Italy at the Bologna Technopole protagonist of change and innovation with the G7 dedicated to Science and Technology: delegations from the seven countries were present – with Italy, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, the USA and the EU – to discuss artificial intelligence, emerging technologies protection of biodiversity and scientific collaboration with African countries. “A focus on innovation and research for a more sustainable future”, posted in the afternoon on Instagram the Minister of University and Research Anna Maria Bernini, host of the three-day meeting in Bologna. And it is precisely from the G7 in Bologna that comes new impetus to scientific collaboration with African countries and the recognition of the strategic nature of the Mattei Plan.
An entire session of the meeting was in fact dedicated to cooperation with Africa, attended by Mohamed Belhoncine, Commissioner for Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, and Stefania Giannini, Assistant Director General for Education. On the occasion of the Italian Presidency of the G7, the “Research and Capacity Building with African Countries G7 Conference” was also launched, which will be held on October 2 in Trieste. Among the undisputed ‘protagonists’ of the Tecnopolo, the supercomputer Leonardo one of the most powerful in the world, visited by foreign delegations of the G7.
Five thousand servers contained in 155 cabinets arranged in nine rows. But inside Leonardo, there is a real portal to the future. Providing the coordinates for the journey is the president of Cineca, Francesco Ubertini. “Leonardo – he explains – is a computer that is very large and very fast. It is made up of many cabinets that have many servers inside with many computing nodes, almost 2 million ‘computer courses’ that work together, are interconnected and express great computing power”.
A great opportunity for Italy, Ubertini explains, because the supercomputer “is at the service of our country, it is one of the main nodes of the European infrastructure, it is a research and innovation infrastructure and for those of the Open type, access is free: requests are selected on the basis of questions and therefore it is a great opportunity to push forward the frontier of research in various fields, but also to innovate”. Meanwhile, Ubertini announces, the heir to the Leonardo supercomputer is about to arrive at the Tecnopolo in Bologna. It will be 10 times more powerful than the current one.
“We are working on the growth of the infrastructure – explains Ubertini – very soon there will be the upgrade of Leonardo, which will be called Lisa, in honor of Mona Lisa”. Today, at the Tecnopolo in Bologna, the G7 got to the heart of the matter with a demonstration of “Quantum computing”, the speed and capacity of quantum calculation to improve expectations and quality of life, held by the professor of the University of Bologna and responsible for drafting the National Strategy on Quantum, Tommaso Calarco.
In just a few minutes, months of analysis are thus summarised: in particular, ministers have been shown how quickly it is possible to carry out the analysis of some molecules and verify their toxicity in real time. In just a few seconds, it is in fact possible to establish the usefulness of molecules for the development of new drugs. “In the face of events like Covid 19, which have happened, and we hope will never happen again – explained Minister Anna Maria Bernini – today we are doing a quantum demonstration, we are using a quantum computer to explain how a molecule to make a medicine can have an extraordinary acceleration through quantum. Therefore – she concluded – diseases can be cured through quantum computers with an extraordinary acceleration of human intelligence”.