AI and New Engineering to prevent natural disasters. Marco Lombardi at the 7th Soft Power Conference

Rome, January 30, 2026 - Monitor to predict, thanks to AI algorithms. Predict to prevent disasters like the recent landslide in Niscemi, Sicily. "The certainties and reference points that have guided us for years no longer exist. Our territory, our infrastructure, designed according to old reference frameworks, are no longer in balance with the new forces stressing them," explained Marco Lombardi, CEO of Proger, Italy's leading independent engineering company, speaking at the seventh Soft Power Conference taking place this morning at the Parliamentary Groups Hall in Rome.

Today we find ourselves in a "new world" characterized by instability, movement, and continuous transformation, and the only solution "is to arrive at a new engineering that, thanks to AI," Lombardi added, "can help us restore balance to our territory." As Lombardi emphasized: "We used to call an event extreme because it was exceptional. There have been an average of 100 extreme events per year over the last decade. Yet," Lombardi observed, "we continue to consider them exceptional. Then we see disasters, like the one that recently occurred in Sicily or earlier in Emilia-Romagna, and we don't question what we're doing wrong." For Lombardi, "we will simply have to adapt," which doesn't mean surrendering "but rather putting our infrastructure back in balance with the new stresses around them, bringing them back in tune with a different environment. And to do this, engineering must leverage AI: the greatest technological innovation in history."

In this scenario, AI represents "the key tool of New Engineering," but at the same time it can also be "dangerous" if used incorrectly: the real issue is not whether to use it or not: "but how to use it? Because AI is the most stupid, fast, knowledgeable, and kind being that has ever existed on the face of the earth. We need to understand it to manage it, otherwise we will be managed by it. It must be governed," Lombardi concludes, "because the real danger is the loss of critical thinking."