A renewed collaboration agreement to continue the digital transformation process and create an artificial intelligence ecosystem
Nov 11, 2025
Milan, November 11th – IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Unipol Assicurazioni, one of Europe’s largest insurance groups and leader in Italy in the non-life sector, are renewing their collaboration to continue the Company’s digital transformation journey they embarked on over a year ago. This journey, starting with the adoption of hybrid cloud by design, is evolving towards strengthening the IT infrastructure with the new z17 technology and expanding AI capabilities directly onto production mainframe data.
Using IBM’s next-generation mainframe and storage technologies alongside hybrid multi-cloud platforms like Red Hat OpenShift, has enabled the company’s IT division to more effectively meet growing customer needs and facilitate the deployment of an innovative automation project powered by watsonx, IBM’s suite for traditional and generative AI solutions.
NAMI, meaning ‘wave’ in Japanese, is the new platform created by Unipol’s IT division and designed to modernize how Unipol manages its IT operations. It operates within Unipol’s on-premises infrastructure, blending the security and control of on-premise solutions with the scalability of cloud computing. IBM watsonx was chosen for its open nature as an AI platform, allowing native integration with RedHat OpenShift and compatibility with existing tools like Ansible, in addition to access to a library of foundation models, including specialized models, enabling the selection of the optimal solution for specific use cases while optimizing resources and costs.
Initially trained on IBM Cloud, the platform was later migrated on-premises for data security and governance purposes. This hybrid approach allows Unipol to leverage cloud resource flexibility while maintaining agile development, high performance, and strict control over sensitive data within its data centers.
Thanks to these features, Unipol Assicurazioni’s IT has significantly increased operational efficiency, reducing incident handling time by 90% and helping technical teams analyze data more quickly.
“This project is the outcome of close collaboration with IBM, marking a significant step toward our vision of a modern, scalable IT infrastructure that quickly and flexibly responds to business demands“, said Mario Bocca CIO of Unipol. “Our hybrid infrastructure has empowered NAMI and will eventually enable us to create an AI ecosystem available not only for IT operations but also for the rest of the company“.
“Unipol’s strategic growth and modernization journey has effectively leveraged the hybrid cloud by design approach with AI-powered automation features“, said Nico Losito, Vice President of IBM Technology Italy. “IBM will continue to collaborate with Unipol to enhance and expand NAMI’s functionalities based on watsonx and to continue our shared path of innovation. This is a crucial milestone for the Italian market, showcasing how an advanced hybrid cloud infrastructure can enable enterprise AI solutions to gain a competitive sector advantage“.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com
About Unipol
It is one of the leading insurance groups in Europe and a leader in Italy in the non-life insurance sector (particularly in the auto and health sectors), with total premiums of €15.6 billion, of which €9.2 billion in non-life insurance and €6.4 billion in life insurance (2024 data). It adopts an integrated offering strategy and covers the full range of insurance products, operating primarily through its parent company Unipol Assicurazioni, UniSalute (the leader in health insurance in Italy), Linear (direct auto insurance), Arca Vita and Arca Assicurazioni (life and non-life bancassurance, through branches of BPER, Banca Popolare di Sondrio, and other banks), SIAT (transport insurance), and DDOR (an insurance company operating in Serbia). It also operates in the real estate, hotel (UNA Italian Hospitality), healthcare (Santagostino), and wine (Tenute del Cerro) sectors. The ordinary shares of Unipol Assicurazioni S.p.A. They have been listed on the Italian Stock Exchange since 1990 and are present in the FTSE MIB® and MIB® ESG.
Media contact:
Claudia Ruffini
IBM
cla@it.ibm.com