Leonardo joins forces with the Italian Supercomputer Foundation

The goal of the alliance is to comprehensively safeguard digital continuum, as defined by Carlo Cavazzoni, Senior Vice President of Cloud Computing and head of the Leonardo HPC Lab. “The real world is increasingly permeated by the digital. This growing integration process between these two dimensions creates a single entity, if you like, a continuum, which is closely linked to the field of work and business”, explains Cavazzoni. “In this context, data protection becomes of great strategic importance; an indispensable factor to ensure that value is extracted from the data through the adoption of scrupulous and secure management.”

“The data collected in the real world that is converted to the digital represents our identity,” continues Carlo Cavazzoni. “Every individual in the digital world is represented by data, and effective management can really fuel a growing business. Not surprisingly, it is fair to say that data is the oil of the future. And just like black gold, it has to be refined, transformed, and processed before it can be channelled into a digital interface, a bit like the apps we use every day. From the real world to the digital gateway to the cloud, every stage in this highly complex chain needs to be protected. In the same way we need banks and vaults to secure valuable assets in real life, we also need cyber-security to safeguard our data in the digital world.”

Serious cyber attacks increased by 9.3% in 2021 over the previous year*, with an estimated global cost of USD 6 trillion**. The Global Security Operation Centre (SOC) monitors 115,000 security events every second, with 500,000 billion transactions processed for cyber intelligence purposes.

With figures of this magnitude, it is evident that we not only need more investments in technology and expertise, we also need a shift in our cultural approach. This new approach includes a greater focus on data management, especially when data is too often left on the web without adequate protection.

The national supercomputer network plans to achieve these goals by increasing overall computing power and linking national strategy in a more concerted way. The project foresees an initial computing capability of 300 petaflops or 300 million billion operations per second. The Leonardo group will manage five petaflops with the davinci-1 supercomputer. This integrated supercomputing and cloud computing platform combines flexibility and computing power, allowing for the use of artificial intelligence algorithms, such as deep learning, advanced numerical models (e.g. Digital Twin technology), and the calculation of the countless interactions between the generated data (data analysis and big data). All the supercomputers deployed in the new national network will undergo a significant upgrade in the coming months. A move that should boost the processing capacity of Leonardo’s davinci-1 to 25 petaflops.

The supercomputer davinci-1

A consortium of organisations and companies submitted the Italian Supercomputer Foundation’s proposal in response to the Ministry of Universities and Research’s call for proposals under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. This plan allocates between EUR 300 and 400 million in resources to create a national HPC, big data, and quantum computing centre, specialising in high-performance data simulation, calculation, and analysis.

Leading public and private sectoral players have joined the initiative, which will be coordinated by the National Institute of Nuclear Physics. The company’s include: Cineca, IIT-Italian Institute of Technology, Eni and other major industrial partners, including Autostrade, FS, Engineering, Thales Alenia Space, Fincantieri, Terna, Sogei, Humanitas, UPMC, FIU, IFAB, Intesa Sanpaolo and Unipol Sai.

* Clusit
** Cybersecurity Ventures