On 11–12 November 2025, Montréal (Canada) hosted the seventh edition of the Canada–Italy Forum on Artificial Intelligence, organised by the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Canada in collaboration with the Embassy of Italy in Ottawa and the Consulate General of Italy in Montreal. This year’s theme, “AI in action – leveraging innovation in a changing world,” highlighted how artificial intelligence is emerging not only as a powerful tool, but as a catalyst for bold and resilient innovation. Discussions focused on how AI can reinforce the resilience and security of critical infrastructures such as healthcare, cybersecurity, energy and logistics, while also recognising AI itself as a strategic infrastructure that must be safeguarded. Participants also explored how AI increases operational efficiency and impact, and accelerates the transition towards environmental sustainability, climate action and biodiversity protection.
The University of Pavia took part in the event as a partner of the National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC), the first Italian National Research and Innovation Centre dedicated to biodiversity, funded by the Ministry of Universities and Research (MUR) with resources from the European Union’s NextGenerationEU programme.
The NBFC mission to Canada aimed to map out strategic opportunities for collaboration at the interface between biodiversity and AI, with a focus on research excellence, innovation ecosystems and industrial uptake. Over four days, NBFC delegates took part in the Forum and conducted targeted bilateral meetings with leading Canadian universities, research chairs, technology transfer offices, AI institutes and innovation hubs. This mission has created a solid basis for a long-term, structured partnership between Italy and Canada, building on complementary strengths in biodiversity science, artificial intelligence, health, sustainability and deep-tech innovation.
During the Forum, the University of Pavia contributed to the panel “AI as a Catalyst for Resilience in Critical Infrastructure,” presenting the functional exposome model developed within NBFC. This model integrates multiple observational cohorts to investigate how the exposome, the totality of environmental and lifestyle exposures over the life course, shapes health trajectories. The case study showcased in Montréal, the EXPOSOME Urban Health Twin, combines functional exposome data and AI to improve how cities, and in particular their healthcare systems, anticipate and adapt to change. The project links what surrounds people in everyday life, such as environment, social context, work conditions, lifestyle, with how their bodies respond through internal biological biomarkers, making these links visible and usable for real-world decisions.
Instead of treating “the environment” and “the body” as two separate domains, the functional exposome framework connects them across time and space. AI is then used to learn how these coupled signals can flag risk earlier, predict clinical outcomes and support practical prevention strategies. In this way, the urban environment, often perceived as a black box, becomes a source of actionable insight for clinicians, policy-makers and citizens. Cities are described as living “bio-technical” systems, where air, transport, energy and housing intersect with biology, psychology and daily behaviour. In such dense settings, health systems cannot remain purely reactive; they need infrastructures capable of detecting early warning signals, anticipating risk and acting upstream.
The implications extend across several sectors. In healthcare, this work supports proactive triage, biomarker-based follow-up and personalised lifestyle counselling. For urban governance, it enables ex-ante simulations of environmental and planning policies, together with their expected biological impact on populations. In workplace settings, it can inform adaptive design strategies that preserve both productivity and well-being.
Through initiatives like the Canada–Italy AI Forum, the University of Pavia and NBFC are contributing to a shared vision in which AI, biodiversity science and urban health research converge to build more resilient, sustainable and inclusive cities.
Reference. Monti MC, De Giuseppe R, Bertoli G, et al. Exposome, oxidative stress and inflammation in persons with multiple sclerosis: the EXPOSITION study protocol. Front Public Health. 2025 Oct 22;13:1688158. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1688158.
