Fincantieri joins forces with Poste Italiane and TIM to build Italy’s national physical AI value chain and transform its manufacturing expertise

“Fincantieri Ontology” marks a new milestone in the Group’s digital transformation, with the aim of embedding industrial AI into production processes and accelerating the large-scale adoption of automation and robotics. The partnership with Poste Italiane and TIM aims to build an infrastructure that safeguards and enhances Italy’s manufacturing know-how, strengthening the country’s future competitiveness and technological sovereignty.

Fincantieri, Poste Italiane and TIM announce the launch of a strategic partnership aimed at establishing Italy’s first end-to-end national Physical AI (Industrial Artificial Intelligence) value chain. The initiative marks a major milestone in the “Fincantieri Ontology” project, an operational pillar of Fincantieri’s 2026–2030 Industrial Plan, “F4” (Fast Forward Further Future), focused on the digitalization, automation and protection of shipbuilding processes.

The partnership brings together the expertise and technological infrastructures of three leading Italian companies, creating a secure and sovereign digital ecosystem capable of applying artificial intelligence directly to heavy manufacturing and ship asset management.

The strategy of the 2026–2030 Industrial Plan, “F4 – Fast. Forward. Further. Future.”, sets out a clear direction in which data and Artificial Intelligence are the driving forces behind industrial transformation.

This vision unfolds along two parallel paths that are now converging into a single digital continuum: “Navis Sapiens”, a project dedicated to the digital management of the entire ship lifecycle, designed to support the asset through to its full robotic integration at sea, transforming every vessel into an “intelligent” digital asset; and “Fincantieri Ontology”, the ecosystem focused on the digitalization and advanced automation of design and construction processes across the Group’s shipyards.

Through the software architecture developed for the project, process knowledge is codified into a fully-fledged digital ontology – a conceptual mapping of the company’s technical knowledge base. AI inference – the deployment of trained AI models in real-world operating environments – is then performed both locally and in a secure cloud environment. This hybrid architecture ensures the highest standards of cybersecurity while safeguarding the technological sovereignty of industrial data.

The strategic partnership announced by Fincantieri, Poste Italiane and TIM addresses four key industrial, economic and social priorities for Italy.

Strengthening industrial and economic leadership: the agreement helps secure an overall order backlog currently worth €70 billion, with visibility extending to 2036. This industrial ecosystem generates €55 billion in direct procurement in Italy, involving a network of 7,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), operating across 18 shipyards worldwide – from the United States to Vietnam – and involving approximately 100,000 people who access the Group’s facilities every day.

Overcoming production constraints and accelerating automation: by leveraging the new shared computing capacity, the partnership will enable the development of 4D design and construction models. Robotic systems and workers will receive AI-optimized daily work packages and data flows, bringing automation into an industry that has traditionally lagged behind in digitalization.

Developing human capital and making manufacturing careers more attractive: the project aims to bring Italy’s workforce closer to manufacturing and production. The digital transformation of Europe’s second-largest manufacturing industry will enable a fundamental shift from manpower to brainpower, combining the expertise of blue-collar workers with that of digital-collar professionals.

Safeguarding technical know-how: together with Poste Italiane and TIM, Fincantieri is creating a secure environment – a true “repository of knowledge” – in which to protect and unlock the value of tacit knowledge: the wealth of technical expertise built up over time and passed down through generations of skilled workers. This will help redefine the competitive advantage of Made in Italy.

Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO and Managing Director of Fincantieri, commented: “Data and Artificial Intelligence are the driving forces behind our 2026–2030 Industrial Plan. With the launch of this strategic partnership, we are not simply digitalizing an industrial process: we are codifying and safeguarding the very ontology of our technical culture. The shift from manpower to brainpower represents the future of Italian manufacturing: a model in which AI enhances the role of workers while safeguarding an industrial value chain worth billions of euros. Together with Poste Italiane and TIM, we are building a secure and sovereign environment to lead the Physical AI revolution.”