The Italian Data Centre Association (IDA) has been jointly founded by Microsoft, Equinix, Rai Way, Data4, STACK Infrastructure, Digital Realty, Vantage Data Centres and CBRE Data Centres.
According to a statement, the association has been established to increase recognition of the data centre industry in Italy, and develop a stronger community among its leading organisations.
IDA has said its mission is to serve as a spokesperson at an institutional level for the needs of its member companies, to contribute to defining standards and provide training to the sector.
“National data centre infrastructures are indeed strategic for the competitiveness of the Italian digital ecosystem,” explained Emmanuel Becker, President of the IDA and Managing Director of Equinix Italia.
“Over the last few years, we have witnessed the opening of numerous new data centres in Italy, by Italian and international players, and the centrality of digital in national recovery plans.
“Moreover, the cloud in Italy is becoming established not only in national digitisation plans, but also as an instrumental support to the challenges faced in traditional markets where data centre expansion has reached saturation point. However, services and solutions cannot exist without secure and efficient technological infrastructures, and their local presence is a critical factor for the growth of digitisation in Italy and Europe.
“Data centres are now fundamental for the development of the country’s economic system, and we realised that it was time to take an important step toward making the sector more official. Together with some of the leading companies in the sector, the first association of data centre manufacturers and operators was established.”
Becker added, “We have an important mission in accelerating the digital development of the Italian territory through the increasing presence of data centres. To do this, we intend to work intensively on both the education aspect, generating new jobs, and on environmental sustainability. Our efforts will be aimed not only at training new talents ready to work in data centres, but also at making environmental responsibility and sustainability a collective and virtuous approach involving the entire sector. We believe that enabling data centres to evolve according to environmental sustainability is key to improving the quality of life of citizens and of the society in which we live.”
