On 23 July 2026 Italy's Council of Ministers declared two data-centre programmes of paramount national strategic interest under Article 13 of Decree-Law 104/2023. "Equinix per l'Italia" covers seven facilities at Settimo Milanese and Cusago near Milan, about €4bn from 2026 to 2033. The "Cavour Hyperscale Campus" would convert the former Galileo Ferraris power plant at Trino into a 300-400 MW site, also about €4bn, with a first phase targeted for the end of 2028. Together the government puts the direct investment at roughly €8bn (Press Release No. 182). It follows EdgeConneX in May and Vantage earlier this year.
The direction is right. The mechanism deserves scrutiny.
The case for the fast track
The strongest argument for the designation is a capacity gap. The government's own release says Italy holds less than 5% of the EU's total data-centre capacity, while European capacity must grow by at least 150% by 2030 to serve networks, AI workloads and digital-sovereignty needs. A country with Italy's economy that hosts so little of the compute its firms and public bodies use is exporting both investment and latency-sensitive services.
The ordinary permitting path is also a real obstacle. A hyperscale campus needs planning consent, grid connection, environmental assessment, and sign-off from municipal, regional and national bodies. When each can take months and none is bound to a deadline, a €4bn project can stall on a single unanswered file. Ministers argue that a single accountable decision-maker fixes this. The Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy (MIMIT) says the programmes will create about 1,500 construction jobs and 500-plus permanent positions in Milan, and about 1,200 average construction jobs and 300-350 specialised technicians at Trino (MIMIT). Minister Adolfo Urso framed the move as proof that Italy is again a credible destination for high-technology investment.
We agree with the premise. Slow, unpredictable permitting is a tax on infrastructure, and a country that wants AI capacity has to be able to say yes on a timetable.
What Article 13 actually does
The statute sets a floor of €1bn in direct investment. Once the Council of Ministers declares a programme strategic, a government commissioner convenes the services conference and issues a single authorisation replacing the separate permits. Administrations consulted have 15 days to respond, after which "proceedings continue even in the absence of opinions." The commissioner may act by ordinance "in derogation to every legal provision other than criminal law" (Article 13, DL 104/2023 on Normattiva). The text carves out anti-mafia legislation and EU obligations, and environmental and cultural safeguards are meant to be handled through the coordinated conference. Legal commentary also notes that the procedure does not displace environmental impact assessment or golden-power screening under Decree-Law 21/2012 (SPLIDIA).
Two features matter most. The 15-day window is a genuine deadline with a default consequence, which is the kind of discipline permitting systems usually lack. The derogation power is different in kind. It does not speed up a process. It lets one official set aside the rules the process applies.
Where the design is weaker
The deadline works because silence can be treated as absence of objection. That is defensible for a routine consent. It is riskier for the questions a 300-400 MW campus raises: grid capacity, water and cooling, and the local effects of converting a decommissioned thermal plant. A regional grid operator or environmental agency that misses a 15-day window may have been the only body holding the relevant data.
A broad derogation also creates legal uncertainty, which is the opposite of what investors want. A single authorisation issued in departure from unspecified rules is exactly the sort of decision that invites litigation from municipalities, neighbours or competitors. If a court later finds that the commissioner overreached, the project has already spent capital. Predictable statutory rules with short, enforceable deadlines give a developer more certainty than discretion exercised case by case.
There is also a fairness issue for firms not selected. Designation is by Council of Ministers resolution for programmes above €1bn. A €300m regional facility or a smaller operator gets the ordinary process, so speed depends on size and political attention. Four large programmes on the fast track this year suggest the exception is becoming a parallel permitting system.
The better design would be the reverse of the current one: make the compressed timetable the default for all qualifying data-centre applications, and reserve derogation for narrow, listed rules. The 15-day response window, the single authorisation and the single accountable official are the parts worth generalising.
What to watch
The Trino timetable published by the government is a useful test. It foresees the launch of the services conference by the end of 2026, authorisation by the end of 2027, and first-phase operation by the end of 2028. If authorisation arrives on schedule without successful challenges, the mechanism will have shown that speed and legality can coexist. If commissioners lean heavily on derogations and courts push back, the lesson will be that Italy bought a headline timeline at the price of durable permits.
Italy's own release also states that the Equinix programme is to be covered entirely by renewable energy. That commitment should be published in enforceable form, with grid-connection milestones, so that the energy claims are checkable and not just announced.
The outcome Italy should want is not a handful of exceptional projects. It is a country where the fifth and fiftieth data centre can be permitted on a known clock, under known rules. The July designations move investment forward, but they do it by exemption, and the durable reform is the one that makes exemption unnecessary.