A €1 million project gets underway. Involved are Sapienza University of Rome, Open Fiber, Huawei, Lutech, FibreConnect and PTS.
March 4, 2026 – Rome. A €1 million project has been launched to make cities smarter and safer through the InDRA initiative. The services related to mobility and urban infrastructures will become intelligent through the use of artificial intelligence put to work for both citizens and businesses.
The partnership — led by Sapienza University of Rome together with Open Fiber, Huawei, Lutech, FibreConnect and PTS — has begun experimenting with Edge Cloud Computing (ECC) platforms installed at fixed network nodes (POPs) of Open Fiber.
The initiative aligns with the Italian Strategy for Ultra-Broadband 2023–2026 and is one of three ECC experiments funded by the Department for Digital Transformation of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. Its goal is to enhance the quality of next-generation digital services and enable innovative use cases.
Under the InDRA project, around €1 million will be invested to develop four Smart City-focused experiments centered on intelligent mobility and advanced urban infrastructure management.
The aim is to bring computing power and advanced digital services closer to citizens, with a clear and objective methodology to assess how the integration of edge computing into telecommunications networks can boost service quality and enable new innovative applications.
With InDRA, the project seeks to significantly reduce network latency, increase efficiency, and support next-generation applications. This includes systems for intelligent traffic management and autonomous driving support, tools for monitoring and predictive maintenance of physical infrastructures, and the use of artificial intelligence and digital twins for advanced analysis and simulations.
The partnership includes public and private entities with complementary skills: Open Fiber will design and implement the network architecture and ECC platform, including hardware and software installation, node configuration, and performance assessment.
PTS, acting as business advisor, will lead economic and market analysis, evaluate the impact of ECC solutions, and define a sustainable business model. Through data analysis from field trials, PTS will help develop KPIs and support the business case to demonstrate the economic viability of the solutions.
Within the consortium, FibreConnect will act as an OTT provider, offering application services to clients interested in using ECC platforms close to end users. The company will participate in the project’s trial phase to measure and monitor defined KPIs and assess the benefits of ECC architectures compared with traditional cloud models.
Lutech will contribute as a strategic technology partner by providing its Edge Cloud Computing software platform and expertise in Smart Mobility, AI, and Digital Twin technologies. It will also be responsible for developing and integrating advanced use cases and participating in defining requirements, architectural design, and technical validation.
Huawei will support the project with networking and ICT infrastructure technologies that enable very low response times for hosted applications, helping to develop a new generation of urban transport services.
Sapienza University of Rome, the consortium leader, will design and implement the experimental trials on autonomous driving, intelligent traffic, and AI applied to sustainable mobility.
Through InDRA, the partnership aims to drive digital transformation in Italy by advancing solutions that make cities more intelligent, efficient, and sustainable. It will provide a useful methodology to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of various local, urban, and regional edge solutions compared with traditional cloud systems, contributing to the wider adoption of advanced services benefiting citizens, businesses, and public administrations.
Tags: fibreconnect, InDRA, Open Fiber, PTS