Lombardy Approves Regional Law on Data Centers: The First in Italy
Lombardy is the first region in Italy for the number of data centers, with about one-third of all those present nationwide. Therefore, it is not surprising that it is also the first region to have approved a law to regulate the opening of new facilities. The regulation centralizes control of authorizations at the regional level and encourages the repurposing of disused industrial areas, but controversies abound.
The New Lombardy Regional Law on Data Centers
The measure, which was presented in November 2025, has been approved by the Lombardy regional assembly and consists of 10 articles. The measure aims to promote the establishment of data centers in so-called "brownfield" sites, i.e., disused or abandoned industrial areas. This indication is expressed by reducing construction costs by 10 to 30% and speeding up bureaucratic procedures; on the other hand, the use of agricultural land becomes significantly more expensive. If companies decide to proceed in this direction regardless, the proceeds will be allocated to environmental rehabilitation and restoration.
The law stipulates that zero-impact energy sources must be used and requires that drinking water or water for irrigating fields, or from protected rivers and lakes, not be used.
Municipalities will have one year to adapt their urban planning and will be required to map disused industrial areas. Provinces and the Metropolitan City of Milan will have to publish all collected data online, or risk losing access to regional funds.
The law strongly centralizes the management of construction permits within the region; a "Regional Data Center Desk" will be established to serve as a single point of reference for authorizations and will be supported by a team of technicians. As always, a surveillance committee will also be established, consisting of representatives from the region, ANCI Lombardy, UPL, Arpa, Ersaf, the Metropolitan City of Milan, universities, and electricity network managing entities.
"With this law, the Lombardy Region equips itself with a clear and modern framework to govern the development of data centers, infrastructures now essential for daily life, the digital economy, and technological innovation," stated Jonathan Lobati, the speaker of the measure and President of the Territory Commission.
"Our goal is to combine investment capacity and environmental sustainability, promoting the recovery of disused areas, limiting land consumption, and encouraging the use of renewable energies. We introduce clear and uniform rules for authorization and urban planning procedures, streamlining administrative pathways while ensuring public control and coordination among the involved entities. We want to accompany the growth of a strategic sector like data centers with a balanced development vision, attentive to the environment, energy efficiency, and the quality of Lombardy's territory."
However, criticism has not been lacking: the centralization of decision-making power towards the region takes autonomy away from municipalities and limits them in urban planning and territorial development. There are also no restrictions on land consumption in green and agricultural areas, but only a disincentive in the form of higher construction costs: for companies with revenues exceeding the GDP of entire states, these are very relative disincentives.
But Where Do the Billions in Investments End Up?
A closing note goes to the magnitude of investments in data centers and the impact they will have on the territory. When discussing investments in data centers, the amounts at stake are often in the billions of euros; what is frequently overlooked is the fact that the vast majority of these investments go into purchasing hardware (servers, CPUs, GPUs, RAM, etc., as well as cooling systems and emergency generators) and thus there is no real impact on the local economy. Of a billion in investments, less than a tenth is actually injected into the local economy, mainly for the physical construction of the centers. The impact in terms of employment is also very low (only a few dozen people are needed to manage a large data center).
The installation of new centers in the territory should therefore be considered for strategic reasons (although, again, the issue of sovereignty re-emerges: does it make sense to have immense data centers owned and managed by non-European companies?), not for economic reasons related to investments. And this must still take into account environmental and energy needs, as well as water consumption - a topic that is at least partially addressed by the law and is becoming particularly important and pressing given the impact of climate change in Northern Italy. We must also consider the impact on the territory in terms of noise produced by the facilities.
Facilitating the construction of new data centers is not necessarily a positive thing: finding the right balance is complex and requires careful planning that considers the different needs. We will see if the Lombardy law will help in this regard.