Data centres, from Amazon to OpenAI: 27 billion in investments are in the pipeline in Italia

A strategy for deciding where to build new data centres, before the rush leads to saturation in the most sought-after areas. A clear path, mapped out by those responsible for coordinating and guiding national policies to respond to foreign investors wishing to invest in our country.

Let’s talk about the Committee for Attracting Foreign Investment (CAIE), which, during its most recent plenary session at the Ministry of Enterprise, devoted considerable attention to data centres: the phenomenon is a ‘factor for growth, but one that must be managed with care’, with the aim of ‘avoiding saturation in certain areas that are already overcrowded’. The Committee, chaired by Minister Adolfo Urso, is drawing up a strategy to guide the siting of future facilities, involving the regions in the process.

The figures explain the caution. Of the ten major programmes declared to be of national strategic interest under the Asset Decree, totalling over 35 billion euros, seven relate to data centres. Their value stands at 26.9 billion.

The operators involved include giants such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, OpenAI, Equinix, Vantage and EdgeConneX. The aim is to ‘avoid saturation in certain areas that are already overburdened’: the Committee is drawing up a strategy to guide the siting of future facilities, with the regions being asked to propose suitable areas, and aims to involve the Italian supply chain for components, electricity grids, generators and cooling systems. According to Terna, as at 31 August, requests for grid connections for new data centres exceeded 100 gigawatts, with almost half of these in Lombardy.

The impact of data centres is reflected in the portfolio. CAIE is monitoring 88 projects – 72 of which are ongoing – totalling 104.7 billion from 22 countries; excluding data centres and major programmes, the ‘core’ portfolio falls to 63 billion across 57 projects. The number of active mentoring programmes has almost doubled: there were 38 in July 2025. The United Kingdom (35.1 billion) and the United States (34.8) lead in terms of value, whilst the US tops the list in terms of the number of projects (17). The energy sector accounts for 70 billion across 21 initiatives – two-thirds of the total – followed by technology and innovation with 20.8 billion.