According to a report released Thursday by the University of Padua, in the northern Veneto region, indicated that Italy´s Defense Ministry has been thinking that AI applied to weapons would be crucial, so for such a reason, it has been financing military projects since 2018.
The analysis, presented by expert Marco Bosolo in latest issue of ¨Il Bo Live¨ magazine is based on results of a research led by Davide del Monte, president of Info.Nodes organization, on about ten programs of this type in progress, some dating back to 2012.
Among other initiatives, “the Defense Ministry has doubled down on creating UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) aircraft equipped with statistical learning, automatic target identification, pre-set area surveillance capabilities and real mission systems”.
However, “the Italian Army does not have weapon systems with autonomous action capability,” yet its military sector is deemed pivotal and for this reason specific research has been funded with €48 million for 2021 and 2022, and at least €40 million for 2023.
Among recipients for these funds are the most important military Italian companies including Leonardo and Iveco Defense Vehicles Spa, while the Italian academies involved include the Politecnico di Milano and La Sapienza University of Rome.
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