I data center are the hidden foundations of the digital age. Real beating hearts of the economy contemporary, host millions of servers and IT infrastructures that process, archive and distribute the data generated every second from billions of devices, sensors, applications and users. From cloud services to artificial intelligence, from online banking to streaming platforms, to the management of smart cities: behind every digital interaction lies, silent and tireless, a data center.
And it's a booming market. In 2024 the global value of the sector has surpassed $347 billion, with a forecast that aims to reach 1.000 billion by 2034, supported by an average annual growth of 11,24%. Driving this race are the'data traffic explosion, the spread of applications with Artificial Intelligence, the migration to the cloud and the increasingly pervasive digitalisation of industries, public services and urban infrastructures.
But what exactly is a data center? What really lies behind these seemingly invisible infrastructures?
What are data centers (and why we can't live without them anymore)
A data center is a advanced technological structure, designed for host high-performance computing systems: servers, network devices, storage units, cooling systems and sophisticated physical and digital security systems. Its task? Not only to store data, but ensure its availability, processing speed and protection 24x24.
THEreliability is everything: even a few seconds' interruption can cause enormous damage. That's why every component - from dual power supplies to fire prevention systems, from cybersecurity to fiber optic connectivity - is designed with cmaximum resilience beliefs.
In practice, every time we send an email, watch a streaming series, book a flight or interact with a chatbot, a data center – perhaps thousands of kilometers away – receives, processes and returns our request in a few milliseconds. These infrastructures, often invisible and silent, to keep our digital life afloat.
Data Centers, the Levers of Growth: AI, Cloud and Digital Sovereignty
La Global demand for data centers is powered by one convergence of factors economic, technological and regulatory, which are profoundly transforming the digital landscape. TheData traffic explosion is just the tip of the iceberg: second Mordor intelligence, average monthly consumption for smartphones has grown from 3 GB in 2018 to 10,77 GB in 2024, with a projection of 30,74 GB by 2030. This dynamic, combined with other structural drivers, is making data centers increasingly strategic infrastructures. Among the main factors are:
- Cloud Computing: The Push of the Clouds: the migration of companies to cloud environments – public, private or hybrid – is now global. Cloud platforms require scalable, high-density and interconnected data centers, capable of managing enormous volumes of data in real time. The result is a race to build increasingly high-performance and widespread structures across the territory.
- Artificial Intelligence: More Power Needed: With the rise of artificial intelligence – and especially generative AI – the demand for computing power has exploded. Machine learning and deep learning models are hungry for power and powerful servers, driving the emergence of new data centers optimized for GPUs and high-performance computing (HPC) environments. 2024 is just the beginning: the trend is set to accelerate.
- Digital Sovereignty: Data “at Home”: European regulations, such as the GDPR, require sensitive data to be stored within precise geographical boundaries. This has triggered a race to “localize” digital infrastructure, with governments and companies committed to building national data centers to ensure technological autonomy and compliance with the law.
- Digitalization and green transition: Emerging technologies such as blockchain, IoT, edge computing and 5G are multiplying the points of data collection and analysis. At the same time, there is a growing urgency to make all of this more sustainable. New data centers must be efficient, powered by renewable sources and designed according to circular economy criteria.
Energy and Sustainability: The Achilles Heel of Data Centers
Behind the apparent lightness of digital lies a gigantic energy hunger. The data centers today consume about 1,5% of global electricity, and with generative AI this percentage is set to rise dramatically. Only those designed for artificial intelligence, according to IDC, the leading market intelligence company in the ICT sector, couldreach 146 TWh (terawatt hours) by 2027. By 2028, the entire sector could absorb up to 857 TWh, more than three times the UK's annual consumption.
In Italy, the pressure on the network is equally evident: Data center connection demand has grown from 1,25 GW in 2021 to an estimated nearly 40 GW in 2025. main node? Lombardy, which hosts the most important national hub. To respond to a voracious demand for electricity, Terna – the operator of the electricity transmission network – has put on the table over 23 billion euros in the 2025-2034 Development Plan, with the aim ofto strengthen and digitize the electricity grid of the country.
According to IDC estimates, high-performance data centers designed for AI alone could consume 146 TWh by 2027. On a global scale, data center electricity demand could reach 857 TWh by 2028, more than three times the annual consumption of the United Kingdom. These figures make it clear that energy is one of the most critical issues in digital development.
But the challenge is not only how much energy use. It is including use it. And here sustainability comes into play. The solutions adopted are increasingly innovative:
- Renewables (sun, wind, water) as the main source of energy.
- Liquid cooling, more efficient and less energy-intensive than air.
- Heat recovery for urban district heating or for industrial uses.
- Underwater data centers, still experimental, which exploit the low temperatures of the sea to naturally cool the servers.
Italy: The Silent Boom of Data Centers
THEItaly is living aSilent explosion in the data center market: a rapid, strategic growth that is still little perceived by the general public.
In 2024, the European data center sector generated a turnover of over 87 billion dollars, with a cannual growth greater than 10%.Italy is also gaining ground, with a market that has exceeded 4 billion euros and an ever-expanding infrastructure network.
With 176 active facilities, according to data from Data Center Map, Italy is today the fourth largest country in continental Europe by number of data centers, behind only Germany (406), France (244) and the Netherlands (179). Fifth place, however, if we also include the United Kingdom (377), which is however considered non-EU.
According l 'Data Center Observatory of the promoted by the Polytechnic of Milan – created to map Italian infrastructures and promote knowledge of a sector now considered strategic asset for competitiveness and digital sovereignty – Total investments will exceed 15 billion euros by 2026, with a strong acceleration already occurred in the two-year period 2023–2024.
Milan is the heart of this development. With 238 MW IT installed (+34% in one year), has entered the European top 15, surpassing cities like Amsterdam e Warsaw. The whole Lombardia, with 318 MW IT, has now passed Madrid e Warsaw, approaching digital giants such as Frankfurt, London and DublinThe capital of Lombardy benefits from a favourable geographical position, a modern infrastructure network and increasing integration into European projects on supercomputing and on sovereign cloud.
Just think that the so-called “technological triangle” Milan–Monza–Pavia hosts a third of the Italian data centers alone, but also Rome, Turin, Bologna and Genoa are gaining traction, attracting new investments and enhancing their digital infrastructure.
Overall, Italy has achieved 513 MW IT (+17% on an annual basis) and beyond 333.000 square meters of operating area. Behind these numbers there are also people: the sector already employs 40 thousand workers, between direct and indirect employment, with a growing demand for specialized technicians, engineers, AI, sustainability and cloud experts.
Data Center: Not Just Computing Power But Innovation and Architecture
The new data centers are not just powerful: They are also sustainable, ingenious and – in many cases – aesthetically striking..
In Milan and Genoa, equinix, one of the major global operators, has built five high-performance structures. The Ligurian capital has become a crucial hub for international connectivity thanks to the arrival of the 2Africa submarine cable, the longest in the world with its 45.000 kilometers, destined to connect 33 countries on three continents. In Rome, instead, Cloud Europe has transformed a former bank vault in a zero-emission data center, nicknamed “Iceberg” for its hidden and powerful nature.
In Trentino, in Val di Non, the project DataMine It involves the construction of a data center inside an active mine, exploiting the isolation of the rock to optimize energy consumption. The inauguration is scheduled for 2026, with the support of the Pnrr. With Mediterranean Data Centers, finally, the aim is to make Italy the digital heart of Southern Europe.
These processing centers are now essential for data-intensive industries: from aerospace, with Leonardo and Thales Alenia Space, to Formula 1, where Ferrari uses them for advanced aerodynamic simulations. Nautical (Benetti, Ferretti), energy (Eni, Terna) and geological research also benefit from these infrastructures, which allow complex calculations, in real time, enabling innovation and industrial competitiveness.
These processing centers are now essential for data-intensive industries: from aerospace, with Leonardo and Thales Alenia Space, to Formula 1, where Ferrari uses them for advanced aerodynamic simulations. Nautical (Benetti, Ferretti), energy (Eni, Terna) and geological research also benefit from these infrastructures, which allow complex and real-time calculations.
But innovation does not stop at technology. In many cases the data centers are transformed into real architectural symbols, often placed in surprising settings.
A Stockholm, for example, the data center Pioneer It rises 30 meters underground in a former anti-atomic bunker, now converted into a hi-tech space with fountains, greenhouses, aquariums and 100% renewable power supply, integrated into the urban district heating system.
In Norway, Green Mountain DC1 occupies a former NATO warehouse overlooking a fjord: the servers are cooled by the surrounding icy waters, and the entire facility is powered by hydroelectricity, for zero environmental impact.
The Microsoft he experimented with extreme solutions with the Project Natick: A underwater data center located off the Orkney Islands, Scotland. The trial demonstrated that these structures, immersed in controlled and naturally cool environments, are more reliable, sustainable and suitable for reducing latency in densely populated coastal areas.
In United States, architecture becomes the protagonist. A Dallas, in Texas, the TX-1 Raging Wire It is a glass and steel center designed as a showroom, with comfortable spaces and an ultra-modern design. A Grand Rapids, in Michigan, the Pyramid Switch is housed in a glass and granite pyramid, complete with Foucault's pendulum. In Georgia, Google has built a data center that reflects the creative spirit of Mountain View: colored pipes that are not only functional, but also decorative, to facilitate orientation and make the environment visually distinctive.
And finally, among the most iconic in Europe, there is the MareNostrum di Barcelona (which in 2017 won the award for the most beautiful data center in the world): a supercomputer installed at theinterior of a deconsecrated church. Complex simulations, from climate models to cancer research, are being worked on here, in a place that unites the sacred and the digital in a powerful image of the modern age.
From the depths of Trentino mines to Swedish bunkers, passing through Scottish seabeds and Catalan churches, data centers are like “new cathedrals of the 21st century“: temples of knowledge, connectivity and computational power that support – often in the shadows – our increasingly digital daily lives.
