AlmavivA, an Italian IT firm, and Aruba, a cloud provider, announced on Saturday that they had submitted a joint proposal to the government to assist in the creation of cloud-based infrastructure for the country’s government data. The infrastructure, dubbed the National Strategic Hub, is part of the government’s plan to speed up digital transformation while also ensuring national data security.
The cloud hub is one of the EU-funded projects aimed at assisting Italy’s economy in its recovery from the pandemic. It reflects European efforts to reduce the bloc’s reliance on large foreign tech companies.
The AlmavivA-Aruba proposal, which is presented as a public-private partnership, competes with a consortium led by Italy’s largest phone company Telecom Italia (TLIT.MI), and including state lender CDP, cybersecurity firm Leonardo (LDOF.MI), and state-owned IT firm Sogei that was presented last month.
Rome set aside 900 million euros ($1.04 billion) for the project in its national Recovery Plan, which was delivered to Brussels in April. It intends to award the contract no later than the end of 2022.
Others are expected to follow the two proposals. Engineering, an Italian software developer, is also planning to submit a proposal in the near days, according to Maximo Ibarra, the company’s new CEO, in comments later confirmed by a representative.
Engineering, which is owned by Bain Capital and NB Renaissance, will lead “an innovative collaboration,” according to Ibarra, who added that his business could draw on its previous experience with the digitalization of Italy’s public administration system.
