AI and disarmament: the Vatican convenes Nobel laureates and laboratories in Castel Gandolfo

From July 14 to 16, 30 Nobel laureates, 20 experts from OpenAI, DeepMind and Anthropic, and 30 institutions will gather at the Borgo Laudato si'. A charter is to be adopted at the Capitole.

The Fact

From July 14 to 16, 2026, the Borgo Laudato si' in Castel Gandolfo hosts an unprecedented meeting convened by the Vatican. Thirty Nobel laureates, representing thirty countries, former heads of state and government, twenty AI experts (including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, AARU, and Anthropic), and thirty of the most renowned universities and research institutes gather for three days. The summit is to conclude at the Capitoline Hill in Rome with the adoption of a charter on AI and disarmament. We had opened the thread of European digital sovereignty in June, with the first meeting of the Vatican Interdicasterial Commission on AI (June 17, 2026, Palazzo San Calisto). This assembly is the extra-ecclesiastical continuation of that.

Our Analysis

The meeting is part of a strategy that Leo XIV now publicly embraces: influencing actors who, alone, would not have influence. The encyclical Magnifica humanitas (Leo XIV, 2026) states: artificial intelligence is never neutral. It is an instrument of power, and Rome refuses to let it serve the powerful without a counterbalance. Two doctrinal points to remember. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, in its chapter on peace and armaments, reminds us that humanity cannot entrust itself to weapons that do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Laudato si' (2015) had already pointed out the excess of the technocratic paradigm. Convening the very artisans of AI under the roof of the Laudato si' dicastery is to refuse the naivety of an AI seen as an inevitability. What will come out of the Capitoline Hill? Another ethical declaration, or a binding commitment from the signatories? The answer will depend on the willingness of the laboratories, Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepMind, to assume an external constraint.

Food for Thought

Romano Guardini (The End of the Modern Age, 1950) already posed the question: the technical culture demands of man not only more power, but measure. AI will escape man only to the extent that man escapes himself.