Italy's data centre market could attract up to €36.9 billion of cumulative infrastructure investment between 2026 and 2036, according to the 2026 market study of the Italian Datacenter Association (IDA), presented at its Data Center Symposium in Rome on 8 October with ministers Adolfo Urso and Gilberto Pichetto Fratin in attendance. The figures were reported by Teleborsa and, citing Bloomberg, by The Next Web.
Milan and the surrounding Lombardy region remain the centre of the market, The Next Web notes, although newer projects are appearing in Piedmont, Puglia and Sardinia.
Where the market stands
At the end of 2025 Italy had about 760 MW of installed IT capacity, of which 460 MW was commercial. The qualified pipeline adds up to about 1,800 MW: 230 MW under construction, 673 MW in development and 936 MW at a preliminary stage. The study also estimates around €67 billion of IT hardware that these sites could host, up to €3.87 billion a year of direct operating value added by 2036, and around 26,000 full-time jobs by the same date.
About 80% of the land in the projects analysed is already built on or disused. The study identifies 13 strategic areas for new capacity; in its 2031 scenario, demand among them is led by Rome with 217 MW, followed by Turin and the Western Alps with 38 MW. A shortage of skills weighs on the sector: in IDA's 2026 survey, 53 of 80 respondents named the lack of specialist profiles as one of the main obstacles.
Plans versus the grid
The study warns that potential must be kept apart from the projects that will actually come into operation, which depend on power, grid connections, permits, suitable sites and connectivity. The Next Web adds that companies have asked to connect between 60 and more than 100 gigawatts to the grid, while only about 1.9 gigawatts of projects are at an advanced stage. Past plans have also outrun spending: between 2023 and 2025 the sector spent €7.1 billion of the €10.5 billion it had planned, about 68%. A year ago IDA expected €21.8 billion of construction spending over five years.
The government of Giorgia Meloni has given data centres priority and faster permits. On August 4 the Council of Ministers declared two projects worth about €6.8 billion to be of national strategic interest, one of them a K2 Strategic campus of up to 400 megawatts near Milan; the other is a 30-megawatt AI site in Sardinia from Energy Vault.
"Developing this capacity in Italy means strengthening our digital autonomy," said IDA president Luca Beltramino (translated).
