While Europe dithers on how to achieve net-zero without shutting down industry, China has already made its choice: build 150 new nuclear reactors by 2035. This isn't a plan—it's a construction site. Beijing is pouring $440 billion into atomic energy, while Brussels squabbles over whether to label it green. The data is stark: China will become the world's largest nuclear power producer by 2030, overtaking the US and France.
This isn't just about energy geopolitics. It's about the future of digital Europe. Because without stable, cheap, low-carbon electricity, there will be no data centers, no AI, no sovereign cloud. Every AI model training run consumes power. Every crypto transaction, every stream, every Teams call has an energy cost. Italy, which imports over 40% of its gas from Russia and Algeria, can't afford to fall behind.
Our position at Meteora Web is clear: energy ideology is a luxury Italy can no longer afford.
We’re not nuclear engineers—we run servers, clouds, and platforms for dozens of Italian SMEs. We see every month what an electricity bill does to a digital infrastructure budget. And we witness the paradox daily: businesses are told to digitize, but the energy needed for that digitization gets more expensive and unpredictable. Southern Italy, where we’ve operated for eight years, already suffers from higher connectivity costs and energy prices. If Europe keeps postponing the nuclear decision, the digital divide won’t shrink—it will widen, because companies will move where energy is cheaper. And that won’t be here.
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Italy has nuclear expertise (Enel, Ansaldo Nucleare, Enea) but let it die after referendums in 1987 and 2011. Meanwhile, France produces 70% of its power from nuclear, and French data centers pay less than half for electricity compared to Italian ones. This isn’t left vs. right—it’s real competitiveness. If we want a truly digital Europe, we need a solid energy base. Modern nuclear (Gen III+ and IV) is safer, smaller, and more flexible than most people think.
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What to do? We don’t have a magic wand, but as digital entrepreneurs we say: stop the cross-vetoes. Every Italian SME using software, cloud, or AI should ask their politicians for a serious energy strategy—one that includes nuclear, renewables, and R&D. This isn’t an engineer’s topic; it’s an accountant’s topic. And we come from accounting: we can read the numbers. The numbers say: without competitive energy prices, Italian digital will never take off. And the gap with China, already huge, will become a chasm.
