Lutech Talks: over 250 representatives from institutions, industry and academia discuss AI, Cybersecurity and Quantum

How does digital sovereignty translate into a country’s real ability to govern innovation, data and infrastructure? This question was at the heart of Lutech Talks – Digital Sovereignty for Italy, the event that brought together more than 250 representatives from institutions, businesses and academia in Rome for a discussion on Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Quantum Computing.

This context aligns with Lutech’s growth path, a group with approximately €1 billion in business volume, more than 6,000 professionals, over 400 Data & AI projects, and an international presence in Italy, Spain and Albania. In the first quarter, the group recorded year-on-year growth of +6% in revenue and +11% in EBITDA. This evolution is accompanied by strong investment in human capital, with 1,000 hires planned for 2026, around 400 of which have already been completed.

The event developed a coherent narrative linking strategic vision and operational capability: from the contribution of Cristiano Cannarsa, CEO of Sogei, on the role of public infrastructures and tax data, to the geopolitical keynote by Franco Bernabè, Chairman of Techvisory, who framed digital sovereignty as an industrial and political choice, through to the academic perspective on the evolution of AI and quantum computing presented by Gianluigi Greco, Rector of the University of Calabria and Coordinator of the Committee for updating Italy’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy. The message was clear: digital sovereignty is not an abstract category, but an operational capability measured through processes.

Skills were also a central theme: by 2030, Europe will need at least 12 million ICT specialists, while in Italy around 15 million people currently have a digital skills gap that limits their ability to interact effectively with increasingly advanced systems. In this scenario, investing in skills is not a cost but a direct driver of productivity and competitiveness: an essential condition for Artificial Intelligence to translate into real, widespread growth rather than remain confined to isolated operational efficiency.

The roundtable then focused on the concrete levers required to enable this transformation: data quality, interoperability, clear accountability, replicable models, and structured collaboration between the public and private sectors. It became clear that the main barriers are not technological, but organizational and governance-related. The discussion brought together a broad and complementary perspective on digital sovereignty, thanks to contributions from Vinicio Vigilante (GSE), Massimo Fedeli (ISTAT), Massimo Rosso (RAI), Andrea Rangone (Politecnico di Milano and the Digital Business Innovation Observatory), and Cosma Belli (IQM). The debate highlighted that digital sovereignty plays out on several levels:

• industrial and energy-related, underscoring the central role of data, interoperability and AI in managing the complexity of renewables and energy communities;
• informational, with a call to unlock the still underused value of public data and make it more accessible and timely;
• cultural and media-related, drawing attention to content governance, the risk of algorithmic homogenization and “cognitive sovereignty”;
• through to the operational dimension, where the real challenge becomes integrating AI, data and infrastructure into processes with clear accountability and scalable models.

The common thread that emerged is that innovation, security and value can only be built through integration, governance and structured collaboration between the public and private sectors.

“Digital sovereignty is a country’s concrete ability to govern its own decisions when data, infrastructure and Artificial Intelligence become the core of public and industrial processes – said Giuseppe Di Franco, CEO of Lutech Group. It means knowing who decides, based on what information, with what responsibilities and with what degree of control over time. Today the point is not how much we are investing in AI, but what value we are generating and how sustainable it is. This is why we speak of AI for Value: an operational criterion for selecting where Artificial Intelligence truly makes sense, where it enters processes, and where it produces measurable impact for citizens, businesses and the country as a whole.”          

“Digital sovereignty is an issue we are unlikely to change in the short term, but one on which we must act promptly. It is built starting from applied research. What we can do today is govern and protect our infrastructure and our data - said Cristiano Cannarsa, CEO of Sogei - Europe produces more STEM graduates than the United States, but far fewer than China. We must also focus on rebuilding skills that will enable us to govern this critical field of AI data more effectively.”

“For a public organization such as GSE, Artificial Intelligence represents a concrete lever to improve productivity, service quality, and responsiveness to citizens, businesses and public administrations. In recent years we have experienced a transition within the transition: on the one hand, the acceleration of the energy shift, with growing volumes of projects and measures to manage; on the other, the need to make processes faster, more digital and closer to users’ needs. Also thanks to digitalization and the progressive introduction of Artificial Intelligence tools, we have effectively doubled the scope of activities managed with the same headcount. AI can help us govern this complexity, but it does not replace human responsibility: it complements it. This is why GSE is investing in skills, experimentation and internal innovation, with the goal of combining institutional posture, attention to the external customer, and full propriety in the management of public resources” - said Vinicio Mosè Vigilante, CEO of GSE.

“Research on Artificial Intelligence has already reached a level of maturity that can impact real-world processes - commented Gianluigi Greco, Rector of the University of Calabria and Coordinator of the Committee for updating Italy’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy. The challenge today is to produce new knowledge and make it rapidly transferable and capable of generating concrete impact in the economy and public services. What is needed is a structural relationship between universities and the productive system: research must enter processes, contribute to decisions, and be measured by productivity. Quantum computing is not a distant scenario: it is already redefining security, cryptography and computing power. Preparing today means being able to govern tomorrow a technology that will be central to digital sovereignty.”

In closing, Michele Ruta, Deputy Rector of Politecnico di Bari, brought the focus to scientific research, collaboration between industry and universities, and the contribution this synergy can make, highlighting how he collaborated with Lutech on the “Digital Enterprise” project. In the project, worth €36 million (co-financed by the Puglia Region), fifteen innovative platforms were developed from research-born innovation ideas, using Artificial Intelligence as an enabler to improve productivity and efficiency across various industrial sectors and public administration.

In their speeches, Gaetano Rizzo, Head of Public at Lutech, and Giovanni Russo, Head of Artificial Intelligence at Lutech, highlighted how the real step change does not lie in the availability of increasingly advanced models, but in the ability to integrate them into real processes. Artificial Intelligence generates value when it becomes a stable part of operations, transforming data into decisions and decisions into action. In this context, “Lutech BrAIn Agentic Platform” was introduced, a platform capable of orchestrating use cases, ensuring governance and tracking accountability. This approach avoids fragmentation of initiatives and enables scalability, control and continuity, turning AI from technological support into true execution capability within public and industrial processes.

In the path outlined by Lutech, the decisive step concerns the concrete adoption of Artificial Intelligence in operational processes. Lutech BrAIn Agentic Platform supports public and private organizations in integrating AI into everyday activities, such as intelligent process automation, robotics, software development and decision-making processes.

The platform makes it possible to coordinate multiple intelligent agents, share information across systems, and ensure traceability and control throughout the decision-making cycle, overcoming the fragmentation of isolated tools. Positioned above existing architectures, it enhances investments already made and enables replicable, scalable models.

The first application cases show reductions of up to 60% in procurement times, up to 80% in manual activities, and acceleration in development of up to three times, confirming that AI can generate value when it becomes a stable part of operations and is governed in a structured way.

Digital sovereignty thus emerges not as a declarative objective, but as an execution capability: the ability to integrate technology, data and accountability into real processes and transform innovation into lasting value for the country.

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