Summary
- Core Stack and Green Arrow Capital plan more than €1bn of investment across 13 Italian data centres over four years.
- The first projects near Cremona and Verona are expected to seek final permitting by the end of 2027, with operations targeted for early 2028.
- The model favours disused industrial sites and locally generated renewable electricity, while battery storage is also under study.
Core Stack and Green Arrow Capital plan to invest more than €1 billion over four years in a network of 13 medium-sized data centres across Italy, starting with projects in the provinces of Cremona and Verona.
The joint venture is pursuing a distributed national network rather than concentrating the investment in one hyperscale campus. Core Stack says its model is designed around facilities placed closer to businesses and institutions, while the investment programme will initially focus on northern and northeastern Italy before extending towards central and southern regions.
Permitting for the first two projects is already more advanced than the rest of the proposed portfolio. The companies expect the required approvals for Cremona and Verona by the end of 2027 and are targeting the first quarter of 2028 for operations, although those dates still depend on planning, power delivery, construction and commissioning.
Italy already has a substantial queue of proposed data centre electricity demand, so the 13 planned facilities should be separated from operating capacity. DataCentral reported in August that connection requests on the Italian transmission system had reached 95.38GW, while only 1.88GW had advanced to the most mature stage. The Core Stack programme therefore enters a market where identifying sites is considerably easier than turning every proposed megawatt into connected infrastructure.
Energy is being designed with the sites
Core Stack’s existing development model combines data centre construction with renewable energy generated on site, and the new joint venture says that approach will continue across the 13 facilities. Integrating generation during site design can affect the electrical layout, land requirement and connection strategy before building work begins.
Local renewable output will not remove the requirement for continuous and controllable electricity. Data centre demand persists when solar or other variable generation falls, which means the final supply architecture still has to balance on-site production with grid access, storage or another source of firm power.
Battery energy storage is also being studied with Politecnico di Milano. No storage capacity has been announced, but a battery could absorb excess local generation, limit short-duration demand peaks and move electricity between periods of generation and consumption if the eventual connection design allows it.
Site selection is intended to favour former industrial areas, linking the data centre programme to redevelopment rather than relying entirely on undeveloped land. Brownfield projects can bring existing utility corridors and transport access, but they can also require demolition, contamination work or modification of legacy electrical and civil infrastructure before the data centre build begins.
Those variables mean Cremona and Verona will provide an early test of the joint venture’s model. If the first sites can secure planning, grid arrangements and construction contracts within the stated timetable, their design can provide a more repeatable basis for later facilities across the country.
A distributed network changes the delivery problem
Spreading investment across 13 facilities reduces dependence on one very large development but creates a larger programme of individual approvals, construction packages and operational interfaces. The economics will therefore depend partly on how far Core Stack can standardise electrical, cooling, security and control systems while still adapting each site to local constraints.
The company describes its wider model as a nationally distributed network serving colocation, cloud, telecommunications and institutional customers. Regional facilities can bring computing closer to demand and spread infrastructure across several locations, although the commercial benefit depends on customer contracts and network connectivity rather than geography alone.
Green Arrow Capital adds an investment platform to that development model. The asset manager says the joint venture will draw on an Italian supply chain, while Core Stack provides the data centre and energy-development platform through its connection with Lazzari Group.
An Italian supply chain could cover civil construction, electrical installation, mechanical systems, controls and ongoing maintenance, but the announcement does not specify which equipment will be sourced domestically or which contracts have already been placed.
The €1 billion figure likewise represents the proposed investment pipeline rather than money already deployed into completed facilities. None of the 13 sites should be treated as commissioned capacity until individual projects move through planning, power, financing, construction and testing.
That distinction is particularly relevant in Italy, where connection applications have expanded much faster than the amount of capacity approaching delivery. Core Stack and Green Arrow are proposing a large national programme, but its first useful measure will be the progress of Cremona and Verona towards permits and construction rather than the aggregate number of sites in the pipeline.
