Italy has picked an unlikely champion to develop its technology infrastructure and protect digital sovereignty: its national postman, Poste Italiane. The postal service, which pays out pensions through 12,600 post offices, is betting on its €13.5 billion bid for Telecom Italia (TIM) to accelerate its shift into digital, telecom, and cloud services.

Building Up Tech Capacity

Poste argues the tie-up will create a larger state-backed group that can build distributed computing infrastructure across the country. The new entity could become a supplier for US tech giants such as Amazon, Google, or Microsoft, and handle sensitive communications, including in defense.

Poste has said the tie-up would support TIM’s efforts to expand beyond its traditional consumer telecom business into higher margin services for corporate clients, including cloud and cybersecurity. The proposed deal fits into a broader sovereign cloud push in Europe, with domestic telecom and tech firms building cloud and AI infrastructure to serve strategic sectors such as defense and healthcare.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.