ECHO-TWIN is an ICSC-coordinated project that develops Digital Twin-enabled smart ecosystems by extending the National Centre’s supercomputing cloud infrastructure with edge systems and low-power AI technologies, building an Edge-Cloud-HPC continuum to support applied research and the transfer of advanced digital solutions to industry. It is funded by MUR under the PN RIC 2021–2027 programme (Avviso D.D. n. 307) and co-financed by the EU through the ERDF. The stated aims are to strengthen national infrastructure for advanced computing and Digital Twins in support of research, business and public administration, and to build specialist skills, technology transfer and access to innovative services in health, environment, digital and sustainable mobility.
The work runs on three lines: ECHO-TWIN-RISE for industrial research and experimental development of digital-twin ecosystems operating across the Edge-Cloud-HPC continuum with high performance, reliability, security and energy sustainability; ECHO-TWIN-NET to extend the ICSC Innovation Hub with networked infrastructure and new hardware/software labs favouring low-power edge solutions; and ECHO-TWIN-UP for advanced training and research-industry networking, particularly for firms in southern Italy.
Within ECHO-TWIN, INAF-OACT and The VisIVO LAB team leads the WP on AI models, algorithms and frameworks for DTSE. Its own technical contribution sits on the lightweight-AI line: deep learning for structural crack and detachment detection from UAV imagery, trained on HPC and then compressed and quantised for embedded deployment on edge hardware.