VIRTUS Milan Facility Launch to Support European Growth

Committed to expanding its services further across Europe, VIRTUS Data Centres recently confirmed plans to establish its first facility in Italy.

Located in Cornaredo, within the Milan West data centre cluster, this new site represents a key milestone for VIRTUS as it further commits to European growth. The facility will be developed on a 71,000 square-metre brownfield site which has zoning in place for a 44,000 square-metre facility. 

“We are very excited to be continuing our expansion in Europe at pace,” comments Neil Cresswell, CEO of VIRTUS Data Centres. “Milan is an important European technology hub and this new development demonstrates our commitment to meeting the demands of our customers for reliable, flexible, high-quality infrastructure.”

Supporting hyperscale innovation

The new site will hold the capacity to deliver 70MW of grid power, which in turn will be able to support hyperscalers, enterprises and service providers as digital infrastructure demands across Europe continue to grow.

Currently, the European data centre is facing unprecedented demand for AI and cloud services. This is inevitably causing facilities to use more power, with McKinsey predicting that data centre power consumption in Europe is expected to surge from 62TWh to more than 150TWh by 2030.

For VIRTUS, the company hopes its new facility will provide additional capacity to one of Europe’s most important data centre markets.

The Milan development will get underway in the second quarter of 2025, as existing structures and the recycling of materials will commence, the company says. The new facility is expected to be ready for service (RFS) in 2027.

The new data centre is also designed to support the increasing requirements of AI workloads, hyperscale environments and high-density computing, whilst also ensuring operational efficiency. 

“By repurposing a brownfield site, we are minimising environmental impact while strengthening our presence in Europe’s key digital territories,” Neil Cresswell shares.

The data centre sustainability imperative

Consistent with VIRTUS’ strong commitment to sustainability, the Milan project will incorporate best practices to reduce environmental impact. This will include energy-efficient designs, access to renewable power, waste reduction measures and responsible water usage. 

This development follows VIRTUS’ other recent European expansions, including significant new projects in Saunderton in Buckinghamshire, UK, in addition to Marienpark and Wustermark in Berlin, Germany. 

Such developments are designed to reinforce the company’s position as a trusted partner for organisations seeking innovative, scalable and sustainable data centre solutions. 

The company has committed itself to engaging closely with sustainability for some time, engaging with its key suppliers on the embodied carbon of products, energy efficiency of key equipment and Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) best practices in factories.

“We are always looking at embedding further sustainability in our procurement process,” Gaelle Mogabure, Sustainability Lead at VIRTUS Data Centres, previously shared with Data Centre Magazine. “In future, we plan to take into consideration the overall sustainability ambitions of the vendor. This includes looking at their net-zero roadmaps, water management and social commitments, among other things.”

One of the strategies VIRTUS is deploying within one of its key sites is an adiabatic cooling solution. The company is working closely with the cooling manufacturer to develop alternative operating strategies. 

This has now become the standard operating methodology for the product, which Gaelle hopes will contribute to more optimised water use across other data centres.

She adds: “VIRTUS is also always investigating innovative sustainability solutions such as low-carbon concrete and green steel to replace some of the traditional options, as well as use of machine learning in operations.”

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