INGV and CINECA, agreement on supercomputing and artificial intelligence for natural risks

The agreement focuses on strengthening of the 24-hour operating systems of the Operations Room in Rome, where the Tsunami Warning Center contributes to the tsunami risk warning in the Mediterranean area.

“The operational integration between Cloud, High Performance Computing and Artificial Intelligence today represents a fundamental element of national interest,“ explains Stefano Lorito, Coordinator of the INGV Tsunami Warning Centrespecifying that in this context the role of CINECA is enabling to support an evolution of surveillance and monitoring systems and to strengthen risk communication towards citizens, so that they remain fully aligned with the rapid technological developments linked to the advent of Artificial Intelligence.

At the center of the comparison there is also the AI ​​Factory initiative, a supercomputing infrastructure oriented towards artificial intelligence and co-financed by EuroHPC JU, the Ministry of University and Research and the National Cybersecurity Agency as part of the IT4LIA project, whose synergies will allow the real-time analysis of geophysical parameters and the optimization of scientific workflows.

The consolidation of this agreement, which capitalizes on twenty years of cooperation experience between the two bodies in national and international projects, fits into the context of the growing investments within the ICSC, the National Research Center in High Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing. “The evolution of HPC technologies and Artificial Intelligence represents an extraordinary opportunity to innovate the monitoring of natural phenomena and risk management“, declares Fabio Florindo, President of INGV, highlighting how the synergy allows the Institute to participate more incisively in the definition of the Centre’s technological and scientific priorities, strengthening the ability to intercept project opportunities and contribute to the development of strategic digital infrastructures for national research. The future prospects of the path started in Bologna indicate a subsequent extension of the computational and advanced analysis activities also to the Volcanoes and Environment departments of the INGV, broadening the spectrum of applications dedicated to civil protection and territorial security.