Deep Learning Workshop lands in Rome

After being hosted in 2023 at FBK’s Povo premises, the Deep Learning Workshop was held this year in Rome (June 24–26, 2025), in the prestigious “Chamber of Parliamentary Acts” of the Senate, generously made available thanks to the initiative of Senator De Poli. The event was jointly organized by the Fondazione Bruno Kessler and the University of Padua, in collaboration with Digital Meet for the closing public event.

With more than 20 speakers from Italy and abroad, the workshop addressed key challenges in the development and application of Deep Learning-based AI models. Topics included approaches to extend models to spatio-temporal contexts (with a focus on continual learning), to social environments (where AI agents perform specific roles and interact with humans and other agents), and to physical systems through neural operators capable of efficiently solving differential equations.

Several mathematical frameworks were also presented to shed light on how learning processes evolve in Deep Learning models.

One of the most debated themes was explainability, particularly in cases where data is structured as graphs.

There were also key presentations on foundational and generative models which, especially in the field of natural language processing, demonstrated capabilities exceeding the expectations of many participants.

The closing discussion emphasized the need for public initiatives to provide researchers in public institutions with resources comparable to those available to Big Tech companies. This would enable them to pursue high-level Open Science research in the field of AI.

The workshop concluded with a public debate on Open vs. Closed Science. Participants included regional digital initiative coordinators, representatives from Confindustria, the European Commission’s office in Italy, CINECA, and FBK.

Representing Fondazione Bruno Kessler were Prof. Alessandro Sperduti (Director of the Center for Augmented Intelligence), who served both as event promoter and speaker; Bruno Lepri (Head of the Mobile and Social Computing Lab – MobS); Luciano Serafini (Head of the Data and Knowledge Management – DKM Unit); and Paolo Traverso (Director of Strategic Planning), who joined the round table remotely on the final day, moderated by ANSA journalist Alessio Jacona.