Digital. Labriola, since we are very honest and I am the only TIM subscriber here, so I am the only one who can ask the question, this is Ruggeri's excuse. I ask you what is behind the label of digital revolution, digital incentive? What is really there that can be done seriously, given that technologies are all very important and how Italian companies manage to implement them? I'm talking about companies that are not even 2A and not the large ones, the small ones. Labriola,
Well, thank you for the opportunity because I believe that lately the world is traveling at such a speed that we don't realize the revolution underway. I don't want to make marketing speeches about artificial intelligence, I will try to be very practical and pragmatic. I say it and I have said it in various contexts. Today, digitalization is the only chance every country has to face the development of the new economy. Now, when we talk about digitalization, we think of the internet or what we do using the internet. In reality, in the next 5 or 10 years, any productive activity will not be able to do without a digital network, whether it is 5G or fiber connected to the cloud and with artificial intelligence, to be clear. I am in Brazil today, that's why I can't be there physically. In Brazil, already today Brazil is the first country in the world for agricultural production. About 30% of global agricultural production is done here in Brazil. In Brazil, all fields are cultivated, most of them through the use of machinery connected with a 5G network, autonomous, without people. In many factories, in China, but also in the United States, in Germany, they use 5G networks to achieve certain levels of automation. So, to be extremely clear, without digital infrastructure you cannot compete in the new economy. And when we talk about this aspect, we must also realize that there is another type of problem. Europe today is the dwarf in a global competition. I say the dwarf in a global competition because if we want digitalization, we must have very strong telecommunications operators. In the United States we have three telecom operators. In China three, in India three, in Brazil three, and in Europe 120. This means that European telecom operators cannot sustain the investments to build the infrastructure. I heard earlier a passionate dissertation by Nicola on the topic of liberalizations. Well, in Europe we have had the liberalization of the telecommunications sector, but we must also understand when in the current economic model excessive liberalism can lead to market failure. Today in Italy there is no operator that can generate cash, which means that sooner or later telecom operators will not have the possibility to reinvest. So we must find the right balance between a model of liberalism and the model in which we work through universal service and nationalization is centralized management. So the first step, which must be, is to bring telecom companies, not only in Italy but in Europe, to have the capacity to reinvest in digital infrastructure. At this point, I heard earlier talk about rules, we must also realize what is happening. The world has completely changed. We don't realize it. Let me give you an example. It took 75 years to have 100 million telephone lines in the world. To have 100 million Facebook accounts, 7 and a half years. To have 100 million TikTok accounts, to have 6, I say six, to have 100 million ChatGPT accounts, 6 months were enough. The model with which today when we talk about norms we must not only talk about laws, but also all the norms that the various authorities define for the competition model. The models with which our regulatory agencies define the rules with which we compete are models based on market analyses that last 2 to 3 years. In 3 years, four new ChatGPTs were born with different business models, so the model of regulating these things has become obsolete and does not allow us to look to the future, it forces us to look with the rearview mirror at a future that is completely different, and this is one of the problems we must face.
Doctor, may I interrupt for a second? Just a second because Roberto Arditti caught a brilliant observation of yours. Yes, Andrea, thanks. What we have just heard is the heart of the matter. It is commendable the idea of convening here a reasoning and people around a liberal cultural matrix, but I don't want to be a spoilsport, however it is also appropriate to exercise a critical thinking function. No one deludes themselves that by saying more competition we have fixed things. This version, this approach perhaps worked in worlds far from today's. Labriola was saying it, the most influential thinker of the American right who, besides being a thinker, is also the gentleman who founded first PayPal, then Palantir, and is the most important external investor in Facebook. This gentleman is called Peter Thiel. He summarizes his thought in this phrase, which is read with a classical liberal and chilling perspective. Peter Thiel says free competition is for losers, clear? In the sense that Peter Thiel says, those who know him understand, those who don't know him should quickly look at his appearance. In the coming hours. Peter Thiel says that competing for the existing is at best a defensive strategy, while a winning strategy is to create new things. That's what Labriola reminded us with the speed of the times we are in. So, the liberal challenge, which is an ambitious, interesting, right goal, and then said from Palazzo Grazioli it's worth multiplied by 1000, cannot ignore what the world is today in which liberal principles must enter and must work, otherwise all this becomes disconnected from reality. That is, it must be updated, liberalism must be updated, it must be radically rethought. While we are here talking, the US federal government, that is the nation, hear the sirens approaching. The US federal government has put billions of dollars into the capital of digital world companies, but even into the largest company. Two and a half billion dollars of investment for lithium extraction. This is what the US federal government does. This American action, alongside the traditional matrix of liberal thought, is pure heresy, and yet it is happening. So, and I'm done, Andrea, if from here a path of reflection on the new liberal approach begins, you need to know that almost everything we have behind us that is noble, traditional, very elegant, very chic, perfect, must be taken and archived because it is the child of a time that no longer exists. Very clear. I'm coming, doctor, just a second. Meanwhile, I must thank Roberto Chiudo who, let's say, atypically, despite being a politician, has been listening with incredible discipline for half an hour, taking notes for what he will tell us later at the conclusion of this. Doctor, I give you the reply obviously to you from Brazil, I ask you to be brief because then we have another connection from Shanghai and in the meantime I have to say something myself. Please, Dr. Labriola.
No, absolutely. So, let me clarify, I don't do politics and I am a technician, so I bring observations from a person who manages companies and tries to understand how to move in this world. Let's observe the world. When we were talking exactly about rules, perhaps we didn't realize that the world has completely changed. Today we have two worlds, two parallel dimensions. One is that of the real world, that of Palazzo Grazioli, of a world that regulates the real world, where privacy is Italian, jurisdiction is Italian, tax is Italian, everything Italian is within the borders. Then in the meantime, without realizing it, a second world exploded, a second dimension that is the digital one. That of the digital until some time ago, at the beginning of the 2000s, we were the ones searching for something on Google. In the meantime, a world developed in which, in the digital world, you have parallel cryptocurrencies, you start to have the cloud, you start to have telecommunications services. And do you know the difference? That in the digital world, Italian jurisdiction does not apply, the privacy law does not apply. Oops, sorry, Portuguese came out because I'm in Brazil. You, when you enter the digital world, choose where to position yourself for taxation. Now we among ourselves struggle to adjust the rules in Italy, but a world is slipping out of our hands that as long as it was parallel to the real world there was no problem. Too bad that the two worlds are meeting. Today when we talk about cloud, we put our data in a cloud. You are probably all happy and calm because you think that cloud is in a data center on Italian territory and Italian rules apply, right? Because we are crossing the real dimension with the digital one. In the digital dimension, under the US Cloud Act, the cloud is an American digital embassy, so at any moment a US National Security can ask, without informing anyone in Italy, for information residing in that cloud. WhatsApp is a telecommunications service. You agree with me. But why doesn't WhatsApp have the obligation of legal interception like us telecom operators? So, what we need to pay attention to, and I close with this reasoning, is to also confront the economic models in which we find ourselves. In the United States, probably 70% of the world's private equity is concentrated. So we have the United States that have a model in which the American president decides and makes happen what he wants. Then you have the 7-8 largest companies in the world that have budgets greater than the entire European Community budget, and then there is the world of private equity that launches initiatives. If they go well, four go badly. With the six that go well, they cover everything. This is a linked and perfect mechanism that is moving forward. There is the Chinese model, much more of a director, but we must point out that either more rules for everyone or fewer rules for everyone, having clear that however we today are dwarfs as Italy, with Europe we are less dwarfs, but we must start remembering that if we do too much correct politics, in the sense that we take too much time to make the rules, we will be swept away.
