Doubling of Investments in Italian Data Centers: Challenges and Opportunities

Italy's data center market is on the verge of significant growth: investments are set to reach 10 billion euros in 2025-2026, doubling compared to the previous two years. The initiators of this financial boost are major technology companies that have announced plans to drastically increase their spending, according to a report by the Milan Polytechnic University's research center. However, Italy faces the challenge of overcoming potential bottlenecks in the power grid and addressing high energy costs to create an attractive investment environment. Favorable access to power resources is becoming increasingly enticing for large cloud developers eager to expand their capacities. Such investments are particularly appealing as Italy strives to attract leading technology companies interested in expanding their cloud capacities to meet the rising AI-driven demand. One example of such endeavors is Microsoft, which announced plans last year to invest 4.3 billion euros in expanding its cloud network in Italy. Similarly, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced plans to invest 1.2 billion euros over five years. Marina Natalucci, the director of the research center for data centers, emphasized: "The development of increasingly powerful infrastructures raises questions about the energy supply and sustainability of the Italian power grid.