“Plans to optimise data centres are under consideration; the deal for Sparkle is due to be finalised shortly”

Asterion Industrial Partners, the fund that controls Retelit and supports our strategic growth, including through external acquisitions, has invested and intends to continue investing in Italia, a market it continues to regard as attractive. 2025 was a significant year in terms of the scale of resources allocated to data centres, and this year’s investment commitment is even more substantial (+54% in 2026). The 2027 business plan envisages continuing along these lines.

Are there plans to build any further data centres in addition to those already announced?

Retelit already owns 38 data centres in Italia, located mainly in northern Italy, but also in Lazio, Naples and Bari: a strategy that brings the infrastructure closer to the regions where businesses are based and reduces latency, thereby encouraging the adoption of technologies such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

We are currently focusing on the Milan metropolitan area, where we already have our Tier IV data centre in Settimo Milanese – acquired as part of the takeover of BT’s Italian assets and operations – and Retelit’s Avalon Campus, Italia’s largest interconnection hub. In this area, one data centre is already under construction (Corsico) on the site of the former Marcegaglia site in Milan, and two more in Bisceglie will follow shortly. The land has now been purchased, but work has not yet begun. We also aim to invest further in cities such as Turin and Rome, where we already have a presence.

How do you view the market in Italia and our country’s position in the current geopolitical situation?

Italia’s location at the heart of the Mediterranean has historically made it a strategic crossroads for trade and global geopolitics; today, that same centrality is reflected in its critical digital infrastructure. Data traffic across European infrastructure is set to rise from 349 Tbps recorded in 2024 to 646 Tbps forecast for 2027, driven in part by the growth of AI, and Italia is already a geographically significant hub for international data. Data centres, networks and submarine cables are the cornerstone of this challenge, but investment is needed. Having clear rules and laws that encourage investment and simplify the regulatory framework is undoubtedly essential. I therefore also welcome European regulations, with a view to establishing a clear framework within which companies and investors can operate.

On the subject of data centres, where Italy – and Lombardy in particular – has introduced specific regulations designed, amongst other things, to protect the local area and its population, we often encounter ‘Nimby’ (not in my back yard, ed.) attitudes. Aware of these concerns, we have chosen to build our new data centres on brownfield sites – that is, disused industrial sites that we are helping to reclaim (at the Corsico site, for example, we have removed the asbestos) – and have decided to use energy generated entirely from renewable sources for all our data centres. It is a costly choice, but one that reflects our priority focus on sustainability. For the new centres, we have also installed solar panels and closed-loop water-cooling systems to avoid placing a strain on the local water supply, and have established partnerships with local energy companies (A2A for Avalon 3 and Engie for Avalon 4 in Corsico) to recover waste heat and feed it into the district heating network for the benefit of local households.

Data centres now form an important part of our offering. At the same time, we are focusing heavily on the growth of cloud services, which are closely linked to data centre infrastructure and are currently growing by 30 per cent: we regard this as a major opportunity, particularly in light of the growing awareness of the importance of keeping data within national borders.

As for the subsea cable business – and in particular Sparkle, which you acquired together with the Ministry of Economy and Finance – what stage has the process reached in terms of finalising the deal?

The end of this process, which has taken a very long time in terms of regulatory approval, is imminent. We have now obtained all the necessary authorisations; all that remains is a final formality on the part of the United States, which we expect to be finalised in the coming days or weeks.

The Sparkle investment is a strategic one for Retelit and forms part of our repositioning, including from a European and international perspective. Sparkle has an infrastructure connecting around 50 countries via more than 600,000 kilometres of fibre, a significant proportion of which runs via transoceanic submarine cables. I was speaking earlier about the growth in data traffic across European infrastructure and, in particular, the key issue of submarine cables, over which more than 95 per cent of international data traffic passes. We know this sector well; we are already active both in submarine cable consortia (e.g. AAE-1) and in the field of landing stations – the infrastructure which, together with the national network, enables data arriving from the ocean floor to reach the whole of Italia and connect to European and global routes. Through the Sparkle initiative, our aim is to expand these investments in critical digital infrastructure, helping to build a digital ecosystem that will strengthen Italia’s position as a European digital hub.