Edgewing’s Forge event brings innovators in Italy together with the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP)

Published
2026-11-13T16:45:28.561+01:00 13 November 2026
Business Edgewing
Edgewing has held an event to raise the profile of its Forge project in Italy, building on the first few months of progress by the digital technology engagement and adoption project.
Giuseppe Lupoli, General Manager of Edgewing in Italy, giving an opening speech at an Edgewing Forge event in Turin

The Forge is designed to identify innovation and act as a bridge to bring it into the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP). Launched this July at the Farnborough International Airshow, the project has already attracted interest from pioneers in all three GCAP partner nations.

Edgewing is the tri national joint venture created by BAE Systems (UK), Leonardo (Italy), and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co. Ltd. to design and develop the GCAP next generation fighter aircraft, with operations across all three nations and headquarters in the UK. Its Italian site is based in Turin.

A Forge project event this week took place at OGR Tech in Turin and brought together over 160 attendees. This included some 75 startups, alongside investors, industry clusters, research centres and companies from across the Italian innovation ecosystem. The morning programme featured contributions from Edgewing leadership and the GCAP Agency, which delivers the programme on behalf of Italy, Japan and the UK. This was followed by an afternoon of structured one-to-one matchmaking between the Forge team and 20 pre-selected companies across four challenge areas.

Since its launch in July, Edgewing’s Forge website has been live and open to applications, attracting interest from over 90 companies across Italy, Japan and the UK. Applications are being assessed against the published Challenge Statements and the Forge team is now working towards its first collaborative project.

The core purpose of the Forge project is to provide a structured route for innovative companies to engage with the Global Combat Air Programme, helping to bring new tools, capabilities and ways of working into the programme faster. 

Selected companies will be supported in becoming defence-ready, smoothing the path from discovery to adoption. The first 12 Challenge Statements, published at launch, remain open to applications. These statements sit across four challenge areas: Engineering, Programme Management, Supply Chain, and Multinational Collaboration and have been selected to help accelerate GCAP design and development work. The Turin event will be followed by a similar summit in Japan, with details to be announced soon. The first collaborative projects will begin before the end of 2026.

Italy has a deep and dynamic technology ecosystem, and hosting this Forge event in Turin is helping connect that talent directly into GCAP. Since we launched the Forge project in July, Italian industry has responded strongly to the challenges we set, and I’m pleased to see that interest and excitement continue today.
Giuseppe Lupoli
General Manager of Edgewing in Italy
GCAP is truly important, not only for the military environment – but for what it’s going to produce for our nations. We have big responsibilities along with big opportunities. Our role is to provide our Nations with the necessary 6th generation System of Systems to face the disruptive future security challenges. GCAP will constitute the security umbrella against the future unpredictable and high technological threats, with the final goal is to develop an efficient, ever improving programme, empowered by cutting-edge technologies and focused on delivering advantage to all three nations. In this respect, Engineering companies with the right skills and disruptive ideas are more than welcome to be part of the international GCAP team, helping us to move faster with a disciplined adoption of new technologies.
General Alessandro Pellegrini
GCAP International Government Organization (GIGO), Digital & Infrastructure Division Head
I’ve been delighted to launch the Forge in Italy, and the response from the country’s innovation ecosystem has been fantastic. Our focus now is on turning that enthusiasm into tangible collaborations, connecting innovative companies with GCAP and accelerating the adoption of technologies that can make a real difference to the programme.
Fabio Russo
Senior Innovation Manager and Digital Forge Lead at Edgewing

Companies interested in participating, in Italy, the UK or Japan, are invited to review the Forge Challenge Statements and apply or contact TheForge@edgewing.com.

 

Challenge Statements

Engineering: The present and future of our engineering depends on connecting people, data, knowledge and decisions to deliver faster and smarter.

  1. Trust by Default. We want assurance and compliance to be continuous, automated and trusted by design, so engineers spend less time on paperwork and more time delivering innovation.
  2. Every Engineer Superpowered. We want every engineer empowered by intelligent digital capabilities that accelerate decisions, trade off evaluations, improve collaboration and unlock productivity and creativity.
  3. Engineering without Boundaries. We want a connected engineering ecosystem where people, processes, data and tools work seamlessly together across the entire programme lifecycle.

 

Programme Management: Programme delivery, enabled by digital technology, must be predictive, connected and resilient; anticipating earlier, coordinating better and making decisions with confidence.

  1. No Surprises. We want programme leaders to identify risks early, improve forecasting and act before issues impact delivery.

  2. One Team, One Plan. We want connected teams, shared visibility on dependencies and seamless coordination across organisations, suppliers and stakeholders.

  3. Explore Tomorrow, Today. We want teams to explore scenarios, evaluate trade-offs and choose the best path before committing time, cost and resources.

 

Supply Chain: Our supply chains must be trusted, agile and connected; bringing greater visibility, collaboration and resilience across every partner.

  1. Trust What You Buy. We want real-time visibility into supplier performance, enabling earlier risk detection and greater confidence in delivery.

  2. Faster Decisions, Better Outcomes. We want to simplify procurement processes and governance, accelerating decisions while reducing administrative effort and improving compliance.

  3. One Supply Chain, Many Partners. We want a connected supply chain where organisations and nations collaborate and plan seamlessly, make better decisions and respond faster to change.

     

Multi-national Collaboration: The future of multinational collaboration is a connected, trusted and secure digital ecosystem where people, information and systems work seamlessly together.

  1. Collaborate Without Barriers. We want secure, frictionless collaboration across organisations, nations and security domains, making teamwork seamless by default.

  2. Trusted Information, Trusted Decisions. We want trusted, accessible and secure information that enables faster, more confident decisions across every organisation.

  3. Connect the Ecosystem. We want interoperable digital ecosystems that connect platforms, services and partners, enabling innovation and delivering value together.