Protesters in Milan target Lombardy's 11GW data center queue

Representatives of 40 civic committees joined thousands of protesters outside Milan's city hall last month to demand that national and regional authorities halt new authorizations for Lombardy data centers and set a national assessment strategy. The regional law, which Il Giorno described as Italy's first regional law addressing data center development, took effect in June. It has drawn more than 60 applications with a combined proposed capacity of about 11GW, Data Center Dynamics reported, citing Il Giorno.

Sixty percent of the pending authorization requests sit in the province of Milan, and the region's 67 operating data centers are a third of Italy's total.

For investors underwriting a Lombardy site, approval is now the binding constraint: any tightening of the rules would hit Milan province, where the pipeline is most concentrated.

Mario Fritella, spokesperson for the No Data Center Network and the Rhodense Committee, was quoted in Il Giorno saying the facilities "impoverish our municipalities by consuming huge amounts of water and energy, eroding land, and putting our health at risk by contributing to rising temperatures." He called it absurd that "such high-impact activities are being authorized on such a large scale without even a national law," and said the regional law lets anyone willing to pay double open a data center on agricultural land.

New Jersey's Senate voted 38-0 this month to ban data center NDAs, as Private Wealth Daily previously reported.

Regional Councilor Massimo Sertori said in October that the law would be tightened within a month.