Ciao, Milano! New cloud region in Milan now open

Today, we are excited to celebrate the opening of our new Google Cloud region in Milan, in partnership with TIM. You can now store data and leverage fast, reliable, and secure cloud services to build and deliver highly-available, low-latency applications for your customers — all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. Fantastico, no? 

The new Milan region (europe-west8) is now part of our global network of 34 regions and 103 zones, bringing Google Cloud services to users in over 200 countries and territories worldwide. It is the first of two regions that are opening in Italy,  the second will launch in Turin in the coming months. We believe the new cloud regions in Milan and Turin will have a positive impact for  years to come. A recent independent economic impact report made by the University of Turin, highlights that the two regions could potentially generate up to €3.3 bn  and support up to 65,000 new jobs in Piedmont and Lombardy by 2025.¹

Embracing the cloud, Italian style

The addition of two Italian cloud regions, starting with Milan, is not only part of our commitment to aid in the digital recovery of Italy but to continue expanding our digital footprint. Built in collaboration with Telecom Italia (TIM), the new Milan region aims to provide innovative public, private, and hybrid cloud services to help Italian companies of all sizes and across all industries accelerate digital transformation. 

Organizations everywhere need the capacity to run mission-critical applications at the speed their customers expect. This new region is a strong step towards building regional capacity that meets the needs of the Italian digital economy, from availability and data residency, to digital sovereignty and sustainability. 

“The partnership between TIM and Google Cloud will accelerate the digitization of companies, public administrations and private citizens. Customers will benefit from innovative, flexible and secure digital solutions thanks to the new Italian Google Cloud regions and TIM's sustainable data centers. In fact, we are inaugurating a strategic infrastructure that will combine the huge economic benefits expected in Lombardy and Piedmont with important advantages for the environment: our network of data centers, designed and built according to eco-sustainability criteria, will allow significant CO2 savings," said Elio Schiavo, Chief Enterprise and Innovative Solutions Officer, TIM.

Cloud on Italy’s terms

The new Milan region launches with three cloud zones and our standard services including Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Storage, Persistent Disk, CloudSQL, and Cloud Identity. In addition, our customers will benefit from critical features such as data residency controls, default encryption, organizational policies, and VPC Service Controls.

Like all Google Cloud regions, the Milan region is connected to Google’s secure  backbone, comprising a system of high-capacity fiber optic cables under land and sea around the world. In addition, multiple regions in the same country will offer Google Cloud customers a secondary local site to ensure better disaster recovery or geographical high availability that allows them to meet business continuity requirements. 

“The availability of two Google Cloud regions in Italy is a strategic asset for Intesa Sanpaolo. The Cloud will in fact become a real extension of our information system, allowing us a rapid digitization of critical processes with significant competitive advantages: in fact, we will be able to serve families and businesses more and more quickly with innovative tools, easy to use and in line with the growing digitization needs of the country, positioning us as a leader also in the technological field "  commented Enrico Bagnasco, Executive Director IT Head Office Department, Intesa Sanpaolo

Helping Italy build the future with a transformation cloud

Our mission at Google Cloud is to provide a platform that enables companies in every industry and any country to transform the way they do business and serve their customers using digital technology. 

Whether you’re a traditional enterprise, a startup, or a digital native, we’re ready to help propel you to the next level with a cloud built to open new doors to opportunity, right from the economic heart of Italy. 

Our transformation cloud is helping businesses become: 

• Smarter: The power of data is helping companies leverage more data and deeper insights to help catalyze transformation. Google Cloud makes it easy to get more value from structured or unstructured data to solve your most important challenges, make data-driven decisions, and deliver better business outcomes. 

• Open: Google Cloud’s design principles are deeply rooted in the belief that a secure, open approach is the best way to empower you to drive differentiated experiences. Our commitment to multicloud, hybrid cloud, and open source unlocks innovation so you can build faster, in any environment. 

• Connected: Digital transformation goes beyond technology—it requires the right people and culture. As work continues to shift outside of physical locations, Google Cloud provides the tools to help people be more innovative, productive, and able to make faster decisions. 

• Trusted: Google Cloud offers a zero trust architecture to protect data, applications, and infrastructure and a shared responsibility model where we have an active stake in our customers’ security outcomes. We are also trusted partner of European businesses and governments, so you can transform faster while also meeting digital sovereignty requirements.

• Sustainable: Google Cloud matches 100% of the electricity that powers your workloads with renewable energy purchases, enabling us to operate the cleanest cloud in the industry. With our Carbon Sense suite of products you can measure, report and reduce the carbon footprint of your cloud usage. 

In addition to the launch of our new Milan cloud region, we’ve partnered with TIM to launch Google Cloud Pro in 2021, a free developer training program for Google Cloud that is open to the entire ecosystem of Italian developers. We also partnered with TIM, Noovle and Intesa Sanpaolo to help Italian entrepreneurs continue to grow, with initiatives such as the Opening Future project dedicated to promoting digital skills for startups, students, and small businesses 

Visit our locations page for more details about Google Cloud regions and updates on the availability of additional services and regions.

^{1. The Economic and Employment Impact of Milan Data Centers; Francesco Carbonero (University of Turin) Aldo Geuna (University of Turin) Luigi Riso (Catholic University of Milan); May 2022.}