Fondazione Bruno Kessler relaunches AI: Two new centers of excellence to be established in 2027

Over nearly forty years, FBK has established a leading position in the international artificial intelligence research landscape, developing advanced expertise through numerous technology transfer and industrial application projects in areas such as digital health and well-being, digital society, digital industry, and digital agriculture, contributing to the development of AI solutions used by tens of thousands of citizens and businesses.

In this context of strong scientific growth and increasing collaboration with companies and industry, FBK has decided to further strengthen its international positioning starting in 2027 through the creation of two specialized Centers emerging from the current Center for Digital Industry. These new Centers will feature distinctive and complementary areas of expertise, enabling FBK to respond more effectively to the growing demand for innovation from industry and to reinforce the Foundation’s position in cutting-edge scientific fields.

On the one hand, the new Center for Machine Intelligence will represent a strategic step toward addressing the challenges of next-generation intelligent systems capable of perceiving, analyzing, predicting, and acting in complex and dynamic physical environments.The strategic vision of the new Center will be based on the integration of 2D/3D perception capabilities, predictive analytics, IoT architectures, and interconnected autonomous systems, with the goal of developing AI solutions capable of understanding the physical environment, anticipating its evolution, and supporting autonomous decision-making processes in complex systems.  In this context, robotics represents one of the most promising and strategic areas for long-term scientific and technological exploration, already internationally recognized for the quality of its research and innovation capacity.

At the same time, FBK intends to further strengthen and give greater visibility to its expertise in software engineering, software testing, and automated planning through the new Center for Verifiable, Autonomous and Intelligent Systems. These are areas in which the Foundation has produced some of the most influential scientific contributions internationally over recent decades. The growth of these activities and their increasing impact on industry now make it necessary to strengthen their identity, visibility, and development potential through a dedicated Center capable of further consolidating FBK’s scientific leadership on key issues shaping the evolution of advanced digital systems.

The development of the two new Centers will therefore provide full recognition to two major strategic areas of the digital industry, strengthening the Foundation’s ability to generate scientific, technological, and industrial innovation in fields with a high impact on both industry and international research.

“To ensure the full launch of the new Machine Intelligence Center in 2027, FBK is already opening the international call for the selection of its future Director,” commented Andrea Simoni, Secretary General of FBK. “The selected candidate will be expected to provide scientific and managerial leadership within a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary environment, leading research and innovation activities with strong social and industrial impact. The selection is aimed at candidates with a solid international scientific reputation, proven management experience, and a strong strategic vision, capable of guiding the development of innovative solutions across the entire innovation chain—from scientific and technological research to application validation and transfer to the market and society.”

All information regarding the international call for the selection of the future Director of the Machine Intelligence Center is available at this link.

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Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK) is a public, non-profit research institution internationally recognized for the quality of its research in scientific, technological, human, and social sciences, as well as for the strong economic and social impact of its activities. FBK stands out for its interdisciplinary approach and its ability to address complexity through an organization structured into several research centers.

With more than 3,500 square meters of scientific laboratories and infrastructure and a community of over 643 researchers, 200 PhD students, and 200 visiting fellows and doctoral candidates, FBK is now a scientific and technological hub hosting a dynamic ecosystem of projects, spin-offs, entrepreneurial initiatives, and training opportunities.