Plans have been submitted for what could become Italy's largest data center, a sprawling four-building facility in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy that would deliver a total planned electrical capacity of 576MW and cover approximately 2.9 million square feet (270,000 square meters).
The project, proposed by developer Moncalieri Logistics, would be built on the former Industria Libraria Tipografica Editrice (ILTE) industrial complex in Moncalieri, a site with deep roots in Italy's publishing history. ILTE, a major Italian printing and publishing company founded in Turin in 1947, ceased operations in 2016, and the building was listed for sale at €4 million ($4.5 million) in 2023, according to property portal Idealista.
Moncalieri Logistics is linked to real estate developer Lcp, which acquired the site in 2022 for €9 million with plans to convert it into a warehouse for German ecommerce company Zalando. The data center proposal represents a significant pivot from that original vision, reflecting the surging demand for digital infrastructure across Southern Europe.
The project was made public on September 17, according to Councilor Valentina Cera, who said the facility "would likely become the largest facility in Italy." Cera underscored the urgency of establishing a clear regulatory framework, stating that "the succession of new, ever-larger projects makes the adoption of a clear, uniform, and preventive regional regulatory framework urgent and unavoidable," adding that "the absence of such regulations creates difficulties for individual municipalities and local communities." She noted that the Piedmont Regional Council had already identified the need for regional legislation as one of its regulatory objectives for 2026.
Enrico Bussalino, regional councilor and assessor for the Piedmont Region, said a public consultation has been launched to gather comments, contributions, and proposals on the project. "The aim is to launch a participatory process based on transparency and dialog with the local community," Bussalino said, adding that contributions already received are being reviewed by technical departments and that the department will subsequently initiate the procedure to draft a new law.
The move comes as Piedmont's neighboring region of Lombardy recently passed Regional Law No. 11/2026, Italy's first regulatory framework for data center approvals, designed to promote sustainability and encourage development on brownfield sites. The contrast highlights a growing recognition across Italy that coherent regional governance is essential as hyperscale and colocation operators accelerate their footprint in Southern Europe.
The Moncalieri proposal, if approved, would not only set a new benchmark for data center scale in Italy but also test the region's ability to balance industrial redevelopment, community engagement, and energy infrastructure planning at an unprecedented level.