Microsoft has announced a significant investment of €4.3 billion ($4.8 billion) in Italy to expand its AI and cloud infrastructure. This investment, which is the largest Microsoft has made in Italy to date, aims to enhance the country's technological capabilities and transform it into a leading hub for AI innovation. The initiative includes the development of hyper-scale cloud and AI data center infrastructure, which is expected to be completed over the next two years. Additionally, Microsoft has pledged to skill 1 million people in Italy as part of this investment. The announcement was made in collaboration with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. This comes as Microsoft is also set to pay $108 billion in data center leases for AI, a 1500% increase from two years ago.