Opportunity Areas

AI presents a robust basis for future bilateral collaboration. Italy holds substantive capabilities in data infrastructure, data preparation, and model training, alongside strong sectoral application areas such as mobility, health, and the social sciences — domains where the UK also has significant expertise. Both countries are investing in AI fairness, explainability, and trustworthiness, creating an opportunity for joint leadership in responsible AI and collaboration on key societal ‘grand’ challenges.

One of the clearest opportunities is in quantum technologies, where Italy and the UK possess complementary research profiles. Italy has strong capabilities in foundational physics and theoretical frameworks, while the UK shows particular strength in engineering-oriented and experimental areas — materials, chemistry, optics, photonics, and applied engineering. A practical next step would be to identify priority themes such as quantum computing architectures, quantum sensing, or quantum information.

One clear priority theme is quantum sensing and metrology. Both countries treat sensing and metrology as early but near-market parts of their quantum strategies. Italy’s strong position in optical clocks and atomic gravimeters offers a clear basis for collaboration with UK institutions like NPL. A partnership between a UK sensing hub with Italian labs and Q-Alliance could enable shared testbeds for gravity gradiometry, inertial navigation, and timing. A further priority could be hybrid pipelines to evaluate QT algorithms/computers, where both countries lack frameworks as robust as the US Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI).

In HPC, there is a promising opportunity to link Italy’s strengths in algorithmic and mathematical foundational models with UK strengths in application domains and operational expertise, including energy-aware scheduling, thermal and cooling management, and operating system or runtime co-design. The value lies in building collaboration across the full HPC stack rather than isolated technical niches, supported by small joint demonstrator projects, reciprocal facility access, and shared benchmarks.

A consistent interest in technology applications for science was evident among interviewees. The UK — home to AlphaFold and the OpenBind consortium — has particular strength in AI for Science, while Italy’s ICSC and EuroHPC-class systems in Bologna are explicitly organised around using AI plus supercomputing for climate, particle physics, health and industrial research. Specific AI/QT/HPC-for-science bilateral programming may unlock a shared area of research leadership. Industrial cooperation already extends into adjacent sectors such as space, where Telespazio UK and Serco UK deliver Earth-observation services from Italy’s ESRIN centre in Frascati.