en.Wedoany.com Reported - Italy's Leonardo is planning to acquire a 10% stake in the National Strategic Cloud (Polo Strategico Nazionale, PSN) from Sogei. The deal is reportedly accelerating, with a formal offer expected in the coming days.

This transaction will be negotiated within Italy's Ministry of Economy and Finance (Ministero dell’Economia e delle finanze), which holds control over Sogei. If completed, Leonardo's stake in PSN would rise from 25% to 35%, with results potentially announced by the end of this month.

This move aligns with another initiative. Earlier this year, Poste Italiane CEO Matteo Del Fante expressed interest in acquiring a 20% stake in PSN held by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP). He explained that PSN is a national strategic asset, whose core mission is to create a secure, sustainable, and innovative cloud infrastructure for the entire Italian public administration, with Telecom Italia currently holding a 45% stake. The plan also includes a future joint venture with Tim Enterprise, as outlined in a letter of intent signed at the end of 2025.

Following the completion of Poste Italiane's offer to acquire Telecom Italia's stake, Poste Italiane's shareholding would rise to 65%. Italy's cloud services would shift from the Tim, CDP, Leonardo, and Sogei consortium to a duopoly formed by Poste Italiane and Leonardo.

For Leonardo, the strategy aims to strengthen its positioning in the defense sector, characterized by data management capabilities. For Poste Italiane, this move involves diversification. Sources say that while the transaction is relatively small, it is part of a broader restructuring of PSN's equity, aimed at placing the company under the control of two shareholders following clear industrial logic. The restructuring will also pave the way for the exit of shareholders who participated in the cloud project as financial partners or lacked specific industry expertise. Future governance structures are also under discussion during the restructuring. Current proposals under evaluation suggest that Poste Italiane would appoint the CEO, while Leonardo would nominate the Chairman.

Notably, Telecom Italia has joined the Italian team in bidding for the European Artificial Intelligence Super Factory. In this context, the company led by Pietro Labriola will act as the operator of the super factory's underlying data center, collaborating with Eni, Leonardo, Fibercop, Fastweb, Ai4i, and Cineca.

The National Strategic Cloud is the core tool of Italy's cloud migration plan. Supported by approximately €2 billion from the EU's post-pandemic recovery fund, the plan aims to migrate sensitive public sector data and services to a secure cloud infrastructure. PSN will host sensitive and strategic data and services for all central administrations (about 200), local health authorities (ASL), and major local governments (regions, metropolitan cities, municipalities with over 250,000 inhabitants). The construction of this cloud will fulfill the tasks of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza, PNRR), targeting 75% of Italian administrations using cloud services by 2026. According to Italy's Cloud Strategy (Strategia Cloud Italia), the cloud will be geographically distributed across identified sites nationwide to ensure operational continuity and fault tolerance.