According to Silvia Gnocco, Partner at Studio Inzaghi, Italy currently lacks comprehensive legislation recognizing data centers as strategic infrastructure.
These facilities continue to be authorised as standard industrial buildings and the lack of bespoke procedures — with expedited or simplified provisions —creates unpredictable timelines and regulatory uncertainty, complicating investment decisions.
However, the landscape is evolving from the proposed national Enabling Law to the 2025 Energy Decree, up to the initiative of the Lombardy Region, which has introduced a specific regulatory framework to address the existing gap in a territory that accounts for more than 60% of data centers development requests.
This is a key issue for those working in the tech and digital infrastructure sectors.
Silvia Gnocco’s analysis is available here.