The Italian National Strategy For Artificial Intelligence Is About To Arrive

This article was written by Luca Sambucci, partner, founder, and Head of Artificial Intelligence at SNGLR Holding AG. With Luca's permission I translated his article into English. The original article is available here Sta per arrivare la nuova strategia italiana sull’intelligenza artificiale

Now could be the right time for the?Italian National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence. Earlier this?month,?I complained?that virtually all countries had released theirs, while inexplicably Italy had not.?Recently,?Formiche.net?revealed that the document seems to finally?be in the pipeline, presented by none other than Prime Minister?Mario Draghi?during a meeting of?the Interministerial Committee for the Digital Transition. But before we see what the rumors are saying, let's take a step back to retrace the troubled history of our AI strategy.

A Brief History of the Italian AI Strategy, Published Twice and Never Released

A little more than three years ago, in?September 2018,?the?Ministry for Economic Development?(MISE, MInistero Sviluppo Economico) published a?call for experts to?draft the Italian strategy for artificial intelligence. A few months later,?experts?were selected, and in January 2019?they got to work. It must be admitted that they proceeded quite quickly.

In May they?presented a draft with 79 recommendations, which later became 82. From this text, the Government prepared a draft strategy, and in August?they started?to gather opinions on the two documents.

The group of experts?met again in 2019?to evaluate the responses received and?after another 7 months, the Government finally published?a new document with the proposals, revised and corrected.?This time there was also a document illustrating the estimated costs to implement the?Italian Institute for Artificial Intelligence?(I3A) proposed by the experts, as well as some of the recommendations included in the document.?

On October 1, 2020,?a new public consultation?lasting one month?started. In the meantime, two years had passed since the initial call for experts, with two public consultations on the documents produced.?During this time proposals regarding the?National Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems?(AIIS) of?CINI?(National Interuniversity Consortium for Informatics)?were also inserted. A beautiful?document which unfortunately has been ignored by most.

During this period there was a lot of talk about?I3A?and which city should host it.?Pisa was proposed but Turin?won, based on the readiness?with which the whole city has provided availability, and perhaps also to compensate for?the non-assignment of the EU Patent Court?(which went to Milan).?In November 2020 the Government?announced the allocation of funds?for the I3A in Turin. But towards the first half of this year?there were doubts,?misunderstandings, and finally,?the cold shower?arrived: the new Draghi Government made?hopes fade for a unique center for artificial intelligence in Turin.

Even the current Italian strategy, which was never made official, is not doing very well.?So much so that at the end of July this year it seemed?to start all over again.?This time it is no longer the Ministry of Economic Development (MISE) that pulls the strings, but a collaboration between the Ministry of University and Research, the Minister for Technological Innovation and Digital Transition, and the MISE, which?together form a new group of experts?(smaller, only 9 members) to draft an "updated" document.

The New Strategy

Finally, we come to the current document which is 27 pages (as anticipated by Formiche.net). During the upcoming two-year period?2022-2024,?the group of experts will try to recover the time lost in governance and acceleration of AI. During the lapsed time, Italy has been overtaken?by?practically?all European partners.

A few days ago Prime Minister?Draghi presented?the initiative in the Senate with these words:

"Finally, on artificial intelligence, our goal is to promote experimentation and make its use safer and more transparent.?At the same time, we need to nurture citizens' trust in these new technological solutions.?The national strategy on artificial intelligence adopted by the Interministerial Committee for the Digital Transition constitutes the framework for improving the competitive positioning of the country."

Therefore?security,?transparency,?and trust, themes perfectly in line with the EU strategy, and well represented in the?European proposal, are?currently under discussion. The new Italian strategy affirms the strengths of our country, such as the lively research community, as well as institutions such as the CNR, the FBK and the IIT, but also recognizes its weaknesses, such as?the absence of major industrial players?and the chronic lack of funding for research, which causes many talented people who are badly needed to flee abroad. The document continues with the roundup of penalties that afflict our system and that we know well: uneven growth in research, few patents, and?a disastrous gender-gap: in Italian AI there is barely one woman for every four male researchers.

So what does Italy want to do? It will focus on 3 major areas:

1)?Skills: strengthening the national doctorate in AI, keeping researchers in Italy, enhancing AI skills in public administration and bringing artificial intelligence to higher technical institutes.

2)?Research: strengthening the Italian AI ecosystem, launching an Italian AI platform for data and software, promoting the multidisciplinarity of AI, funding research and projects.

3)?Applications for companies and government: supporting startups and spin-offs, creating datasets for our market, creating AI and Open Data models, supporting companies in the certification of AI products and in the 4.0 Transition.

Funding is significant, considering what our country usually offers to research and innovation:?

• 1 1/2 billion?euros to enhance education in higher technical institutes
• 600 million euros?for the national PhD
• 600 million?euros to finance young researchers
• 5 million euros a year for the “Rita Levi Montalcini" program of the Ministry of Education, University and Research
• 430 million?euros to create new careers within the public administration
• 3.2 billion euros?to carry out training courses in scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical subjects (STEM).
• Over 1 1/2 billion euros will go to the creation of an AI platform for data and software, based on what other countries are doing, given that one of the difficulties that often occurs in the academic world is the challenge of finding datasets, software, and the computing power to be able to carry out one's own projects.
• Part of the funds for Transition 4.0 (13.38 billion euros) will go to help companies in the sector hire qualified experts. Indeed, there will be a need for "clear guidelines for the salaries of AI experts that should align with international benchmarks" and "tax credits or vouchers for recruiting STEM profiles".
• Finally, the?Cassa Depositi e Prestiti?will make available a billion euros from the National Innovation Fund of Cdp Venture Capital to increase the number of startups by 30% compared to 2021 and increase average salaries by 50%.

It seems that the Italian National AI strategy was written with the goal of helping our country recover lost time.?So far there have been rumors. Now we are all waiting for the official text.

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Copyright ? 2021 Margaretta Colangelo. All Rights Reserved.

This article was written by?Margaretta Colangelo.?Margaretta is a leading AI analyst based in San Francisco. She serves on the advisory board of the AI Precision Health Institute at the University of Hawai?i?Cancer Center.?

Twitter?@realmargaretta