We are witnessing the emergence of a new industrial age. We have entered what Nicolas Colin calls the Late Cycle Investment Theory, i.e. the maturity phase of the computing and networks revolution, our equivalent of the 1970s in the age of oil, automobiles, and mass production.

The greatest risk Italy faces is not falling behind in the race. It is spending the next decade defending the industry that was, instead of building the one that will be. In this op-ed for Quotidiano Nazionale, Massimo Portincaso argues that Italy's manufacturing culture can become the foundation of the neo-industrial company, and that the window to act will not stay open for long.

The dividing line of the next decade will not run between companies that use AI and those that do not, but between organisations capable of evolving continuously and those that automate the past. In this interview with Corriere della Sera, Massimo Portincaso explains the passage from digital twin to digital original, why the industrial substrate itself is being remade, and why Italy's SMEs could be among the best positioned for the transition.

Arsenale CEO and Co-Founder, Massimo Portincaso, speaks at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of New Champions in Dalian, China on what it will take for biomanufacturing to achieve cost-competitive, global scale.

Italy has a paradox. The country produces world-class cleantech innovation, trains excellent researchers, generates startups that attract international capital, and then watches as that same innovation is industrialised in Germany, France, or Asia. On 18 June 2026, a cross-party parliamentary alliance was born to break that pattern. Massimo Portincaso was among the founders who took the floor.

In the new neo-industrial business model, artificial intelligence transcends the traditional corporate hierarchy, replacing the role of the middle manager with digital models updated in real time.

Italy still possesses some of the world’s strongest technical expertise in the sectors that will prove decisive: advanced manufacturing, industrial biotechnology, materials, design, robotics, and automation. But this historical advantage does not automatically carry over into the new industrial era: it only does so if it is transformed into the ability to learn and produce new technologies.

World Models do not become industries. Only Neo-Industrial companies can close the inference loop between intelligence and industrial reality.

New financial instruments need to be developed to support innovative manufacturing. "There are no off-the-shelf solutions, but it is strategic to start building them now." Europe's industrial autonomy is at stake.

Why Neo-Industrial Companies Are a Different Kind of Being.
There are two fundamentally different kinds of industrial organization in the world today. Not two strategies, not two business models, not two corporate cultures: two different kinds of being.

Deep tech solved discovery. It never solved industrialization. The Neo-Industrial age is what comes next — and it demands a completely different kind of company.

New partnership combines real-time single-cell analysis with AI-driven biomanufacturing to close one of the field's longest-standing data gaps.

After evaluating over 300 molecules across 40 chemical families, the AB4S coalition has identified four priority families, terpenes, peptides, non-catalytic proteins, and hydroxy acids, as the most viable near-term opportunities for bio-based production.

The maps that mattered in the Age of Discovery were geographic. The maps that matter now are cognitive and are in need of an update.

On December 9th 2025, Arsenale CEO Massimo Portincaso took part in a panel at the Italian parliament on the industrial opportunity of biomanufacturing and what Italy must do to seize it.

Named one of the 100 most promising global impact ventures, Arsenale is part of a new generation of companies rethinking how we build, scale, and govern the systems that shape our future.

The Pordenone-based startup is accelerating its growth thanks to a multi-million euro capital increase. It now plans to connect with Veneto universities and industries.

Biotech’s barriers to scale aren’t accidental – they’re structural.
To unlock the bioeconomy, we must design out the bottlenecks in infrastructure, translation, and capital from the start.

Biotech’s frontier is no longer technical – it’s economic.
To scale, we must design industrial systems where viability is built in from the start, not added as an afterthought.

In this Leaders on a Mission podcast episode, Massimo Portincaso joins Simon Leich to explore why the future of biomanufacturing depends on modular systems, economies of learning, and rethinking the logic of scale entirely.