As mentioned in the closing remarks of the 8^th HL-LHC Annual Meeting held at CERN (18^th October 2018), the project is experiencing a mix of success and difficulties while passing from design and industrialization into construction. The most delicate point is certainly the unexpected bad behaviors of some prototypes and model magnets. The HL-LHC magnets are all state-of-the art. The new critical Nb₃Sn technology, deployed for the IT quadrupoles and for the 11 T dipoles, is particularly challenging. All new NbTi magnets are, either for size or energy or for technology reasons, a step beyond the LHC ones. Some issues related to premature quenches or electrical faults have been already solved. Other issues require more time and we hope to report the results of various remedies at the next annual meeting in Fermilab in October 2019.

A very successful test was carried out on the first demonstrator of the cold powering: for the first time a 60 m long superconducting line with a MgB₂ carrying 20 kA was powered at the temperature slightly beyond 20 K: the system showed a high reliability, cryogenic consumption in line with the design and exceptional stability. Meanwhile, the first HL-LHC equipment to be installed in the LHC during LS2, the JJT shielding for the interface of the collider with the ATLAS and CMS experiments, has been completed at PAEC (Pakistan) and is almost ready for installation in November.

The civil engineering work is proceeding very well, with minor delays or issues: not only the two large pits are finished, but also the main caverns are almost all excavated and now the contractors are tackling the long UR galleries.

All WPs are at full steam and a very good indicator of the progress is that of the 950 MCHF of material budgets about 25% has already been spent and, very surprisingly, more than 50% has already been engaged or committed with various orders or collaboration contracts: maybe the most striking indicator of the fast progress of the project. Finally, I would like to herald the entering “en force” of the Russian Federation into HL-LHC: two contracts for in-kind contribution have already been signed by CERN and BINP for HiLumi and six more with various Institutes are in the pipeline.