The region of Lombardy, Italy, which has Milan as its capital, just approved a 100% tax on data center developments in rural areas and a 200% tax for those being built in agricultural and green zones. According to the Italian news outlet Il Sole 24 Ore, the law was designed to discourage hyperscalers from buying up rural tracts of land for projects like these, which Lombardy leaders say are often done “without clear timeframes and plans.”
“We cannot, in the light of these numbers, block the development of companies and employment, the race for artificial intelligence is already a fact,” Lombardy councilor Massimo Sertori told the publication. “We can, however, try to keep the phenomenon under control by avoiding excesses and the exaggerated exploitation of the territory.”
