Thousands of people gathered in Milan, northern Italy, to oppose the development of new data centers, Il Giorno has reported . Protesters assembled outside the city hall in Piazza della Scala last month for a demonstration organized by the National Network of Stop Data Center Committees ( Rete Nazionale dei Comitati STOP Data Center ), a group opposing the proliferation of energy-intensive infrastructure in the Lombardy region. Representatives of 40 civic committees called on the national and regional governments to halt the authorization of new data centers and develop a national strategy to assess these projects and their impact. There were also calls to review Lombardy's law on data centers, Italy’s first regional law addressing the development of these facilities. Critics said it is not strong enough to stop the rapid development of data centers. Since the law came into force in June, Lombardy has reportedly received more than 60 applications for data center projects, representing a combined proposed capacity of about 11GW. Regional Councilor Massimo Sertori reportedly announced in October that the law would be tightened within a month. Lombardy has 67 active data centers, a third of the national total. Sixty percent of the authorization requests are located in the province of Milan, in the municipalities represented by the civic committees present at the protest. “We are concerned about the proliferation of data centers in our areas," Mario Fritella, spokesperson for the No Data Center Network and the Rhodense Committee, was quoted in Il Giorno. "These facilities impoverish our municipalities by consuming huge amounts of water and energy, eroding land, and putting our health at risk by contributing to rising temperatures. “It's absurd that such high-impact activities are being authorized on such a large scale without even a national law, and with a regional law that is currently full of holes because it trades land and our health for money: anyone who wants to open a data center on agricultural land can do so if they're willing to pay double.” Protests have also been held across wider Europe , running for two days and planned by the 'Stop Dirty Data Centres' campaign group. Last week, more than 100 protesters linked to the activist group Geef Tegengas broke into a Microsoft data center construction site in Amsterdam. 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