Bologna wins the research challenge. It has been chosen to host the new European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (Ecmwf). The data centre is therefore moving from the city of Reading, in the United Kingdom, to land in Italy. The capital of Emilia-Romagna is thus set to become a technology hub of global importance. The region already concentrates 70 per cent of the national computing and data storage capacity, and is home to one of the most important European communities on the subject of big data, with over 1,700 researchers involved.

"Italy won, Bologna won"

The Ecmwf data centre has been allocated an area of nine thousand square metres, including space for the supercomputers on the ground floor and for offices, according to meteorologist Manuel Mazzoleni of 3Bmeteo.com. A space that could be expanded further, with an additional six thousand square metres of facilities ready to host research activities related to meteorology and climate studies.

"Fantastic news and an enormous source of satisfaction for those who always believed in it: Italy won, Bologna won," declared Environment Minister Gian Luca Galletti. "By June, the host agreement will be finalised, and it will need to cover all technical and financial aspects," Galletti added.

The Tecnopolo as a hub for the challenge of climate change

The Bologna Tecnopolo is therefore ready to become the centre of European weather forecasting. A springboard for transforming the city "into a technological and scientific hub for the climate challenge of the coming decades," the minister concluded. Bologna beat off competition from Exeter and Slough (United Kingdom), Luxembourg, Espoo (Finland) and Akureyri (Iceland).

Bologna is the new European centre for medium-range weather forecasting