Research, Italia nominates Bologna for 'Frontier AI' artificial intelligence research centre

Italia is nominating Bologna and the Technopole as one of the main hubs of 'Frontier AI', the future European infrastructure for research and artificial intelligence. This was stated by the Minister of University and Research, Anna Maria Bernini, during the bilateral meeting with the European Commissioner for Start-ups, Research and Innovation, Ekaterina Zahairieva, at the DAMA Technopole in Bologna.

At the centre of the colloquium were the strategic priorities of the new European research agenda: from 'Choose Europe for Science', the programme launched by the European Commission to attract researchers and scientists from all over the world to Europe, to 'Frontier AI', the EU initiative to strengthen Europe's capacity to develop frontier artificial intelligence models. A path in which Bologna, due to its concentration of infrastructures, computing capacity and already operational scientific ecosystem, can play a leading role.

'Europe is playing a decisive game today: attracting the best researchers, retaining talent, building scientific and technological autonomy. Italia,' said Minister Bernini, 'has chosen to invest to be one of the places where this new season will take shape. Bologna shows that we are not talking about promises, but about infrastructures that are already operational, research that produces knowledge and a positive impact on the industrial fabric. It is on this basis that we want to make our contribution to the construction of the new European geography of knowledge'.

The Technopole, as Minister Bernini also explained to Commissioner Zaharieva during the visit, is in fact today the main European hub in the field of _High Performance Computing_ and artificial intelligence, where supercomputing infrastructures, international research centres and strategic projects for European technological sovereignty coexist.

The minister also anticipated to Commissioner Zaharieva the next developments of the Leonardo supercomputer, starting with LISA ( _Leonardo Improved Supercomputing Architecture_ ): the new technological evolution programme designed to further enhance the performance of the infrastructure, with a focus on artificial intelligence applications.