6th Summer School AISRe, Milan 2025

Artificial Intelligence, Globalisation and
New Territorial Divides. Theories and applications

9 – 13 June 2025
Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering
Politecnico di Milano

AISRe is proud to announce its sixth summer school on Artificial Intelligence, Globalisation and New Territorial Divides. Theories and applications organized by the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, in collaboration with the Horizon Europe Project ESSPIN (Economic, Social and SPatial Inequalities in Europe in the Era of Global Mega-trends, grant agreement No 101061104).
The first two decades of the new century have been marked by a rapidly changing environment, characterised by radical technological transformations coupled with an altered global landscape and a reorientation of international trade and value chains, in response of the pandemic and of rising geopolitical tension and energy crisis. A recurrent conclusion made by many scholars and commentators is that the combination of these mega-trends has created rather unfavourable conditions for balanced growth and socio-spatial resilience, thus amplifying one of the chief paradoxes of our time: the co-occurrence of powerful technology with increasing inequalities among individuals, social groups, regions and cities. Indeed, the rise of inequalities taking off at the turn of the millennium has been marked by a novel spatial dimension driven by the increasing split between a small group of big, wealthy, resilient and high-income superstar city-regions and the remaining ones, suffering from a mix of stagnating and/or low productivity, limited opportunities and economic development prospects.
The summer school will introduce PhD students and early career researchers to this rich and expanding debate by merging theoretical and empirical perspectives. In particular, the school will propose an overview of the main economic theories analysing the genesis, causes and the persistence of regional and urban divides, by digging into the role of the transformations induced by artificial intelligence and the restructuring of global value chains and exploring the possible policy actions at the regional and urban scales to mitigate the potential expansion of territorial divides.