IT4LIA AI Factory – Italy for Artificial Intelligence

IFAB is proud to take part in the AI Factory initiative, a project that builds on the solid foundations laid in recent years to position Bologna as a key hub for High Performance Computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence in Europe. This initiative marks a decisive step forward in Italy’s digital transformation, where scientific excellence, technological infrastructure, and strategic vision come together to address some of today’s most urgent challenges—from climate resilience to industrial innovation, and from public service modernization to advanced skills development in AI and data science.

The Italian AI Factory – IT4LIA – is a national strategic initiative co-funded by the European Commission and led by a network of institutions committed to shaping the future of artificial intelligence. IT4LIA is part of a broader European ecosystem of AI Factories, designed to accelerate the development and adoption of trustworthy, high-impact AI solutions. Its mission is to make AI more accessible, robust, and effective for all actors in the innovation chain: from research centers and academic institutions, to startups, SMEs, large enterprises, and public administrations.

At the heart of the Italian AI Factory lies one of the most powerful and integrated HPC infrastructures in Europe. IT4LIA leverages the capabilities of the EuroHPC JU supercomputer Leonardo, its AI-optimized upgrade LISA, the GAIA cloud system, and the MEGARIDE platform, offering a continuum of computational power tailored to the needs of AI workloads. With most systems hosted in the state-of-the-art data center of the Bologna Tecnopolo, this infrastructure enables the full cycle of AI innovation: from data ingestion and processing, to training, inference, and real-time deployment. It is a technological backbone designed to support research, experimentation, and the rapid scale-up of AI solutions across domains.

IT4LIA offers a comprehensive suite of services to support businesses, startups, and public organizations in adopting and developing AI solutions. These include access to computing resources, data preparation and management tools, security and compliance support, and vertical services tailored to strategic sectors such as Agritech, Cybersecurity, Earth Science, and Manufacturing. Beyond infrastructure, IT4LIA invests in people: training programs are designed to develop new talent and reskill professionals, helping organizations build the competencies they need to innovate responsibly and effectively.