Italy-based inference provider Xference has launched a new distributed infrastructure from a data center in Bergamo, Lombardy province.

The startup added that it will shortly launch a beta service for 100 specially invited users. The announcement follows a pre-seed round for the startup that raised €700,000 ($825,720).

“We’re happy to confirm that our new distributed infrastructure is now operational within Aruba SPA’s IT3 data center in Bergamo, Italy, a key strategic location for high-performance, AI-optimized infrastructure in Europe,” Xference’s CEO, Andrea Pili, told DCD.

“While we’re currently focused on leveraging this site to support our initial deployment, we are actively evaluating additional locations across Italy and the broader EU to expand our footprint in the near future.”

Founded last year and headquartered in Cagliari on the Italian island of Sardinia, Xference supplies private inference infrastructure that allows AI models to make predictions on new data after their training has been completed.

The startup claims to provide a digitally sovereign, secure, and energy-efficient alternative to traditional AI inference services by running models based on open-source LLMs on a proprietary platform that can be run either in its own data centers or on-premise at a customer’s offices. These servers, said Innovationnation.it, are not connected to the Internet and are designed to guarantee client compliance with privacy provisions contained within the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and AI Act.

Maintaining strong privacy standards when choosing an AI supplier has grown increasingly important to European companies in recent years. According to a survey by Deloitte of 3,000 EU-based executives published earlier this week, 77 percent of respondents “now factor an AI solution’s country of origin into their vendor selection decisions,” while ‘nearly three in five (58 percent) now build their AI stacks primarily with local vendors.”

Some of the world’s largest providers of AI services seem alert to this sentiment as it relates to the Italian market. In April 2025, Nvidia, Vertiv, and iGenius announced a jointly-run AI supercomputer to be located in the south of the country. Earlier this month, meanwhile, Microsoft began its construction of a data center campus in Bornasco, in the northern province of Pavia, as part of a €4.3 billion ($4.75bn) investment in Italy-based AI infrastructure originally announced in 2024.

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