Innovation, the White Paper on Artificial Intelligence arrives

The economic impact of Artificial Intelligence on world GDP will be double-digit, so much so that, in a recent study, PwC shows that it will be 26% by 2030 for a total of 15,700 billion dollars, while for McKinsey analysts the estimate at European level speaks of a growth of 19% in GDP attributable to Ia, for a total of 2,700 billion euros. The White Paper “Promoting the development and adoption of Artificial Intelligence to support the recovery”, prepared and presented today by the Anitec-Assinform “Artificial Intelligence” Working Table, which aims to help guide interventions on ‘ artificial intelligence in post-pandemic Italy. “Never before has the possibilities offered today by Ia technology been within the reach of Small and Medium Enterprises. It is necessary to seize the opportunities offered by the PNRR on the digitalization front to strengthen the entire Italian production context”, the president of Anitec-Assinform noted. Marco Gay, presenting the White Paper signed by the Table to which Accenture, Algowatt, Avaya, Cisco Systems, Corvallis, Digital Magics, Eustema, Exprivia, Facebook, Farmalabor, Google, Gpi Infocamere, Leonardo, Liguria Digitale, Maxfone, Microsoft, Nokia, adhere. Oracle, Reply and Tim. “The new technologies – observed Gay – can help the recovery of productivity and competitiveness to make the growth of our Made in Italy concrete, integrating the world of services with a manufacturing of absolute world excellence”. The White Paper is aimed at institutions and companies, presenting application examples in key sectors – manufacturing, health, Public Administration to name a few – and proposals for policy-makers. A solid training plan, a permanent investment vision, incentive policies and a strategy for technology transfer between university and business are the main ways identified to allow Italy to make the most of the possibilities offered by AI. Furthermore, the White Paper also notes, with the example of use cases, that AI should be understood as a lever that goes alongside human resources and not as a force as opposed to the human element. For this reason, we underline the importance of a rapid, effective and continuous training plan which, on the one hand, prepares future generations (promotion of Stem areas, from ITS to the University) and, on the other, retrains the current workforce. Artificial Intelligence is now one of the enablers of the country’s digital transformation together with Cloud, Cybersecurity, Blockchain and IoT that have driven the digital market during the pandemic and that will affect the evolution of society in the coming years. While the US and China – this is the context in which the White Paper moves – are investing heavily in the field of new digital technologies to conquer economic hegemony, the European Union, albeit late, is taking action through the adoption of measures for the growth of the sector, both in terms of skills and in terms of application with specific attention to ethical, social and regulatory aspects, as demonstrated by the White Paper published in 2020 and the proposed regulation published on 21 April. Anite-Assinform recalled that many member states are also defining their own organic plan to instill trust and grow direct and indirect AI skills and stimulate their use. On the global scene, Italy, as the Confindustria association recalls, “lags behind its major competitors but also against some European countries of similar size, both in terms of public investments and in terms of use in the private sector” while “Artificial Intelligence is a key enabling factor for economic recovery and, thanks to its endless application potential, it can also be decisive for improving the efficiency of the Public Administration and citizens’ lives in general”. From here, the White Paper prepared by the Anitec-Assinform Working Table aims to help identify possible interventions for the diffusion of Artificial Intelligence in post-pandemic Italy. The document highlights how the exploitation of the growing amount of data produced by businesses, administrations and citizens cannot ignore the AI ​​that can improve the efficiency, the quality of relations between businesses, citizens / consumers and PA, the type of services and products with a view to better usability. The document consists of several specific focuses relating to the monitoring of existing technologies, an analysis of the market and the international context, with a brief overview to represent what is being done in the USA, China and Japan. “We wanted to offer – explained the paper’s subscribers – an in-depth study of the health and pharma sectors, which more than any other have a huge database that lends itself to being processed and exploited through artificial intelligence systems and a training analysis, in which it is highlighted that the effectiveness and correctness of AI-based solutions to be applied within industries and products are based, in addition to the computing infrastructures and data available, on the skills of people who build and train the algorithms used “. The Anitec-Assinform working group assured that “it will continue to evolve the White Paper by expanding the use case studies, in tune with the work on Gaia-X data spaces and monitoring technological evolutions in order to continue to be a point of reference for Italian companies in this rapidly evolving sector “. The President of Anitec-Assinform, Marco Gay, again underlined that “the White Paper recalls the great investment effort envisaged by the NRP which we believe constitutes a unique opportunity to relaunch, in an effective and coordinated way, the development of AI at a national level. . For this to happen, the post-Covid-19 strategy must be supported by a vision of permanent investment that enhances the role of these technologies in the transformation of public administration processes and services, stimulating the creation of a virtuous ecosystem to the advantage above all of small and medium-sized enterprises. Companies “. Finally, for Gay, “a vision of industrial policy at the level of the country system is therefore necessary with clear support for AI that is integrated into the transition plan 4.0. We need to exploit the amount of data produced and make the most of the potential of AI, building a system of rules in Europe that stimulates innovation and strengthens the competitiveness of our continent “. “The ICT industry can today enable a profound transformation of the economic system: we must unite the forces of knowledge and innovation to fuel a growth that is lasting and sustainable and to transform the restart into a recovery”, said Gay.