Strategic Digital Infrastructures for the Future

Strategic Digital Infrastructures for the Future

Public administration and regional authorities as key drivers for the implementation of digital infrastructures across territories.

This topic was the focus of the event “Strategic Digital Infrastructures for the Future,” organized and promoted by the Digital Agenda office of the Veneto region in Brussels, which opened with remarks from Carlo Clini, director of the Veneto office in the Belgian capital.

The role of the regions is “essential for developing new, secure, and reliable infrastructures. As citizens, we want increasingly better-performing digital services, available 24/7. However, this requires infrastructures capable of ensuring these services,” highlighted Luca De Pietro, director of the Digital Agenda of Veneto. He noted that the region, through the ‘Regional Strategic Hub’ project, aims to provide all entities within its jurisdiction, from healthcare to public administration, “a space for secure and reliable infrastructure.”

In Italy, as well as in Veneto, the infrastructural landscape is diverse. “We find well-organized, resilient, and secure infrastructures alongside smaller, less secure, and less resilient ones,” clarified Paolo Barichello, director of Information Systems, Technologies, and Digital Services for the Region. The priority must be the “standardization of these infrastructures to provide citizens with equal and uniform services.”

As highlighted in Mario Draghi’s recent report on competitiveness, Europe “is lagging behind international partners like the United States in the field of artificial intelligence,” further emphasized Fabrizio Porrino, digital expert at ServiceNow. The causes stem from “a lack of capital and excessive regulatory complexity, rather than a technology issue.” It is imperative for the EU to change course, focusing “less on regulatory aspects and more on enabling factors,” such as resources to finance infrastructures.