Data centres, 25 billion projects by 2028

Data centre investments in Italy are multiplying. Over the next three years, investments of more than 25 billion are planned for the construction of 83 sites with It infrastructures that will be owned by 30 companies, 19 of which are new entrants to the Italian market. In the period between 2023 and 2025, investments of about 10.5 billion were planned, but actually 7.1 billion, 68%, was spent on the purchase of land, the construction, setting up and deployment of servers and other It infrastructures. This is the effect of, among other things, increasingly stringent policies on national security, data sovereignty, and the growing demand for artificial intelligence.

This is what the latest edition of the Data Centre Observatory of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano reveals. "Italy is at the centre of a strategic opportunity, but the development of the data centre ecosystem will have to pass through decisions based on concrete data," points out Alessandro Piva, director of Polimi's Data Centre Observatory, one of the three directors together with Luca Dozio and Marina Natalucci. "The numbers on investments tell us that Italy is potentially attracting more and more interest and capital, but the lack of standardisation of the authorisation process and the uncertainty of the technological context are slowing down the grounding of projects, with the real risk of missing key opportunities. A standardised approval process is missing'.

A stumbling block that could be overcome thanks to the memorandum of understanding signed yesterday between Mimit, through the Umasi and Caie structures, and the Italian Association of Data Centre Manufacturers & Operators (Ida). The aim is precisely to strengthen investment attraction policies in the data centre sector by enhancing transparency towards investors and providing orientation tools with the aim of promoting, on the one hand, the balanced development of digital infrastructures at a national level and, on the other, consolidating Italy's role as a strategic hub for data centres at a European level.

The Politecnico study highlights the situation at the pan-European level where, between 2023 and 2025, 29.5 billion were invested in 13 of the largest data centres, while between now and 2028 it is estimated that total expenditure will exceed 110 billion.

The European ranking currently sees metropolises such as Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Dublin and Paris at the top. In the coming years, these five metropolises will attract 55% of the investments. Then there is, as an outsider, the Milan area, which in the light of development plans, according to the Observatory's data, could attract 23% of the potential investments expected in the 13 main European poles. The Milan metropolitan area concentrates 68% of the nominal energy power to power data centres, 414 MW, and by 2028 it will exceed GW. "Milan is a candidate to become a reference for Southern Europe and concentrates a significant share of installed power and new projects," Luca Dozio emphasises.