National Policies & Public Investment

The UK has sustained a leading position in AI research and commercialisation since the mid-2010s. It holds the third-highest number of AI companies in the world after the United States and China. The AI Opportunities Action Plan (January 2025) sets out 50 recommendations to make the UK an ‘AI maker, not an AI taker’; by early 2026 the government had met 38 of its 50 key commitments. Underpinning this is UKRI’s £1.6 billion AI Research and Innovation Strategic Framework (2026–2030), with a Sovereign AI Unit backed by ~£500 million and five AI Growth Zones. Up to £137 million is directed at the AI for Science Strategy.

Italy’s approach is shaped by concern about digital dependency, as set out in its Italian Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2024–2026, structured around Research, Public Administration, Enterprises, and Training. A priority is decentralised Competence Centres and Houses of Emerging Technologies to help Italy’s SME ecosystem — 99.9% of active companies (4.4 million SMEs) — adopt AI. Delivery is increasingly anchored in AI4I, the Italian Institute of AI for Industry, launched in Turin in May 2024. In September 2025 Italy became the first EU Member State to adopt a comprehensive national AI law (Law No. 132/2025).

The National Quantum Technologies Programme (NQTP), established in 2014, was the first of its kind globally, sustained by more than £1 billion across its first decade. The National Quantum Strategy (March 2023) committed £2.5 billion over ten years, with the ambition of a “quantum-enabled economy by 2033”. The £2 billion Quantum Leap package (March 2026) brings R&D, manufacturing, hardware, software, and procurement into a single programme, including the £1 billion ProQure advanced procurement programme and £200 million reserved exclusively for UK-based companies.

Italy published its National Strategy for Quantum Technologies in September 2025, aligned with EuroQCI and the EU Quantum Flagship. It acknowledges three key challenges: a fragmented ecosystem; a lack of domestic specialised foundries for quantum hardware; and a significant funding gap. Between 2021 and 2024, Italy invested ~€228.9 million in quantum technologies — substantially below France (€1.8bn), Germany (€3.03bn), and the UK (€4.12bn). The strategy recommends sustained public investment of €200 million per year over five years.

The UK Compute Roadmap (DSIT/UKRI, July 2025) outlines investment of up to £2 billion in national compute infrastructure to 2030, including over £1 billion to expand the AI Research Resource twenty-fold and up to £750 million for a new national supercomputer at EPCC. Italy is paradoxically a world leader in HPC infrastructure while lacking a dedicated national HPC strategy — hosting HPC6 (Eni) and Leonardo (CINECA). A significant constraint: as a public ‘in-house’ entity, CINECA cannot offer commercial HPC services beyond 20% of its total activity under EU state aid rules.

The UK has pursued formalised bilateral and multilateral technology cooperation across all three domains. In AI, it concluded the first government-to-government AI safety agreement with the US in April 2024 and signed the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on AI. In quantum, it has concluded bilateral agreements with at least six countries. In HPC, the UK rejoined the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking in May 2024, restoring researcher access to European supercomputing including Italy’s Leonardo. The UK is also a founding signatory of Pax Silica (2025).

Italy has pursued international technology cooperation largely through European and multilateral frameworks. It endorsed the Bletchley Declaration and used its 2024 G7 Presidency to advance the Hiroshima AI Process. Italy is developing large-scale cooperation with the United States, with AI, quantum computing, 6G, biotechnology and space as priority areas; at the 15th U.S.–Italy Joint Commission Meeting (April 2026) both sides committed to deepening cooperation across quantum, HPC and AI.

Despite operating through different institutional architectures, the UK and Italy exhibit convergence in strategic orientation and offer complementary strengths.

Conceptual and regulatory alignment, research infrastructure as a basis for collaboration, complementary SME and start-up ecosystems, and converging infrastructure together create a solid foundation for deeper bilateral cooperation — a natural entry point for shared access arrangements and coordinated R&D investment as both countries navigate the European AI Gigafactory funding landscape.