MILAN (Reuters). Italy will accept a proposal from a consortium, which includes Telecom Italia (MI:-) (TIM), as a template in the national cloud tender that will be launched in the first weeks in 2022. The digital innovation minister said Monday.

The infrastructure, known as the National Strategic Hub is part of the government’s strategy to speed up digital transformation and ensure national data security. Rome had allocated $1.04 billion ($900 million) to the project in April’s national Recovery Plan.

Ministry said that it received three suggestions for national cloud. The one submitted by the TIM-led consortium – state lender CDP as well as defence group Leonardo, government IT agency Sogei – was chosen by the ministry because it “fully and satisfactorily reflects” the September requirements.

According to the ministry, the solicitation for tenders is likely to be released in the first few weeks of 2022. This would allow work to begin within the second quarter of the year.

Although other proposals can be submitted in accordance with the TIM-consortium’s guidelines, the project is considered the favourite to win this tender. The consortium has the right to accept any better bids.

Two other proposals were made by a partnership of Italian IT company AlmavivA with cloud provider Aruba, and also a consortium comprising Italian software developer Engineering as well as telecoms group Fastweb (a Swisscom unit).