Data centres in Italy: new real estate value is measured in megawatts

There are 262 data centres in Italy. Almost four in ten are in the Milan area. Around these facilities an increasingly active property market is also taking shape: in the first half of 2026, almost 600 million euros were invested in buying land intended for new data centre development, as reported by CBRE in its commercial real estate market update, published on 8 July.

They are land on which to build future capacity. The growth of digitalisation and artificial intelligence is entering the property market through a very concrete need: finding places to install, power and cool IT infrastructure.

An industrial site can attract interest because it is close to an electrical substation, to fibre networks and to a grid connection obtainable within a timeframe compatible with the project. Conversely, a well-located site can lose its appeal if the required power will arrive too late.

For investors, the question widens: how many megawatts will I be able to use, from when and at what cost? The answer enters the land valuation before the building even exists. In this article, we will explore the topic in more depth together.

How many data centres there are in Italy and where they are

The Data Center Map count, consulted on 5 October 2026, spreads Italy’s 262 data centres across 50 local markets. The number should be read for what it measures: it covers facilities offering services on the market, together with those under construction and planned, and excludes the data processing centres that banks, large companies and public administrations run for internal use. It is a map of commercial supply, continuously updated by the operators themselves.

The leading cities by number of listed facilities are:

Milan alone accounts for 38% of Italian data centres. With Bergamo and Brescia, Lombardy exceeds 110 facilities and is the country’s main hub.

Rome, with 28 facilities, is the second-largest market. It is followed by Turin and Bergamo, home to Aruba’s campus at Ponte San Pietro, and by two coastal cities, Genoa and Bari, landing points for international submarine cables. Beyond these hubs the presence thins out: 38 of the 50 markets recorded have between one and three facilities.

For an investor, the map shows above all where demand for space, energy and connectivity is concentrated. It is also the first sign of where that concentration begins to become a constraint.

Who operates data centres in Italy

Behind the figures lie different business models, and therefore different contracts, durations and counterparties. To read the value of a site, it pays to tell them apart.

The first is colocation: the operator builds and runs the facility, provides power, cooling and connectivity, and leases space and power to multiple customers who install their own servers there. In the Milan area, according to Data Center Map, Data4 has 16 facilities and Equinix 9. Retelit operates across Milan, Rome and Bergamo; Aruba has its main campuses in Bergamo and Rome.

The second model involves hyperscalers, the large cloud service providers. Some build their own: the database attributes 5 facilities in the Milan area to Microsoft and 4 to Amazon Web Services. More often, facilities are built by specialist operators that dedicate them to one or a few large clients: Stack, Vantage, CloudHQ and Apto together account for 28 facilities, existing and in development, in the Milan area.

The third model is that of telecoms operators, which offer space and services linked to their own network. Noovle, the TIM Group’s cloud company, has 4 facilities in the Milan area and 3 in Rome, where the map of Rome’s data centres also includes Aruba, Retelit and Unidata.

The distinction has direct real estate consequences. A colocation data centre spreads risk across many clients, on contracts of varying length. One built for a hyperscaler depends on a few tenants, often with longer commitments: the strength of the counterparty weighs on the valuation of the entire project.

A building that must run without interruption

What exactly are data centres? Buildings that house servers, storage systems and network equipment, with the power, cooling and connectivity needed to keep them running without interruption. They are also called server farms, a term that conveys the scale well.

From the outside, a data centre can look like a large warehouse. Its function, however, requires plant, operational continuity and environmental control, all of which affect design and costs.

Value also depends on the computing capacity the data centre can host and sustain over time. The building is part of a system that includes power supply, cooling, connectivity and operational management. Square metres still matter; available power adds a decisive criterion.

It is worth distinguishing the units of measurement. Megawatts indicate power, while megawatt-hours measure energy used over time. The electrical power drawn from the grid and the capacity allocated to IT equipment may also refer to different perimeters. When comparing projects and markets, you need to check what each figure includes.

The headline therefore reflects a change in selection criteria: a site’s value now includes its ability to become operational, with a defined capacity and a credible date.

Milan concentrates both the market and the energy constraint

According to Cushman & Wakefield’s Italy Outlook 2026, Milan is Italy’s main data centre hub, with an estimated capacity of around 1.1 GW including operational facilities and pipeline projects. The figure therefore includes future developments and should be distinguished from capacity already available.

The same outlook points to the emergence of areas in Central and Southern Italy, driven by the availability of land, energy infrastructure and connectivity. This is a development prospect: it does not guarantee that every area will become a new hub.

An established hub such as Milan’s data centre cluster concentrates demand, expertise and operators. This concentration can, however, increase pressure on the resources needed for growth. When available power becomes a constraint, the search for sites widens.

Land further from the main districts can become attractive if it allows capacity to be brought online sooner. The choice still depends on the service required: proximity to users, connectivity, response times and reliability remain part of the assessment.

The scarcity lies in sites that can become operational

CBRE’s Midyear Review 2026 cut its year-end vacancy forecast for European data centres from 6.5% to 6%. This is the share of available capacity within the scope analysed, and a forecast, not an annual result already observed.

In the same update, CBRE cuts its forecast of new supply for 2026 by 35 MW compared with its estimate at the start of the year, citing delays to some projects. The report also highlights constraints related to power supply and grid access.

These elements point to a real estate reading: available floor space, on its own, describes only part of the effective data centre supply. To become usable, a site must clear stages that carry their own timelines, costs and dependencies.

An attractive purchase price can lose its meaning if waiting for grid connection delays the start of revenue. A more expensive plot, by contrast, can prove attractive when it removes a significant share of development uncertainty. The assessment requires a comparison of scenarios, with documented timelines and conditions.

Eighty gigawatts of requests are not built capacity

In Terna’s 2025 Annual Financial Report, the figure for the end of January 2026 is almost 80 GW of grid connection requests for data centres.

It signals the scale of the projects submitted to the grid. A connection request, however, is one stage of the process: it does not prove that the project already has the permits, financing, demand and conditions needed to be built.

The 80 GW therefore cannot be read as capacity already installed or as a firm forecast of new facilities. Nor should they be compared directly with the Milan capacity cited by Cushman & Wakefield without checking scope and definitions.

For an investor, the size of the pipeline makes selection more important. Which requests correspond to deliverable projects? Which have a credible counterparty? Which will be able to go into operation within the window in which demand makes them viable?

Artificial intelligence has a real estate footprint

When we talk about AI, we think mainly of models, algorithms and software. Computing capacity also requires land, cables, transformers and cooling systems. The digital service has a physical base.

In its European Data Centres Figures Q2 2026 report, CBRE finds that new agreements for AI-dedicated colocation capacity more than quadrupled in the first half. The figure concerns those agreements, not total European demand nor the Italian market as a whole.

AI data centres, designed to train models and run them, pack more power into the same space and require more demanding cooling systems. For a site, energy availability becomes even more decisive.

This growth helps explain why technology operators, property investors and infrastructure players look at the same projects from different perspectives. The value of a location depends on its ability to support a service, and the service depends on resources that do not move at the speed of software.

For real estate, this is a tangible shift. Technological development can change the appeal of an industrial area even without altering the architectural quality of the surrounding buildings.

The right plot must be assessed alongside Capex

Buying the land opens a sequence of commitments. Construction, plant, connection and fit-out require Capex; energy, maintenance and management weigh instead on operating costs. The mix depends on the chosen model and on who owns or runs the various components.

Before committing capital, grid timelines, permits, fibre, cooling and demand must be brought together. The business plan must also account for delay: how much cash does it absorb, which contracts does it alter, and when can revenue generation begin?

CBRE’s Midyear Review stresses the importance of securing capacity in advance through pre-let agreements and partnerships. For a data centre developer, contracted demand can remove part of the commercial risk, while the client’s financial strength, the terms of the agreement and the ability to deliver the infrastructure on the agreed timetable still need to be assessed.

This is the kind of scrutiny that due intelligence must bring together: industrial, financial and operational information that can change the assessment of a project. The land is one component of the investment; the decision concerns the entire chain that will make it operational.

Those who can switch on what they build

Almost 600 million invested in land in six months shows that interest in data centres in Italy already has a real estate dimension. The value of individual projects, however, will depend on how that interest turns into infrastructure in actual use.

For a landowner, a connection available within a credible timeframe can become a bargaining asset. For a developer, coordination between grid, construction site and client can determine whether the deal is viable. For lenders, distinguishing between a request, an authorised project and operational capacity avoids assigning the same value to very different stages.

AI is introducing a further question into real estate: where can we switch on what we have built? Part of property value will turn on how precise the answer is.