The Italian industrial digitalisation hub

Leonardo has opened a national hub in Genoa dedicated to the digitalisation of Italian industry. The Hub’s main capabilities include High Performance Computing, Cloud, big data, Artificial Intelligence, cyber security and cyber resilience, urgent computing, and robotics. Leonardo’s ‘technological heart’ is designed to process, enhance and protect data along the entire digital chain.

“The main centre of our cyber security activities is in Genoa, where we develop cutting-edge solutions to protect the company’s information and that of our customers,” says Tommaso Profeta, Managing Director of the Cyber & Security Division, “and where we will soon launch the Leonardo Cyber & Security Academy, a high-level security training centre.”

The acceleration of digitalisation is founded on a blend of key skills and infrastructure, starting from the davinci-1 High Performance Computer (HPC), whose architecture combines Cloud flexibility with supercomputing capabilities, combined with cyber security technologies. 

“The great computing power of davinci-1,” says Carlo Cavazzoni, Director of the HPC Lab, “supports three specific areas of our business: enhancing the data analysis process; the processing of simulations and creation of ‘Digital Twins’ of real devices; and the development of proprietary Artificial Intelligence algorithms.”

The performance of the davinci-1 HPC fuels the work carried out within the Leonardo Labs, a network of highly innovative, long-term R&D laboratories focused on eight research areas and employing about 60 young researchers. 

“The Labs serve as technology incubators supporting Leonardo in the development of advanced technologies. They spring from our desire not only to remain at the forefront of innovation, but to anticipate it, thus ensuring Leonardo’s long-term growth,” says Alessandro Massa, Head of the Leonardo Labs. 

The Labs focus on a wide range of applications in aerospace, civil protection, security and defence. In the field of robotics, the projects developed by Leonardo in Genoa – in collaboration with the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia – focus on the development of adaptive robots to be used in an intuitive and flexible way in various industrial fields.

“We are developing technologies – such as collaborative robotics and computer vision – that have so far remained confined to the research laboratories,” explain Marco Laghi and Luigi Riano, young researchers at the Leonardo Lab in Genoa. “The aim is to develop them to the extent that they can be brought to the market and made accessible to the public.”