Artificial intelligence is not merely a technology, a set of applications, or a new software tool. It is a strategic infrastructure capable of transforming cognitive work, business organization, public administration, industrial competition, and geopolitical balances. This volume offers an interpretation of AI that goes beyond the surface of interfaces and generative assistants to focus on the material conditions of its power: data, energy, computing power, semiconductors, the cloud, data centers, security, standards, professional skills, and financing tools. At the heart of the analysis lies the new triangle of power—data, energy, and computing—upon which economic competitiveness, institutional resilience, and digital sovereignty depend. Data, in fact, does not produce value unless it is governed, protected, and transformed into actionable knowledge; a model does not guarantee autonomy if it rests on opaque infrastructure and irreversible dependencies; the data center is not merely a technological building, but an economic, energy, legal, and geopolitical hub. With a particular focus on Europe and Italy, the book examines the relationship between AI, strategic autonomy, European funds, supercomputing, industrial policies, territorial cohesion, and the development of inland areas. A clear thesis emerges: there is no mature AI strategy without a theory of dependencies to underpin it. The book is aimed at public and private sector executives, entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, consultants, security professionals, professors, researchers, and training professionals. It serves as a tool for understanding not only what artificial intelligence can do, but above all who controls the conditions that make it possible—with what tools and to whose benefit. Governing AI means governing the industrial, institutional, and territorial future.
