Total value: 1,5 billion dollars, equal to approximately 1,38 billion euros. Duration: five years. These are the characteristics of the new investment plan announced by Microsoft for Italy. The American technological giant has also made it known that it intends to start the activity of its first "Data Center Region" in our country, in Milan.
The new plan "will create new opportunities to grow people and organizations and support economic development," explains Microsoft, specifying that the initiative extends the "Ambition Italy" project launched in 2018 and now renamed “Ambizione Italia #DigitalRestart”.
Investments will contract in some sectors considered strategic for the entrepreneurial fabric of our country:
- access to Cloud Computing;
- programs of digital training;
- local agreements for corporate innovation;
- a new alliance for the sustainability.
La school of management of the Milan Polytechnic calculates that the Microsoft project could come to create 10 thousand jobs, mobilizing by the end of 2024 a direct and indirect induced of about 9 billion dollars. Microsoft has also renewed the alliance with Poste Italiane, which will help spread the new initiatives among developers, startups, large companies and public administration.
“The collaboration between Poste Italiane and Microsoft – he commented in this regard the CEO of Poste Italiane Matteo Del Fante – has contributed in recent years to the technological advancement of Poste and, at the same time, of the country, thanks to the digital services offered by the Company to citizens, businesses and the PA. Today we are renewing a long-term partnership that falls into a moment of national emergency in which digital platforms have concretely demonstrated their importance in terms of work organization, also and above all ensuring services essential to people's lives and health. It is starting from this experience that Poste and Microsoft will continue the joint work to offer increasingly advanced solutions of public utility and new technological skills to contribute to the country's recovery".
“Italy once again confirms itself as a pole favorable to the attraction of investments, innovation and development – commented the Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte –. In recent weeks, businesses and public administrations have made massive use of smart working, also managing to accelerate its diffusion. Microsoft's plan, with cloud services and digital programs for smart working dedicated to small and medium-sized enterprises, will undoubtedly help Italy to proceed even more rapidly in this direction".
Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft Global Sales, Marketing and Operations, says the new investment plan "will help professionals innovate and grow their business, explore new business opportunities and address some of the country's biggest challenges, while offering the maximum guarantees of safety”.
