Nuova AI epoca for Telecom Italia

• Italy’s national operator is now under new ownership following the completion of the takeover by Poste Italiane
• Big changes – and new opportunities – lie ahead, with a new integrated strategy to be presented in early 2027
• In the meantime, Poste Italiane is pressing ahead with datacentre investments and AI service development plans that leverage Telecom Italia’s enterprise sector strengths as it positions itself as a key sovereign services player in Italy

After several years of corporate transformation that included a number of major M&A deals, Telecom Italia (TIM) now faces a more certain future as part of the Poste Italiane empire following the official completion of the €11.35bn takeover deal on 30 September. But there will still be many more changes in the coming months as Poste Italiane seeks to make the most of Telecom Italia’s assets to further improve its financial performance and position itself at the heart of the digital sovereign services sector in Italy. 

While a full post-integration industrial strategy is yet to be presented – that will come in the first quarter of next year – Poste Italiane is already kickstarting new initiatives, particularly those related to the development of sovereign AI infrastructure and services. 

Those early moves were communicated as both Poste Italiane and Telecom Italia reported their respective third-quarter financials. 

In reporting impressive growth in both sales and earnings for the first nine months of 2026 – with revenue up 5% to €10.2bn and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes (EBIT) up 7% to almost €2.7bn – Poste Italiane CEO Matteo Del Fante stated: “With TIM now part of the group, our focus is firmly on execution and value creation. We are combining Poste Italiane’s unparalleled physical and digital reach, customer base and trusted platform with TIM’s connectivity and tech infrastructure to build Italy’s leading AI-powered connecting platform.”

The CEO noted that “integration is progressing at pace,” with about 200 staff working across nine joint workstreams to bring the two organisations together. The merger is set to result in “synergies” worth at least €700m to €500m in cost savings and €200m in incremental earnings from new business opportunities. Del Fante identified “early quick wins across procurement, funding, real estate and commercial initiatives,” including “the upcoming addition of TIMVision to our SuperApp and the opening of the first TIM shop-in-shops in landmark post offices. We will present the business plan for the combined group in the first quarter of 2027,” he added. 

“Poste Italiane and TIM together have the scale, reach and technology to lead Italy’s digital transformation while strengthening the country’s technological independence,” he added. “We are Italy’s connecting platform, creating value for our clients, our people, our country and our shareholders.”

Del Fante also highlighted early developments related to AI, including the pilot Fincantieri Ontology Project, which is being run jointly by Poste Italiane and TIM Enterprise to deliver physical AI into the shipyards of Fincantieri, one of the world’s largest shipbuilding groups, using “AI agents to understand and act on real-world industrial knowledge. This pioneering project is an important validation of our AI and data platforms by an external company, leader in its space, and a major step forward in our ambition to lead Italy’s digital transformation and AI adoption,” noted the CEO.

In addition, Poste Italiane noted in its earnings presentation slide deck that it has launched a €600m co-investment fund via its asset management unit, BancoPosta Fondi (BPF), for AI datacentre projects across Italy that will enable it to team up with other investors to develop sovereign AI infrastructure. 

About 20% of the fund’s total will comprise equity investment from BPF, Telecom Italia’s cloud and datacentre unit Noovle (which is part of TIM Enterprise) and investor partners, while the other 80% is expected to come in the form of debt funding. 

The expectation is that the fund will be used to build AI datacentre facilities with 20 megawatts (MW) of capacity. Noovle currently operates 16 datacentres across the country. 

As for Telecom Italia, which has operations in Italy and Brazil, it has just reported revenues for the first nine months of the year of €10.4bn, up by 2.8% on a like-for-like basis compared with the same period in 2025, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) after leases of €2.8bn, up by 2.3%. 

TIM Enterprise performed particularly well, with revenues for the first nine months of the year up by 6.8% to €2.5bn. Cloud services grew particularly quickly, jumping 20% to account for about €1.15bn of that total. 

Telecom Italia’s CEO Pietro Labriola stated: “We continue to execute our plan and confirm our targets for 2026. The results for the first nine months show that TIM has regained industrial and financial strength… Poste Italiane is accelerating the industrial development path we have established. TIM brings connectivity, digital infrastructure, technological expertise and long-standing relationships with households, businesses and public administrations. Poste adds its customer base, distribution strength and further industrial and technological capabilities. We must now turn these complementary strengths into tangible results.” 

The operator has some work to do in its domestic market, though, as its consumer  mobile customer base continues to shrink, ending September at 15 million, down by about 700,000 compared with a year earlier.

The same trend is impacting TIM Brasil, which ended September with 61.58 million consumer mobile customers, over 1 million fewer than a year earlier. 

In Italy, the operator ended September with 5.57 million ultra-broadband fixed-line customers, up by just 32,000 from a year earlier, while in Brazil the operator had 931,000 ultra-broadband customers, up by 108,000 compared with a year earlier.

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV