In addition to the Laboratories and Sections, INFN has 3 national centers of high specialization dedicated to computing (CNAF), the development of cutting-edge technologies (TIFPA), and theoretical physics (GGI). The three National Centers are located in cities with a cultural and productive tradition that has fostered the development of these unique scientific institutions in Italy.
Founded in 1962, CNAF, with headquarters in Bologna, is the National Centre for Research and Development on Information and Communication Technologies.
As INFN’s main computing centre, CNAF takes care of managing and developing the most important information and data transfer services nationally and is an important computing facility for many experiments.
CNAF is one of the main distributed computing centres in Italy and is a first-level hub of the network that manages data produced by the LHC.
In contrast, the GGI (Galileo Galilei Institute) is dedicated to theoretical physics. This is a centre of advanced studies in theoretical physics founded by a collaboration between INFN and the University of Florence and established in 2006. The GGI is the first European centre set up with the goal of hosting advanced workshops for the theoretical physics of fundamental interactions. It has its headquarters in Florence, on the Arcetri hill, a historically significant site for physics and astronomy where Galilei spent the last years of his life. The Centre organises workshops dedicated to hot topics in the theoretical physics of fundamental interactions and doctoral schools dedicated to string and field theory, the theoretical physics of elementary particles, nuclear theoretical physics and statistical mechanics, to astroparticle physics and cosmology.
Founded in 2014, TIFPA (the Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Applications) is INFN’s National Centre dedicated to particle physics research and the development of cutting-edge technologies in sensoristics, space research, supercomputing, and biomedicine.
This is a unique organisation in Italy due to its capacity to integrate basic research, technology transfer, and innovation. With its headquarters in Trento, the TIFPA is the product of the collaboration between INFN, the University of Trento, the Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK), and the Provincial Agency for Health Services (APSS). It employs infrastructure like the Centre for Materials and Microsystems, the ECT* centre of theoretical physics (FBK), and the new accelerator for cancer proton therapy managed by APSS, which is currently treating patients, including children, with a lot of success.
