Data center, al via progetto per una rete di 13 impianti

The first Italian project for a network of 13 medium-sized, sustainable data centers has been unveiled in Rome today, following a collaboration between Core Stack, a digital infrastructure company from the Lazzari group, and Green Arrow Capital. The goal of the project, according to its proponents, is to strengthen the country's digital capacity.

The venture involves an entirely Italian supply chain and is being developed by a joint venture between Lazzari group and Green Arrow Capital, with an investment pipeline exceeding 1 billion for the development of assets over the next four years. The network of facilities will be spread across the peninsula, prioritizing industrial parks for redevelopment and relatively unspoiled, anthropocentric zones.

After the initial launch in the north and north-east, special attention will be given to the southern region, where Core Stack aims to address a historical infrastructural gap, reducing the distance between computational power and the territory, from citizens to businesses, passing through the country. Core Stack's CEO, Anna Lazzari, highlighted that investment in data centers is still heavily concentrated in northern Italy and Milan in particular, but replicating this concentration would mean losing an opportunity.

She stressed that the growth of artificial intelligence and the demand for computing capacity could become a tool for territorial rebalancing. The most advanced sites for the project are currently being planned in brownfield areas near the provinces of Cremona and Verona. The process for obtaining the free pass for the first two facilities is already advanced, with permission to build expected by the end of 2027, with the start-up expected in the first quarter of the following year.

Each data center, whose architectural concept was designed and signed by Mca-Mario Cucinella Architects, will be powered by renewable energy generated directly on-site. The installation of storage systems to further improve the energy performance of the data centers is also under study, thanks to a collaboration with Politecnico di Milano.

As Eugenio de Blasio, founder and executive chairman of Green Arrow Capital, confirms, the project represents the "innovation, resilience, and high industrial value needed to help ensure data sovereignty, security, and competitiveness of the country."