Residents and local representatives of the town of Magenta, in Lombardy, northern Italy, have been protesting plans for a data center campus in a former industrial complex.In April, the municipality approved a €119 million ($134m) urban redevelopment plan for the ex-Novaceta factory brownfield area, which included a data center, Il Giorno reported.An environmental impact assessment submitted by Italian investment firm Namira in December 2025 includes plans to develop a data center campus targeting a total IT capacity of 240MW across five buildings on 161,000 sqm (1.73m sq ft) of private land.The MXP Magenta project also includes the construction of a new electrical substation to supply high-voltage power to the site from the nearby Terna substation, approximately 500m (1,640 ft) to the northeast.“The project for this 360MW power line is currently undergoing the permitting process,” said an application submitted by Namira to the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security in December.“A total of 141 diesel-powered emergency generators (140 serving the data center and one serving the electrical substation) will be installed on-site, providing a combined thermal capacity of 1,099MWt to ​​ensure backup power in the event of an electrical blackout.”But residents shared concerns about the local grid’s capacity to support the 360MW electrical substation, risks to the water table, noise impact, and alleged lack of communication from the local authorities, according to Il Giorno.“We demand respect from those who come here to do business,” a resident told the newspaper.There are more than 100 public objections to the plans on the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security portal.Protesters launched a petition addressed to Mayor Luca Del Gobbo requesting the suspension of the implementation plan and calling for an urgent public meeting, Il Giorno said.A spokesperson for the Italian National Institute of Health told DCD that an evaluation of the site is ongoing, which is a “normal procedure” for a project of this nature.They added: “The analysis [has] just started, and there is no conclusion yet, so it's early for any kind of concerns.”DCD has approached Namira for comment.Lombardy, particularly the Milan metropolitan area, has become a target for data center development in Italy. Major hyperscalers, including Google, Microsoft, and AWS, already operate cloud regions in the region.The Italian Datacenter Association said this month in response to local opposition to new developments in the region that dialogue with communities is “essential” and should be “based on rigorous, transparent, and shared evaluation processes.”Learn more about the data center market in Italy and Southern Europe, and meet with other executives and experts from the region at the DCN Milan event next year