Trentino-Alto Adige joins the ELIAS Alliance to bring together AI and innovation

Trentino-Alto Adige is strengthening its presence in European artificial intelligence research. The region is one of eight new ecosystems joining the ELIAS Alliance (Alliance for European Leadership in Innovation with AI and Science), a European network that aims to translate advanced research into opportunities for innovation, technology transfer, and new business development.

The Alliance’s new hubs are Delft, Finland, Franconia, Jülich-Aachen-Cologne, Lausanne, Manchester, Sweden, and Trentino-Alto Adige. With this expansion, ELIAS is doubling its network from eight to sixteen nodes across nine European countries, strengthening ties among some of the continent’s leading AI research and innovation ecosystems. The Trentino-Alto Adige hub brings together the University of Trento, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, HIT, NOI Techpark, and the School of Innovation. The goal is to build on the region’s existing scientific expertise and entrepreneurial skills, fostering international collaboration and creating new opportunities to turn cutting-edge research into innovative ventures.

“ELIAS is coordinated out of Trento, and creating the Trentino-Alto Adige node offers us a unique opportunity to connect the Alliance’s European mission with the complementary strengths of Trentino and Alto Adige,” said Nicu Sebe, Professor at the University of Trento, ELIAS Coordinator, and Spokesperson for the ELIAS Trentino-Alto Adige Node. “By bringing together the University of Trento, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, and the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, along with HIT, NOI Techpark, and the School of Innovation,” Sebe continued, “the hub establishes a shared path from cutting-edge, open-source AI research to entrepreneurial training, technology transfer, and deep-tech company creation. Through the ELIAS network, these regional centers of excellence can contribute to a truly European AI innovation ecosystem while benefiting from the opportunities it provides.”

The ELIAS Alliance works closely with ELLIS (European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems), the European network of excellence in AI research. An ELLIS unit has been operating in Trento since 2023, involving Fondazione Bruno Kessler and the University of Trento in machine learning research and driving collaboration with leading European AI centers. “The node offers an additional opportunity to strengthen the link between cutting-edge AI research, entrepreneurship training, and technology transfer by integrating local expertise and organizations into a broader European research and innovation ecosystem,” noted Bruno Lepri, Head of the Mobile and Social Computing Unit at FBK’s Center for Augmented Intelligence and co-spokesperson for the local ELIAS node with Sebe. “Through Fondazione Bruno Kessler and the Trento ELLIS Unit, we are already pursuing innovative approaches in computer vision, natural language processing, remote sensing, machine learning, and social and cooperative AI. At the same time, we are focusing heavily on applying AI to societal challenges in climate, urban living, online environments, and space.”

The Alliance’s expansion was announced during a high-level session at the Frontier AI Innovation Summit, which combined the annual All Hands Meeting of the German Centers of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence with the ELIAS Alliance Frontier AI Summit. Organized in collaboration with the Tübingen AI Center, the event highlighted how European foundational AI research can translate into technological sovereignty, high-growth startups, and secure open-source infrastructure—particularly in emerging fields like agentic AI.

This expansion marks a major milestone for the ELIAS Alliance. Following the launch of its initial eight nodes in November 2024 (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Cambridge, Copenhagen, Munich, Potsdam, Tübingen, and Zurich), the Alliance established an operational European network linking scientific excellence in AI with regional entrepreneurship, technology transfer, and startup creation. Adding these eight new hubs extends that infrastructure to major deep-tech communities across Europe.

“Our goal is to empower European AI talent to build world-class technologies that can be adopted on a large scale. When cutting-edge research translates into widely used products, open businesses, and infrastructure, it creates a virtuous cycle of talent, innovation, and value creation across Europe,” said Matthias Bethge, Director of the Tübingen AI Center, Co-Founder of ELLIS, and Head of the ELIAS Alliance.