Luigi Carfora: AI, Data Power and SMEs in Southern Italy – The Risk of a Two-Speed Economy
🌍 Luigi Carfora: The Future Is Not Predicted. It Is Built. But Today, It Is Also Being Imposed
There is a widespread narrative suggesting that artificial intelligence, data, and emerging technologies simply represent "the future" unfolding.
That is not entirely true.
The real issue is not the future itself.
The real issue is who is building it—and who is being subjected to it.
Thinkers such as Yuval Noah Harari, in his book Homo Deus, describe scenarios in which control over data becomes the primary form of power. And it is precisely on this point that a much more concrete—and potentially more critical—dynamic is emerging today.
🧠 The Misconception: The South Is Not Outside This Transformation
There is a tendency to believe that regions like Southern Italy are somehow marginal to technological transformation.
This is a mistake.
Artificial intelligence does not arrive first where production is strongest.
It arrives first where control is exercised.
Today, in Italy, AI is progressively and structurally entering:
the banking system
the tax system
public administration
evaluation, compliance, and risk assessment frameworks
👉 This is not an AI that produces.
👉 It is an AI that evaluates, selects, filters, and decides.
And this is where a critical imbalance begins to emerge.
⚖️ The Two-Speed System: Those Who Use AI and Those Who Are Judged by It
In the Italian system—and even more clearly in the South—a structural asymmetry is taking shape:
on one side, large institutions (banks, public administration, centralized systems)
👉 using AI and data to control, classify, and reduce riskon the other, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
👉 subject to these decisions without having equivalent tools
This is not neutral innovation.
It is a reconfiguration of power.
The risks are concrete:
👉 businesses increasingly evaluated by opaque systems
👉 access to credit influenced by algorithmic scoring
👉 growing fiscal and bureaucratic pressure through automation
👉 reduced space for human judgment and discretion
🏛️ The Italian Structural Gap: No Control Over Core Technologies
There is a deeper structural issue:
👉 Italy does not control the core infrastructure of artificial intelligence
It does not lead in large-scale model development, it does not own dominant platforms, and it does not govern global data flows.
Technological power today is concentrated in a few global poles:
in the United States, with companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon
in China, with players like Alibaba Group and Tencent
Alongside this, there is an intensifying global competition over:
advanced AI models
cloud infrastructure
semiconductor production
control of data ecosystems
👉 This is not just economics.
👉 This is geopolitics.
🌍 The Global Struggle: Data, Power, and Sovereignty
What we are witnessing is not merely digital transformation.
It is a struggle for control over the future.
control of data
control of algorithms
control of infrastructure
Those who control these elements:
👉 shape markets
👉 influence decisions
👉 condition economic systems
👉 and increasingly limit the autonomy of nations
This raises a fundamental question—not only economic, but democratic:
👉 How sovereign can a nation remain if it does not control the technologies that govern its decisions?
📍 The Real Risk for SMEs in Southern Italy
Within this global framework, Italian SMEs—particularly in the South—face a structurally fragile position.
Not because they are excluded from the system,
but because they are included without equivalent power.
👉 they compete in markets shaped by algorithms they do not control
👉 they access credit through models they do not understand
👉 they operate in environments where decision-making is increasingly automated
The risk is a silent selection process.
Not declared.
Not visible.
But progressive.
🧭 The Strategic Challenge: Not to Chase, but to Rebalance
The issue is not to reject technology.
That would be a mistake.
The real challenge is to ensure that this transformation does not unfold in a structurally asymmetric way, placing disproportionate pressure on the most vulnerable enterprises.
What is needed is:
awareness
analytical capability
coherent industrial policies
concrete tools for SMEs
Because if control over data becomes control over the economy, then the issue is no longer technical.
It is strategic.
⚖️ Conclusion
The future is not only something to be built.
Today, it is also something that is being imposed.
And between those who build it and those who undergo it lies a decisive boundary.
For territories like ours, the real challenge is not to understand whether artificial intelligence will transform the world.
It is to determine whether we will be active participants in that transformation or merely recipients of its consequences.
Because ultimately:
those who control data do not only influence markets.
They influence economic freedom, sovereignty, and the future of entire territories.
Luigi Carfora
President, Confimi Industria Campania
President, Suggestioni Campane Promotion Consortium
