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Built in just 5 weeks: SMITT modular engineering and NESITE raised access floors in the public administration’s digital infrastructure

The digital transition of Italy’s strategic infrastructure has just set a new benchmark for the industrial construction sector. In Rome, the Italian State Mint’s new data centre – a complex covering approximately 13,000 square metres – was completed and made operational in a record time-to-market of just 5 weeks.

This achievement demonstrates the effectiveness in practice of the modular, prefabricated dry-construction methodology – an approach that reduces on-site construction times whilst ensuring the fault tolerance, energy efficiency and scalability required by today’s IT standards.

Plug&Play Construction: Smitt’s modular solutions

The structural architecture is based on Smitt’s Plug&Play prefabricated systems, engineered to optimise installation speed and the robustness of the building envelope. The complex consists of 44 modules assembled directly on site, forming a compartmentalised, watertight structure designed for future modular expansion, using 100% recyclable materials.

From a disaster recovery perspective, the infrastructure has been designed to meet stringent physical resilience criteria:

// Seismic isolation: the structure is fitted with a base isolation system developed in collaboration with the Politecnico di Milano.

// Resistance to environmental loads: the building envelope is designed to withstand wind loads exceeding 200 km/h.

// Operational continuity: the layout and systems are engineered in accordance with the ANSI/TIA-942-C standard to achieve a Rated 4 rating (corresponding to 99.995% availability and a concurrently maintainable architecture).

Plenum engineering and structural loads

The infrastructure accommodates a computing density of over 200 racks, with a total IT load of 1.5 MW and a 2N configuration for electrical and mechanical distribution, which eliminates Single Points of Failure (SPOFs).

In this context, Nesite raised access floors address two of the main engineering challenges associated with server room design:

// Structural load-bearing capacity: the system ensures the correct distribution of the static weight of fully loaded racks and resistance to dynamic stresses during server handling, installation and maintenance.

// Airflow management: the void created beneath the floor is used as a distribution chamber for air conditioning. The channelling and confinement of cold air allow it to be directed precisely towards the IT equipment, optimising heat exchange.

The integration of these systems has made it possible to minimise auxiliary air-conditioning consumption, achieving a PUE of ≤ 1.25 at full load.

A new standard for digital infrastructure

The case of the State Mint confirms that the evolution of data centres cannot be separated from the industrialisation of the construction process. The combination of prefabricated building modules and standardised, high-performance internal components represents the most effective design approach for combining Tier/Rated-level reliability with extremely short delivery times.