Partnership between Fincantieri, Poste and TIM: the first supply chain for physical AI gets underway

This is not merely a commercial agreement or a declaration of intent regarding digitalisation. The agreement signed yesterday between Fincantieri, Poste Italiane and TIM is a genuine strategic initiative for the sector, marking the creation of the first entirely Italian artificial intelligence supply chain applied to industry. A commitment to technological sovereignty, coordinated by the three major national players, which aims to safeguard a significant portion of ‘Made in Italy’, securing a workload currently worth a substantial 70 billion euros and guaranteeing the country’s economy visibility extending until 2036. The stated aim is to protect the industrial heritage of ‘Made in Italy’ by sheltering it within a sovereign, impenetrable digital ecosystem, entirely governed by algorithms developed and managed in our country. At the heart of this profound operational revolution lies ‘Fincantieri Ontology’, the guiding principle of the 2026–2030 business plan, renamed ‘F4’ (Fast Forward Further Future). In effect, it is a highly sophisticated software infrastructure, designed to codify the immense wealth of technical knowledge in shipbuilding. Knowledge of complex construction processes is transformed into a fully-fledged digital concept map. The subsequent phase of field inference – that is, the practical application of predictive and decision-making models trained by artificial intelligence (AI) – will be carried out in a hybrid technological environment, split between local servers at the shipyards and a secure national cloud, thanks in part to the hardware and software infrastructure provided by Poste Italiane and the connectivity provided by TIM. The strategy follows two parallel paths destined to merge into a single digital continuum. On the one hand, there is the ‘Navis Sapiens’ project, focused on the advanced digital management of the maritime sector; on the other, there is the ‘Ontology’ ecosystem, entirely geared towards predictive design and construction within the shipyards. Thanks to the computing power shared by the three partners, engineers will develop 4D workflows. This means that robotic welding and heavy-lifting systems, alongside teams of workers, will receive data packages optimised daily by the algorithm, reducing downtime and overcoming traditional construction constraints in a sector historically considered to have low digital penetration. This redesigned supply chain generates direct procurement within Italia totalling 55 billion euros, involving a wide-reaching network of around 7,000 small and medium-sized enterprises. The ambition of Europe’s second-largest manufacturing sector is also to trigger a momentous shift: the evolution of the workforce into ‘knowledge workers’. This is not about replacing workers with robots, but rather about enhancing their capabilities on the shop floor. The traditional skills of shipbuilding craftsmen (blue-collar workers) will be integrated with those of the new ‘digital-collar’ workers. Together with Poste and TIM, a safe space is being established, aptly renamed a ‘tabernacle of knowledge’, where so-called tacit knowledge can be protected and put to good use, that is, the body of layered technical expertise, passed down orally and preserved in the experience of individual workers, which has always constituted the true competitive advantage of ‘Made in Italy’ worldwide. Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO of Fincantieri, explains that ‘data and artificial intelligence are the driving force behind our 2026–2030 business plan. With the launch of this strategic partnership, we are not only digitising an industrial process but we are also documenting and safeguarding the ontology of our technical culture. Together with Poste Italiane and TIM, we are building a secure and sovereign environment to lead the Physical AI revolution’. “We,” remarks Matteo Del Fante, CEO of Poste Italiane, “are giving it our all, supporting Folgiero’s vision. His production system must adapt to the efficiency-boosting tools that technology and AI now make possible. Supporting him means carrying out a major pilot project at a leading company that drives a vast supply chain of SMEs, demonstrating in practical terms that innovation is achievable and thereby sending an optimistic and constructive signal to the entire Italian manufacturing sector.” “We are embarking on the future,” adds Pietro Labriola, CEO of TIM, “and we absolutely cannot afford to wait. With AI and through the extensive re-digitalisation of our industrial processes, leveraging ontology, we are projecting ourselves into tomorrow. We have no other viable paths or alternatives; either we do this now with conviction, or we remain dangerously tied to the past.”