Bologna will be the pivot of the European system on AI and Big Data
Approved in Emilia-Romagna the first Italian law on research and investment in artificial intelligence, megadata, weather and climate change
A few days after the assignment to Bologna of the European Supercomputer “Leonardo”, the Legislative Assembly of the Emilia-Romagna Region has unanimously approved the draft law of the Council on “Investments in Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Meteorology and Climate Change”: the Regional Law June 17, 2019, number 7, is the first approved in Italy on data economy as well as one of the first in Europe.
The new regional legislation allows large research infrastructures to be hosted in the Tecnopolo of Bologna. Also planned is the establishment of the Big Data for Human Development Foundation, which brings together large territorial, national and international scientific institutions and companies, to encourage the attraction of talent and public and private investment on new technologies.
“Another fundamental step forward,” stressed the President of the Region, Stefano Bonaccini from Modena, “to make Emilia-Romagna the European and international Data Valley of artificial intelligence and megadata: two fields that will increasingly design the future of industry, research, the environment, but also of the present and the daily lives of people.”
Convinced yes of the majority and opposition groups
“With this unanimous yes to the draft law of the Council – and I thank all the council groups, majority and opposition for their contribution – we bring to completion an extraordinary team effort, led by the institutions together with our scientific, university and business system, with which we were able to bring to Bologna the Data Center of the European Centre for Medium-term Weather Forecasts and the supercomputer 120 million euros, which will be home to the Technopole.
And again: “Also here, in Emilia-Romagna, will be hosted the direction of the largest observatory for gamma rays in the world. Today we are going even further”, adds the President, “by starting the creation of a Foundation that will make the infrastructures and competences of our region, where 70% of the computational capacity of the country is already concentrated, available for international research, with a precise objective: to attract talent and public and private investments, to make Emilia-Romagna the incubator of new science, new development and new companies”.
In the Technopole the two largest machines in Europe
“Bologna and Emilia-Romagna become the real pivot of the European system of research on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence,” adds the Regional Councillor for European Development and Research Policies, Patrizio Bianchi from Ferrara. “Here we have had in recent years the ability to organize and bring together all those who study these issues, universities, companies, the most important research centers. We have brought the two biggest machines here in Bologna, the one from the European Agency for weather forecasting and the European supercomputer to manage data.”
But what specific information are we talking about? “The data for all people and their lives, to have health that is tailor-made, the data to manage the big traffic, the data for weather forecasting and also the data to understand, when it rains, what will happen in our rivers. These are examples of science for people, and in fact the foundation that is born with the law approved today concerns ‘Big Data and Artificial Intelligence for human development’, that is, complex things for a simpler everyday life for all of us”.
From CINECA to the new EuroHPC Joint Undertaking
The bill governs the provision of space at the Tecnopolo of the supercomputer of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, the European joint undertaking to support projects and infrastructure for high performance computing, the project nominated by CINECA (Consorzio Interuniversitario del Nord-Est per il Calcolo Automatico) in recent months as the Italian project for the allocation of supercomputers. At the Technopole of the Petronian city, located in Via Stalingrado, will also find home the National Weather Agency – established in 2017 by providing for its headquarters in Bologna – and also the Competence Centre Industry 4.0 Birex, for the application of Big Data to the manufacturing sector.
The document also authorizes the Region to participate in the association NEREUS, the European network of regions that use space technologies. A membership that becomes even more important now, after the news that another international project will soon find a home in Emilia-Romagna, namely the future direction and administrative headquarters of the CTA (Cherenkov Telescope Array), the largest observatory for gamma rays in the world, with a network of 118 telescopes to study the violent Universe. A reality that will be established by the end of 2020 in Bologna in the form of a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC).
The Big Data for Human Development Foundation
In order to further strengthen the strategy of positioning Bologna and Emilia-Romagna at the highest levels of the international scientific community, the Regional Council wants to promote and support the establishment of a Big Data for Human Development Foundation among major regional, national and international scientific institutions and companies which will encourage the attraction of talent and public and private investments in new technologies. With the aim, in fact, to make the territory an international center of gravity for the study and applications in these two subjects.
The objective, rather manifest, is to support the widest collaboration with the major research centers at regional, national, European and international level to promote scientific research and its interdisciplinary implications on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence; to elaborate medium and long term scenarios on the developments of science and technology and recommendations for national and international direction on the front of higher education, research and innovation.
