Over 200 people protested against the construction of a new data center in Lacchiarella, south of Milan. The small-town demonstration on July 11 was the first to draw protesters from across the wider Lombardy region as local “protection committees” from other impacted towns joined the call.
Investors have earmarked Lacchiarella for a €3 billion data center roughly the size of 30 football fields. Its massive energy consumption, estimated to equal 500,000 common households, has raised alarms among the town’s 9,000 residents and beyond. Opponents argue that data center “colonization” will only aggravate environmental problems in a region that already suffers from extreme heat, water scarcity, and some of Europe’s most polluted air.
Historically industrial Lombardy has become the epicenter of Italy’s data center boom. While over 70% of the country’s server capacity is already concentrated in the region, a recent study found that just one center of this scale can raise temperatures by 2–9°C several kilometers away.
