Italy Builds a National Superconductivity Network to Power Future Colliders and Grids

The IRIS project—Innovative Research Infrastructure on applied Superconductivity—is a distributed research infrastructure approved under the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), part of the Next Generation Europe programme, with a total budget of roughly 60 million euros including taxes. Coordinated by the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), it knits together universities and research centres across the country into a single, integrated platform covering the entire technological chain of superconductivity, from raw materials and conductors to full-scale system demonstrators.

The driving force behind IRIS is a convergence of two trends. On one side, the next generation of scientific facilities—most notably the proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC) and, in a different parameter space, the Muon Collider—impose demands on magnets that approach or exceed the limits of today’s low-temperature superconductors such as niobium–titanium and Nb3Sn. These projects have development timescales spanning decades, requiring sustained, coordinated research rather than short-term projects. On the other side, high-temperature superconductors (HTS), particularly REBCO-coated conductors and, in a narrower range of applications, MgB2, have begun their industrial emergence. These materials can operate at significantly higher temperatures—typically 10–20 K, and up to 50–60 K for REBCO—and sustain superior performance at high magnetic fields, opening the door to magnets beyond the limits of Nb3Sn while reducing dependence on scarce and expensive liquid helium.

The scientific case is straightforward. For machines like the FCC, magnet performance directly determines the achievable beam energy and therefore the scientific reach of the facility. The step from niobium–titanium to Nb3Sn has already raised the field benchmark: the LHC’s main dipoles operate at 8 tesla with Nb–Ti, while the 11 T Nb3Sn HiLumi insertion-region quadrupoles show what the newer conductor can deliver. REBCO conductors now make fields exceeding 16–20 tesla, or operation around 20 K, realistic targets. But the transition is not a simple materials swap. HTS conductors are anisotropic, tolerate mechanical stress poorly in some respects, and pose formidable quench-detection challenges because normal zones propagate slowly. Coil layout, mechanical support, field quality and protection strategies all need rethinking—work that demands dedicated, large-scale facilities rather than isolated laboratory benches.

That is precisely why the infrastructure is distributed rather than centralized. Applied superconductivity is, by its nature, a large-scale technology: validating cables and magnets requires currents up to tens of kiloamperes, strong magnetic fields, complex cryogenics, large stored energies and, in some cases, high voltage. IRIS answers this with a central hub at INFN–LASA in Milan and five specialized nodes in Genoa, Frascati, Naples, Lecce and Salerno, each contributing a defined capability within a common framework.

The Milan hub is the heart of the magnet programme. A new building, about 50 metres long and more than 15 metres wide with roughly 600 square metres of usable area per floor, is in an advanced phase of construction under the University of Milano and is expected to be operational by October 2026. The upper floor will host HTS production lines, among them a multi-tape winding machine for racetrack pancakes and a machine for continuous quality control of REBCO tape at liquid nitrogen temperature, plus a metrology laboratory and additive manufacturing systems for metals and polymers. A shielded underground laboratory, funded by an additional INFN contribution, will host experiments with hundreds-of-MeV electron beams and a cryogen-free HTS magnet facility for RF cavity testing under high magnetic fields—an asset aimed squarely at the Muon Collider.

Cryogenics and power at LASA are being transformed as well. A new helium refrigerator rated for nearly 150 litres per hour of liquefaction at 4.4 K—more than triple the present 45 l/h capacity—is being procured and commissioned by 2026. New systems covering 20–80 K with 20–200 W of cold power will serve HTS applications aimed at low energy consumption, complemented by 30-kA high-stability power converters and current leads for testing large devices, including field generation, thermal stability and quench behaviour.

The four upstream nodes build the knowledge base. Genoa, involving INFN, the University of Genoa and CNR-SPIN, focuses on materials, conductors and cables within the joint LabCoR laboratory, and is establishing a Superconducting Cables and Material Laboratory with a helium liquefier, microtomography for internal cable analysis, a 10 T HTS dipole test station, and a Physical Properties Measurement System reaching 14 T and 50 millikelvin. Frascati, at INFN’s National Laboratories, provides high-precision magnetic measurements—rotating coils and three-axis Hall probe mapping—that can detect defects before costly cryogenic tests. Naples combines the University Federico II’s Advanced Instrumentation Laboratory, with an ISO 8 cryogenic area operating from 77 K down to about 500 mK, CNR-SPIN’s Cryofree TeslatronPT system reaching 14 T, and CIRMIS’s prototype diagnostic systems for AC loss, HTS-specific quench detection and machine-learning-based early fault detection. Lecce, at the University of Salento and already the Italian hub of the European Magnetic Field Laboratory, adds a cryogen-free split-pair magnet, an attoDRY2200 AFM/MFM/PFM platform, a third-generation SQUID magnetometer and a PPMS DynaCool system for characterizing materials under extreme conditions.

At the downstream end, Salerno hosts the large-scale validation capability. Its existing THOR laboratory, 450 square metres with a 20 kA–40 V power supply and a refrigerator delivering 200 W at 4.5 K, currently tests magnets for the FAIR SIS-100 synchrotron at GSI. Within IRIS, a new facility is being built around a 75-metre underground trench for the Green Superconducting Line, designed to operate at 25 kV and 40 kA—one gigawatt—using helium gas cooling at 20 K. Installation was expected to be completed by early 2026, and once THOR is fully integrated, the test capability will reach 1000 W at 20 K with a stabilized 60 kA DC current.

Two flagship demonstrators tie the whole chain together. The Green Superconducting Line is a DC power-transmission demonstrator based on MgB2: a 130-metre line engineered and manufactured by ASG Superconductors and ready for installation at Salerno, designed for up to 1 GW at 25 kV and 40 kA with helium gas at 20 K. A 20-metre forerunner has already been successfully operated at 20 K with a 5-kA test current against the 40-kA full design current. The system incorporates 5-kA modular MgB2 cable elements, current leads using both REBCO and BSCCO HTS, cryogenic distribution running in parallel with high voltage, and on-line cable-to-cable joints simulating practical piece-length connections. The second demonstrator, ESMA—the Energy-Saving Magnet for Accelerators—is a high-field REBCO dipole with a 50 mm × 80 mm rectangular bore, targeting about 10 tesla at around 20 K in a compact configuration. It explores metal-as-insulation with double-tape cable, a new patent-pending joint layout, inter-pancake thermal connections and novel quench detection. All 12 HTS coils have been manufactured and are under assembly, and a four-coil version has been cooled and energized at low current to validate the cryogenic and power systems and a proprietary quench protection scheme. ESMA is the first large-aperture HTS dipole explicitly conceived for accelerator applications in Italy and among the first worldwide.

IRIS is designed as a permanent national platform rather than a temporary project, with an operational horizon extending well beyond the PNRR funding period. Launched at the end of 2022 with a three-and-a-half-year plan, construction is now being completed: civil engineering finishes by October 2026 and all equipment is to be installed and operative by the end of the year, allowing a ramp-up of operations in early 2027. Of the roughly 60-million-euro budget, 3 percent funds coordination, 32 percent the two demonstrators and 65 percent the territorial poles, supplemented by about 3 million euros covering 30 FTE-years of permanent senior staff. Access will be open to academic researchers, research organizations and industrial partners, including small and medium enterprises, with an advisory committee guaranteeing fair access to European laboratories and universities. The project has already coordinated nearly 1500 days of training for young scientists, engineers and technicians, including placements at LBNL and CERN.

The infrastructure’s momentum is already visible in external contracts. IRIS institutions have secured a collaboration with CERN worth approximately 10 million euros for high-field magnet development within the High Field Magnet programme oriented toward FCC-hh; a role in the SURE programme, a roughly 6-million-euro superconducting MgB2 power link for the Frascati data center developed with ASG Superconductors; the ASTRA programme, exceeding 15 million euros, for an MgB2 transmission line supplying the Salerno campus plus an HTS solenoidal magnet; and participation in the EU Horizon INFRA-TECH HTS4SFRI programme on sustainable HTS magnets, worth about 2 million euros to IRIS. Through links to CEA, PSI, KIT, CIEMAT and universities across Europe, and via programmes such as HITRIplus, I.FAST, EPITA, HTS4SRI and the EMFL ESFRI initiative, IRIS is positioning itself as a building block for a future coordinated European infrastructure in applied superconductivity—one whose technologies, from gigawatt-class power lines to compact hadron-therapy gantries, reach well beyond particle physics into energy and healthcare.

Subject of Research: A distributed Italian research infrastructure for applied superconductivity research and development

Article Title: IRIS—The Innovative Research Infrastructure on Applied Superconductivity in Italy

Article References: Rossi, L., Campana, P., & Della Torre, M. (2026). IRIS—The Innovative Research Infrastructure on Applied Superconductivity in Italy. EPJ Research Infrastructures, 10(1), Article 17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41781-026-00174-7

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s41781-026-00174-7

Keywords: superconductivity, IRIS, research infrastructure, high-temperature superconductors, Future Circular Collider, particle accelerators, REBCO, MgB2, power transmission, cryogenics, INFN, magnet technology