The Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) has said it intends to invest around one billion euro over the next six years in frontier research in a variety of areas including the development of friendly robots for the elderly and to improve workplaces safety, using artificial intelligence (AI) to optimise the vast amount of data generated by research in the service of new discoveries, producing more environmentally friendly materials and discovering the secrets of the RNA molecule to speed up drug research.
Digitisation and the strengthening of infrastructures are the conditions for achieving the objectives of the 2024-2029 strategic plan, which allocates 750 million euro to research activities, of which 250 million euro to basic Blue Sky Research and 500 million euro to the five Flagship programmes to develop technologies for sustainability, health, RNA, neuroscience and machines, and 'teaching science to computers'.The plan also includes projects involving cultural heritage and the space economy, and the 'IIT Global' programme for the opening of new institute centres abroad.
All of this is to take place in the context of "increasingly pervasive AI", said IIT scientific director Giorgio Metta, referring to the need to organise the vast amount of data produced by the 80 lines of research in the institute's 15 centres in Italy and make it as exploitable as possible.
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