundly technological identity and an eye on the great current theme, that of Artificial Intelligence, to which a first event will already be dedicated at the end of May in this place where artificial intelligence dialogues with manufacturing, academic research, design and sustainability, opening up new scenarios for business and social innovation.

The official debut is scheduled for 30 May 2025, with the Catan.IA event, dedicated to artificial intelligence, organised in collaboration with Datapizza, Italy's largest Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) community, and sponsored by the City of Catania. A day that presents many opportunities for in-depth analysis among panels, workshops and practical demonstrations. "It will be an opportunity to experience first-hand the potential of AI applied to key sectors of the economy and to get to know some of the realities such as start-ups, research centres, and established companies that have decided to join this vision,' says Davide Pisasale, founder of Aitho and promoter of the initiative. 'In Aitho we have been working on these issues for some time and we have found strong connections with many realities in the area. Vecchia Dogana Hub was therefore born with a connective mission, to strengthen an area that has so much vitality but sometimes lacks recurring and systemic opportunities for confrontation. The new space will be this: a place to build a common and proactive point of view on the AI theme'.

Vecchia Dogana Hub is in fact a candidate to be not only a container, but a real engine of transformation for the city of Etna and the South. "With Vecchia Dogana Hub we want to strongly affirm that the South is not only a territory from which one starts, but also a place where it is possible to build, innovate, and attract value,' says Davide Pisasale. 'Too often the South is only told in terms of its shortcomings, whereas here there is vocation, real skills, and a strong desire for the future. Vecchia Dogana Hub was created as a hybridisation space to give space and form to this energy, and to say to companies, researchers and innovators: you can stay, you can come back, you can start here'.