At OGR Torino, the Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy met with AI4I President Fabio Pammolli and the Institute’s researchers. The visit featured SUK, with 160 technology providers and 230 solutions for businesses, alongside the work of three laboratories developing intelligent robotics, drones and autonomous systems.
On 19 October 2026, the Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy, Senator Adolfo Urso, visited AI4I. Welcomed by President Fabio Pammolli, the Minister met with the Institute’s leadership and researchers to review the progress achieved and gain first-hand insight into the technologies being developed and their industrial applications.
The discussions focused on the contribution of artificial intelligence to the competitiveness of Italy’s productive system and the country’s technological sovereignty. AI4I pursues these objectives by attracting scientific talent and building a national ecosystem connecting research, engineering and businesses, with particular attention to small and medium-sized industrial enterprises.
During the visit, President Pammolli outlined the Institute’s mission and future development. AI4I currently has 14 research and engineering units, with researchers recruited through international calls that have attracted nearly 500 applications from around the world.
“AI4I is already a success story, established through the first Budget Law of this parliamentary term. It is a highly qualified centre of excellence and innovation that provides small and medium-sized enterprises with a hub where they can find concrete answers to their production needs, thanks to the contribution of other companies specialising in artificial intelligence applied to industry. From food production to space, the goal is to support innovation across every manufacturing sector,” Minister Urso stated.
“We want to further intensify and accelerate this process. For this reason, the next Budget Law will introduce new instruments to support investment, including a voucher to encourage AI adoption among SMEs and the inclusion of cloud technologies among the measures covered by Transition 5.0, which we intend to make structural through 2029,” he added.
“In the two years since its establishment,” commented Fabio Pammolli, President of AI4I, “AI4I has developed a model integrating research, engineering development, computing infrastructure and technology transfer. Our objective is to strengthen Italy’s capacity to generate innovation and bring it into businesses, particularly SMEs, by addressing a market failure that still hinders the matching of supply and demand for advanced technologies.
“Through SUK, we are building a national ecosystem that also supports small Italian companies developing artificial intelligence solutions. At the same time, we have attracted researchers from leading international institutions, developed frontier research laboratories and built the Peano AI Foundry, which provides a secure environment for training and validating models.
“The next challenge is to consolidate these achievements, expand our research capacity and create the conditions for sustainable long-term growth, including through competitive projects and industrial contracts.”
SUK: 160 technology providers and 230 solutions for businesses
Fiorenza Succu, Chief Evangelist at AI4I, presented SUK – System User Knowledge, the marketplace developed by the Institute to connect companies providing artificial intelligence solutions with businesses interested in adopting them.
SUK already brings together 160 technology providers and 230 solutions across more than 30 application areas. Through the platform, AI4I supports small and medium-sized enterprises in identifying technologies suited to their production needs, while creating new market and growth opportunities for companies developing AI solutions.
The presentation also featured practical use cases illustrating how artificial intelligence can be applied to business processes.
Fiorenza Succu, AI4I Chief Evangelist
Robotics, drones and autonomous systems: AI4I research meets industry
The second part of the visit, introduced by Andrea Bertolini, member of AI4I’s Supervisory Board and Good Practices Committee and Associate Professor at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, focused on technologies developed by three of the Institute’s laboratories, led by researchers with international scientific experience.
Leonel Rozo, from Colombia, previously a researcher at the Italian Institute of Technology and Bosch Center for AI in Germany, presented the activities of the PHI Lab (Physical Holistic Intelligence). The laboratory develops robots capable of learning new tasks and adapting to complex production environments while reducing the need for data and computing resources.
Sebastiano Panichella, who returned to Italy from Switzerland, introduced the IDeaLS Lab (Intelligent Development and Large-Scale Systems), which focuses on the development and validation of intelligent, reliable systems for robots, drones, autonomous mobility and advanced manufacturing.
Daniele Gammelli, formerly at Stanford University, presented the research conducted at the MIRA Lab (Machine Intelligence for Robot Autonomy), dedicated to the safety and coordination of autonomous systems, with applications in industry, aerospace and mobility.
These three research areas demonstrate how AI4I works to translate advances at the frontiers of artificial intelligence into technologies that can be adopted by industry, drawing on scientific expertise attracted to Italy through international recruitment processes.
Daniele Gammelli – AI4I / MIRA Lab
Sebastiano Panichella – AI4I / IDEALS Lab
Leonel Rozo – AI4I / PHI Lab
