Leonardo, here are Cingolani’s broadsides on Ai, cyber and Gcap
From the group's role in the trinational Gcap project, to the new industrial plan based on the cyber and space pillars. Here's what Roberto Cingolani, CEO of Leonardo, said in response to journalists on the sidelines of CybertechEurope2023
On the Global Combat Air Program (Gcap), the program of the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan for the development of a sixth generation combat aircraft by 2035, "our position must be revised upwards".
Roberto Cingolani, CEO of Leonardo, is convinced of this, answering a question on the sidelines of Cybertech Europe 2023, a global B2B networking platform and event organizer for the cybersecurity industry, in partnership with Leonardo, a global player in the aerospace sectors, defense and security.
Rome, London and Tokyo agreed in December 2022 to collaborate to build a new generation fighter that will enter service around the middle of the next decade.
Last month , defense industry leaders in the UK (Bae Systems), Japan (Mitsubishi Heavy Industriese) and Italy (Leonardo) finalized the terms of trilateral collaboration to meet the requirements of the conceptual phase of the new air defense system generation within the Gcap.
On the Gcap programme, "there is progress" stated Cingolani, telling the press that "I will be in Japan in November, there will be several meetings in October, especially with the English".
Afterwards, the number one of the Italian defense and aerospace group anticipated the route that will be traced by the new industrial plan, based on two pillars "cyber" and "space" to the point of expressing himself on the great current theme of the "contrast between man and artificial intelligence" .
All the details.
WHAT POINT IS THE GCAP
On the sidelines of Cybertech Europe 2023, Leonardo's CEO explained that regarding Gcap, "there are no quotas, at the moment it is a great laboratory of minds".
The clarification comes after the rumors of recent days according to which the headquarters for the Global Combat Air Program will be in London. According to Reuters sources, Tokyo and London will dominate the project's design and production, with London's deeper and more recent experience in jet fighter development likely to give it a leading role in organizing the program.
“It's not like there is an identified model” but “we need to create the concept, establish what it will be, there could even be more models to compare” specified Roberto Cingolani. “There will be a mother or father plane that will have to control drones, it doesn't matter how big, how thick or how fast they are. The only certain thing is that there will be a flying supercomputer with artificial intelligence that must control 30 – 40 drones, more or less capable and intelligent. Since this is the only clear thing, whoever has the skills in Ai, distributed intelligence, must now sit down and say: let's see who can do what. It is not a negotiation of quotas, but a negotiation of a technical nature which is still a little behind" announced the CEO of Leonardo.
Furthermore, Gcap is expected to cost tens of billions of euros. However, the parties have not yet decided on the budget split.
LEONARDO READY TO TAKE A STRONG ROLE IN THE GCAP PROJECT
So according to Cingolani there is "still a lot to do, with the Japanese and the English we will bring our ideas to defend our capabilities".
So a stronger role for Leonardo in the design of the air combat system of the future? "You measure the strong role based on skills, those who have the skills are strong, we believe we have much more advanced skills in certain sectors", but the "others are good, we're talking about Japan and the UK", commented the number one from the former Finmeccanica company.
LEONARDO'S INDUSTRIAL PLAN IS COMING
Cingolani then recalled that Leonardo's industrial plan will be presented at the "beginning of the year" and the two pillars on which it will rest will be "cyber and space".
'Cybersecurity must be understood – underlined Cingolani – as a new Leonardo platform which must allow us to design any Leonardo cybersecure by design product. It means that in the design phase we begin to include cybersecurity, it's not something we introduce after I've made the helicopter or the plane" or anything else. 'This – specifies the CEO – is a competitive advantage that Leonardo must be able to exploit: we are one of the very few technological companies that do everything: the hardware, the software, we make the satellite, the helicopter we can insert into cybersecurity. This also creates a service that over time must be paid for by those who buy and those who buy get a more competitive product and we have returns over the years".
ABOUT SPACE
Speaking of the second pillar of the plan, namely space, "we understood that much of the internet will be satellite-based" and that space "will generate a large amount of data". In this regard, on the space front, the plan also includes the creation of a dedicated division , the sixth to be added to the existing five (helicopters, aircraft, aerostructures, electronics and cyber security).
Then there will be "the traditional part: helicopters, planes and electronics which will be consolidated with artificial intelligence, but we are very consolidated on that" observed Cingolani.
THE CYBER ROUTE UNDERTAKEN WITH THE EUROPEAN CENTRE
In the meantime, just today Leonardo announced that the first pan-European virtual center for the real-time dynamic management of cyber risk, created by the group for DG Connect, the European Commission's general directorate for digital policies, has reached full operation.
The full operation of the first pan-European virtual center for the real-time dynamic management of cyber risk "is a first step, it started before the industrial plan, demonstrating that Leonardo has a very strong innovative DNA" commented Cingolani.
“It is a first step – he added – of a strategy that should be consolidated in future years at a European level. It is clear that being the first to carry out this operation is "preliminary" to other larger operations.
LATE AT EUROPEAN LEVEL DUE TO FRAGMENTATION
At the same time, Leonardo's number one observed that if cybersecurity remains strategic, at a European level "we are behind on everything due to the fragmentation in 27 states, we have different policies".
“Everything – added Cingolani – is digital now, even health” and “data must be protected”. All this means that "both from a civil and military point of view we need cyber security". In this scenario, the CEO of Leonardo underlined, "satellites also have an increasingly greater role: we must protect the data".
AND WITH REGARD TO AI, NO TO THE CONTRAST BETWEEN MAN AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Finally, Roberto Cingolani had his say on the highly debated topic at the time of the progress of artificial intelligence and the inevitable comparison with man.
“I say this as a scientist [physicist and former Minister of the Environment and Ecological Transition in the Draghi government], and even before that as a person who works in a technology company, this story of the contrast between man and artificial intelligence is false” stated the Leonardo's number one. “If you look at the history of artificial intelligence – explained Cingolani -, from the Second World War, from Enigma onwards, the evolution of the algorithms that generated AI is very complex”. In fact, “there were periods of artificial intelligence winter” because the models were “too complex”. After technologies evolved into simpler processes, 'AI was refinanced.'
As for fears regarding the relationship between AI and man, “we need rules. I have always said that it is the user who must be educated, it is not the pillow that suffocates a person but it is the person who uses the tool incorrectly. “The user must be educated”.
Therefore, "the contrast between human intelligence and artificial intelligence seems more like a science fiction film to me" concluded Cingolani.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/leonardo-ecco-le-bordate-di-cingolani-su-ai-cyber-e-gcap/ on Tue, 03 Oct 2023 14:44:31 +0000.