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At the Gazometro in Rome, eFM is joining an ecosystem that brings together businesses, institutions, research and technology to envision a new generation of spaces capable of generating value.
There are places that are built to store energy. And then, at a certain point in their history, they begin to generate a different kind of energy. Rome’s Gasometer belongs to this rare category. For decades, it was a great industrial machine, a functional piece of architecture, designed to meet a specific need of the city. Today, within the same boundaries, that purpose has not disappeared: it has simply changed form. It is no longer just about physical energy, but about entrepreneurial, technological and cultural energy. Energy generated by the convergence of diverse skills, by the opening up of an ecosystem and by the opportunity to experiment with new models of the city, infrastructure and relationships.
It was here that ROAD – Rome Advanced District celebrated its first three years of operation, presenting the results of its first three-year period and its strategic priorities for 2026–2029. The event, OnTheRoad, brought some of the most cutting-edge areas of innovation to the fore: Digital Twin, Physical AI, humanoid robotics, autonomous driving, energy management, infrastructure resilience and urban safety.
During the event, attended by ROAD President Claudio Granata, Maria Cristina Russo from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Innovation, Donatella Proto, Director-General for New Enabling Technologies at MIMIT, and Gianmarco Montanari, Director-General of the MOST Foundation, two particularly significant projects were presented: the Full Road autonomous driving circuit and the district’s Digital Twin.
These are very different projects, yet they are all underpinned by the same realisation: the city of the future cannot be governed in silos. Mobility, energy, infrastructure, workplaces, data, services and communities are now all part of the same organism. And for an organism to function, it must be viewed as a whole. This is also the meaning behind the words with which Claudio Granata, Chairman of the Board at ROAD, welcomed eFM’s arrival in the district: “eFM is a high-potential company, with great vision and prospects. The ideal model to which ROAD must aspire”.
For eFM, being part of ROAD means contributing to this ecosystem by bringing a specific area of expertise: the place as an enabler of experiences. Not simply the space as a property asset, nor the building as infrastructure to be managed. But the place as a relational platform, as a living system in which services, people, data, contracts and governance all contribute to the creation of value. “We bring to ROAD specific expertise on place as an enabler of experiences,” comments Daniele Di Fausto, CEO of Global eFM. “Our vision, which originated right here in Rome, is now expanding across Europe and the world: to build engaging places capable of generating value for people, organisations and local communities.”
This is where eFM’s arrival takes on a broader significance. ROAD has so far focused on key sectors such as energy and mobility. eFM brings a third dimension to this ecosystem: PlaceTech. A new area of experimentation that views the transformation of places as an industrial, technological and cultural frontier. Because today, the issue is not merely about constructing more efficient buildings or smarter cities. The real challenge is to design spaces capable of enabling measurable experiences, meaningful relationships and new models of work, learning, collaboration, care and innovation. A pavilion spanning over 2,000 square metres, ready to host the MIT Technology Review House and become the home of the Global PlaceTech Alliance. An alliance created to catalogue the experiences that generate value for businesses and transform spaces into living infrastructures, enabled by the relationship between technology and governance.
Since its inception in 2023, ROAD has launched over fifteen innovation projects and been recognised as a science and technology park by the International Association of Science Parks. Its social return on investment of 1.4 reflects a value that extends beyond the boundaries of the district, reverberating throughout the entire economic, environmental and social ecosystem. The new three-year period 2026–2029 therefore begins with a clear direction: infrastructure resilience and safety, efficient management of energy resources and advanced mobility. To these priorities, eFM adds the dimension of places as platforms for experience.
