Italian oil giant Eni is to develop new data centers in Italy that could total 1GW.

Announced this week, Eni has signed a Letter of Intent with investment firm MGX and G42 to develop up to 1GW of data centers in Italy.

The first project is planned around Ferrera Erbognone, in Lombardy, Italy, already home to Eni’s own data center, and will be developed in two phases of up to 500MW of IT capacity. Further specifications and timelines weren’t shared.

The facilities will be fully powered by “blue power,” supplied by Eni via a new dedicated power plant, with CO2 capture and storage at the Ravenna CCS hub. The company said blue power was “a low-carbon energy source generated by natural gas power plants, whose CO2 emissions are captured and stored.”

“Our partnership with the UAE is a testament to our shared commitment to a sustainable energy future, leveraging innovation and collaboration across key sectors,” said Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi. “Together with leading UAE companies, we will develop initiatives in areas that are essential in the energy transition, such as data centers powered by blue energy, a model able to respond to AI's growing demand [for] sustainable computing capacity.”

Eni is the largest petroleum company in Italy and the second largest based in the European Union after Total.

Eni launched its Green Data Centre outside Pavia, south of Milan, in 2013. The 30MW site spans 5,200 sqm (55,970 sq ft) and offers 50kW per square meter. It is partly powered by a 1MW photovoltaic power plant and is home to several powerful supercomputers.

Eni and Snam launched Ravenna CCS, Italy’s first Carbon Capture and Storage project, last year. The project captures, transports, and stores CO2 from Eni’s natural gas treatment plant in Casalborsetti, in the municipality of Ravenna, by injecting and storing at a depth of 3,000 meters in the depleted offshore Porto Corsini Mare Ovest gas field.

G42 is an Emirati artificial intelligence (AI) development holding company. It is funding data center projects in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

MGX is an Emirati investment firm for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies established by the government of Abu Dhabi last year via G42 and the Mubadala sovereign wealth fund. It is involved in OpenAI’s Stargate project and fuelling projects in France.

Mubadala has a stake in G42.