Poste Italiane, the postal service which pays out pensions through 12,600 post offices that are as much a feature of remote towns as the local church, is betting on its €13.5 billion ($15.4 billion) bid for Telecom Italia (TIM) to accelerate its shift into digital, telecom and cloud services.

Poste Italiane is betting on its Telecom Italia tie-up to turn post offices and sorting centres into the backbone of Italian AI infrastructure.

Poste Italiane, the postal service which pays out pensions through 12,600 post offices that are as much a feature of remote towns as the local church, is betting on its €13.5…