Italian telco Unidata and private equity firm Azimut Libera Impressa have launched a joint company to build a “green” and carrier-neutral Tier IV-quality data center in Rome.

The UniCenter project will create a 20MW data center with more than 2,000 racks in an area spanning 140,000 sq ft (3,000 sqm) in the Italian capital. The company said it will be powered by renewable sources.

The data center will serve Italian and international customers and will operate in a wholesale-only capacity.

Unidata will own 25 percent of UniCenter while Azimut will own the remaining 75 percent. The expected initial investment will be €5.7 million ($6.5m) from Unidata and €51.3m ($59m) from the private equity firm.

Unidata will have operational management of UniCenter.

The telco will continue to independently provide services through its two data centers in Rome and Milan and through UniCenter's infrastructure for clients requiring services with a capacity greater than 30kW.

Unidata also owns Unitirreno, which launched a domestic subsea cable in Italy in October 2025.

Italy has more than 200 data centers, with major hubs concentrated in the Milan-Bergamo corridor, in Northern Italy, and a secondary market in Rome.

In 2024, Microsoft announced a €4.3bn ($4.8bn) investment over two years to expand the country’s AI and cloud infrastructure and become one of Microsoft’s largest data center regions in Europe and a major data hub serving the Mediterranean and North Africa. The Italy North initiative was Microsoft's largest-ever investment in Italy.

Oracle opened its first Italian cloud region in Milan in December 2021, followed by a second region in Turin, launched in November 2025 in partnership with Telecom Italia (TIM). Amazon Web Services launched its Milan cloud region in 2020, with Google’s Milan region launching in 2022, also in partnership with TIM. 

Learn more about the data center market in Italy and Southern Europe, and meet with other executives and experts from the region at the DCN Milan event later this year