To examine these dynamics and the choices made on the ground by Italian institutions and industrial actors, this chapter zooms in on three industrial sectors that are being profoundly reshaped by Chinese industrial capabilities: (1) biopharma, (2) automotive – focusing on electric vehicles (EVs) and autonomous driving technologies, and (3) information communication technologies (ICT) – focusing on 5G and the incoming 6G technological standard. These three sectors are subject to the Italian government’s “special powers” over critical technologies, enabling direct intervention in the governance of companies operating in these areas.3 Furthermore, these sectors exemplify three different dimensions of the technopolitical challenge facing Italy. The Italian biopharma sector is one of the most dynamic and innovative in the country’s industrial fabric, while the automotive sector is experiencing a profound crisis, if not a terminal decline. When it comes to ICT standards – and specifically 6G – instead, Italian companies and institutions play a marginal role in their development.
The rest of this chapter proceeds as follows. Three sections respectively cover biopharma, automotive and 6G. The conclusion sums up findings, assessing them in the context of recent developments in the Italy-China bilateral relations.
Biopharma: Italian companies struggle to compete with Chinese counterparts
The Italian biopharma sector is one of the most dynamic in the country’s stagnating industrial landscape, accounting in 2025 for US$ 15 billion in revenue, and employing 29,000 people in 178 companies.4 Against this backdrop, Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI) led a working group with institutions and private players to enhance the international competitiveness of the national biotechnology industry – including the biopharma sector – between 2024 and 2025.5
The working group devised an operational plan aiming at identifying pathologies critical for national security, the emerging biotechnologies to treat them, and national companies capable of developing such technologies. These steps, in turn, are designed to support these national champions in their investments in R&D with the help of dedicated growth funds and eased interaction with venture capital, enhance their visibility abroad through public diplomacy initiatives, and finally support them through the national research infrastructure to facilitate their upscaling at an international level.6
An interview with a leading executive figure in the Italian biopharma sector, however, suggest profound disappointment with these efforts. Criticism focuses on the broad-brush distribution of ultimately meagre funding to a broad number of small and medium enterprises without the ability or political will to identify a small number of enterprises capable of being competitive at the international level.7 More broadly, industry leaders remain concerned about Italy’s inability to create an ecosystem capable of letting local companies compete against rising Chinese counterparts that are spurred by massive state subsidies for R&D.8
This situation, however, has not resulted in a systematic pivot towards Chinese capital or forms of cooperation with Chinese biopharma companies. Two factors in particular stop major Italian players from deepening engagement with China’s biopharma industry. The first is the inclusion of biotechnologies within the perimeter of its extensive, government-led FDI-screening mechanism, known as “golden power”, which, even in the absence of explicit red lines, deters Italian players from seeking Chinese investment. The second argument is US securitisation of relations with China – in a context where major Italian players in the field rely on US venture capital and primarily export to that national market.9
These concerns have indeed become even more pressing following the enactment of the BIOSECURE Act in December 2025. The Act prohibits US federal agencies from contracting with pharmaceutical companies that use “biotechnology equipment or services” provided by “biotechnology companies of concern” (BCC).10 While major Chinese biopharma players, including industry leader WuXi AppTec, are currently not listed as BCCs, the Act provides a legal platform to enable their ban in the near future – especially considering pressure from the Pentagon to blacklist such companies.11 The exclusion of Chinese bio-pharma players from the US market, in turn, would potentially favour Italian companies operating in a national and supranational (EU level) ecosystem unable to match PRC state subsidies.12
This notwithstanding, research cooperation between Italian and Chinese institutions in the biopharma sector has moved forward within the framework of the Italy-China Action Plan to Strengthen the Global Strategic Partnership,13 with the establishment in November 2024 of the China-Italy Joint Laboratory of Pharmacobiotechnology for Medical Immunomodulation founded by the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) and the Institute of Translational Pharmacology of Italy’s National Research Council (CNR).14
Automotive: Cooperation versus competition in EVs and autonomous driving
The automotive sector, historically central to Italy’s industrial development, has been sharply contracting since the 2000s, perhaps entering a phase of terminal decline since the 2010s,15 just as Chinese manufacturers reshape the global industry.16
How is Italy responding to Chinese looming dominance in EV manufacturing? Italy was one of the ten EU member states that voted in favour of the introduction of countervailing duties on made-in-China EVs in October 2024.17 Prior to the vote, Italian authorities conducted talks with PRC state-owned carmaker Dongfeng for establishing an EV factory in the country, but Chinese conditions for the investment were ultimately deemed unacceptable, given Beijing’s request to vote against the proposed countervailing duties and to provide wider access to Huawei in Italy’s telecommunications infrastructure.18
Against this backdrop, authorities have been primarily concerned with guaranteeing a future to the Italian automotive industry by preventing the multinational group Stellantis (owner of brands such as Fiat, Peugeot, Citroën, and Opel) from further shrinking or fully delocalising production away from Italy.19
In 2024, Stellantis announced a new industrial plan aiming to revive manufacturing in the country, yet Italy has not been included in the strategy of selective engagement with Chinese players that Stellantis is pursuing to maintain global competitiveness. The group chose Poland for its ultimately short-lived cooperation with Leapmotor to produce the T03 battery electric city car,20 selected Spain for its new battery factory in partnership with CATL,21 and picked Luxembourg to start its cooperation with Pony.ai to jointly test and develop autonomous vehicles.22
Autonomous driving technology, in fact, has been playing a central role in what is arguably the most consequential dossier in current Sino-Italian relations: Pirelli, a global leader in tyre manufacturing with a Chinese relative majority shareholder, state-owned enterprise (SOE) SinoChem. According to Italian sources, SinoChem became more assertive in Pirelli’s governance following a new shareholder agreement reached in 2022.23 SinoChem’s assertiveness, in turn, pushed the Italian government to intervene in Pirelli’s governance using its “golden power” in 2023, severely limiting its shareholder rights, including involvement in strategic planning, operational strategies, and R&D.24
Crucially, the Italian government justified its decision by referring to Pirelli’s development of its upcoming Cyber Tyre technology. This technology uses sensors to collect data on road configurations, geolocations, and infrastructure. The data is transmitted to cloud systems where AI creates complex digital models for applications like smart cities, digital twins, and autonomous driving.25 Rome’s decision meant a considerable extension of the “golden power” perimeter, originally focused on defence, national security, and critical infrastructure.26
While the turmoil within Pirelli traces back to the internal tug-of-war between Chinese and Italian leading shareholders, the US securitisation of relations with China played a decisive role. SinoChem’s majority shareholder position, in fact, threatened Pirelli’s access to the critical US market, in light of the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security’s final rule Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain: Connected Vehicles, which has banned Chinese-backed hardware and software interacting with US cars since March 2026. Consequently, The company initiated Cyber Tyre production at its Pirelli Tire LLC facility in Rome, Georgia to provide carmakers with a compliant U.S. supply chain.
Reporting in January 2026 stated that Italian authorities and shareholders within Pirelli, also responding to US requests, were mounting pressure on SinoChem for its divestment from the company.27 In response, SinoChem proposed to spin-off Cyber Tyre from the parent company, a move that was rejected by the board in February.28
ICT: Joint research with China on 6G, halted deals on 5G
Italian ICT companies and institutions are expected to play only a marginal role in the standardisation and production of the forthcoming 6G standard of cellular network technology. Italian research institutions have in fact been involved in 6G research – focusing on internet-of-things networks – as early as 2020, with the establishment of a Joint Innovation Centre (JIC) between Huawei and WiLab, the wireless communication laboratory of the National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications (CNIT).29 While the agreement with Huawei will last until 2030, the JIC has operated in a heavily constrained environment since its establishment in 2020.
5G technology was included within the perimeter of the Italian government’s “golden power” in 2019.30 Successive deals between Italian telecommunications companies and Huawei and ZTE were then either stopped (in 2019) or subjected to severe limitations (in 2021).31 Furthermore, regulations concerning the provisions of 4G and 5G technologies, as well as their future iterations, were further tightened in 2025.32
Expert interviews suggest, however, that the securitisation of 5G technology, in turn, has had a profound impact on the landscape of telecommunications technology in Italy. Even without a formal ban, national players cannot buy Huawei and ZTE 5G equipment, yet they receive no state subsidies to make up for the higher costs of European and US suppliers, discouraging overall investment in ICT. As a result, only 2% of Italian territory had “standalone” 5G coverage as of 2025.33
However, the development of next generation 6G technology will likely not provide a clean slate for Italy and the EU. The international consortium responsible for defining the 6G standard, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), has started to work on the earlier phases of the standardisation of 6G in March 2025. Among the 811 individual members of the consortium, only six are Italian: telecommunications companies Fastweb (owned by Swisscom), TIM and FiberCop (both majority-owned by the U.S investment company KKR), the defence industry giant Leonardo, the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMIT), and the University of Bologna. In contrast, 3GPP counts 179 Chinese members and two Hong Kong members.34
In addition, interviews with figures in the sector highlight the lack of meaningful interactions between research institutions and telecommunications companies on one side, and Italy’s MIMIT and Ministry of University and Research (MUR) on the other, and of strategic direction from these respective ministers, as well as the lack of an “institutional voice” by the MIMIT within the 3GPP.35
Against this backdrop, the EU has issued an ambitious vision for the development of 6G technology, stating its aspiration to be both a standard setter and a “leading global provider”.36 As of early 2026, Europe’s flagship research project on 6G is Hexa-X-II. The project, which succeeds the original Hexa-X 6G project, is led by Nokia, includes Italian telecommunication company TIM in the consortium, and does not see the participation of Chinese companies.
Expert interviews, however, point out that such projects have an “exploratory character” and cannot deliver on their own EU sovereignty over 6G technology, because China will play a dominant role in 6G standardisation independent of the EU’s plans to exclude Chinese companies. Furthermore, there is already an expectation that Chinese players will be eventually capable of delivering products performing better and at a cheaper cost than foreign rivals when 6G begins its roll-out by 2029.37