Italtel advances innovation for secure cloud-edge infrastructures with SMARTY

New expertise from the Horizon Europe project in cloud-edge security, trusted platform integration and quantum-resilient solutions

On May 19–20, 2026, Italtel participated in the SMARTY Plenary Meeting held in Hanover, Germany. Funded by the Horizon Europe programme, SMARTY aims to develop a new generation of secure, AI-ready cloud-edge infrastructures for Europe’s strategic sectors. Our colleagues Fabrizio Bianchi and Marco Beccari attended the meeting on behalf of Italtel.

For Italtel, the project represents an important opportunity to strengthen expertise and develop innovative solutions in key areas such as cybersecurity, confidential computing, quantum-resilient communications, software-defined perimeter and intelligent orchestration of distributed services.

With more than 30 European partners involved — including large enterprises, innovative SMEs and universities — SMARTY aims to create a trusted technology ecosystem for managing and protecting data within Artificial Intelligence processes, ensuring security for both data-in-transit and data-in-process, while enabling end-to-end data protection across distributed architectures.

A strategic project for the European market

The growing adoption of AI applications across industrial sectors and critical infrastructures requires platforms capable of ensuring high levels of security, reliability and compliance.

In this scenario, SMARTY is developing an advanced cloud-edge continuum model based on heterogeneous and distributed systems designed to support mission-critical workloads in AI-ready environments such as:

• automotive
• fintech
• telecommunications
• smart industry

The technologies developed within the project will be validated through six European use cases, with the goal of accelerating industrial adoption and creating new business opportunities in high-growth markets.

Italtel’s role: integration, testing and consolidation

Within the project, Italtel coordinates Work Package 6, focused on integration, testing & validation activities for the solutions developed by the consortium.

Italtel’s contribution is centered on the integration of innovative technologies within complex multi-vendor environments, leveraging consolidated expertise in the design of secure and resilient digital infrastructures.

Through SMARTY, Italtel is also strengthening its positioning in strategic areas such as Network Evolution & 5G, Smart & Vertical Solutions, Cyber & OT Security, as well as:

• AI infrastructure security
• edge computing
• trusted digital platforms
• network transformation
• secure service orchestration

This approach enables the company to support enterprises and service providers in their transition toward increasingly distributed, automated and data-driven digital models.

Security and AI: a concrete market opportunity

Protecting data and AI processes is now one of the main challenges facing enterprises, telecom operators and European industries.

Regulatory evolution, the growing focus on Trustworthy AI and the need to secure critical infrastructures are accelerating demand for secure, interoperable and quantum-resilient digital platforms, enabling crypto-agility approaches and quantum-ready technologies.

In this context, participation in SMARTY allows Italtel to contribute to the development of high-value European technologies and strengthen its presence in innovation programmes focused on cybersecurity, AI and edge-cloud infrastructures, supporting the development of future-proof solutions against “harvest now, decrypt later” scenarios.