Italy must choose the manufacturing of the future: make way for the Neo-Industrial Company
By Massimo Portincaso, CEO and Co-Founder of Arsenale Bioyards.
Originally published in Italian in Quotidiano Nazionale (QN Economia), 20 July 2026.
Translated with Claude. Read original article in Italian here
The greatest risk we face is not falling behind in the race. It is spending resources and energy defending the industry that was, instead of building the one that will be, which is already taking shape elsewhere. The difference seems subtle, and it is not: you can run very fast in the wrong direction. For too long we have treated our industry as an inheritance to protect, without questioning the model beneath it. But competition has moved to new ground, and those who do not build neo-industrial capabilities end up depending on technologies, supply chains and manufacturing developed elsewhere, as is already happening in automotive. The transformation is underway.
Artificial intelligence has accelerated, to an extraordinary degree, the ability of companies to design, simulate and learn, and in doing so it has moved the bottleneck. Ideas are no longer what is scarce. What is scarce is the capacity to turn them quickly into production at industrial scale. Much of the competition is decided there, in the passage from laboratory to factory. This is what the neo-industrial company answers.
The model that is changing manufacturing
A neo-industrial company produces physical goods, but operates with a software and data-first logic. Artificial intelligence is not an afterthought; it is natively integrated into every phase, from design to production to operations. In place of the digital twin, the digital replica of an existing plant, it works with a digital original: a generative model that precedes construction and makes it possible to simulate and validate hundreds of variants before touching steel. The result is a company that learns faster, iterates continuously, and compresses the time between designing a product and producing it.
This is not a theoretical scenario. It already exists. In China, BYD integrates software, data, manufacturing, energy and the value chain into a single operating system, and so it learns, iterates and produces at a speed that Europe struggles even to imagine. Shenzhen is an ecosystem in which suppliers, capital, infrastructure and regulators move at the same rhythm. The United States is moving fast as well: around Los Angeles, in the El Segundo area, one of the most dynamic hard tech ecosystems in the world is taking shape.
Europe and Italy risk arriving late. And yet we start from a position few others have: a widespread manufacturing culture, a dense network of specialised small and medium enterprises, rare competencies in precision mechanics, robotics, advanced materials and industrial design. And a tradition of industrial districts that, read as raw material for what is now emerging rather than as heritage to be frozen, can become an enormous advantage. It would be a mistake, though, to think these strengths are enough on their own.
The window is still open, but not for long
The speed at which China (above all) and the United States are building neo-industrial capacity does not leave us much time. Plants, supply chains, skills and capital tend to concentrate where they already exist, and every passing year makes catching up harder. The window is still open, but it will not remain open for long.
This is why we urgently need a neo-industrial strategy that does not stop at incentives. We need districts of high technological density, where startups, companies, universities, investors and research centres work as a single system. We need a financial infrastructure capable of accompanying companies from laboratory to factory, closing the gap that today separates venture capital from traditional credit. And we need instruments designed to finance first plants, where risk is highest and private capital alone is not enough.
Above all, we need to make a choice. The manufacturing of the future will belong to those who integrate artificial intelligence, data, energy and productive capacity better than anyone else. Italy still has the competencies, the talent and the culture to play a leading role. The question is a single one: do we want to spend the next ten years defending the industry that was, or building the one that will be?