Closseum. How Europe is creating sovereign AI infrastructure and why it is important for Ukraine

Colosseum is a next-generation data centre located in Southern Italy. It is based on NVIDIA GB200 NVL72, a platform that combines 72 Blackwell GPUs and 36 Grace CPUs in a hyper-efficient liquid-cooled system. A purpose-built central AI deployment platform for processing large models, including LLM (Large Language Models) and AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). This system is the flagship of NVIDIA's new architecture and a true ‘engine’ for processing artificial intelligence models containing billions or even trillions of parameters.
But even the most powerful processor is only hardware, and it needs a stable, reliable, and intelligent infrastructure. And that's where Vertiv and the NVIDIA software ecosystem come in.
In a project of this magnitude, stability is paramount. Vertiv provided the Colosseum with a full range of solutions that turned the tech giant into a reliable data fortress:

- Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS): Power redundancy systems with multi-level redundancy and scalability.

- Liquid cooling: Critical for GPU-intensive clusters, it helps to maintain optimal temperatures at lower power consumption.

- Centralised monitoring: platforms that monitor every watt and every degree in real time.

Thanks to Vertiv, the Colosseum's infrastructure is not only technologically advanced, but also 100% fault tolerant, which is critical for AI.
Another key player in this story is NVIDIA Mission Control. This is an intelligent data centre management platform that coordinates the operation of hardware, software, AI workloads, and even the physical environment, including:

- Automatic resource balancing between training and processing AI model requests.

- Flexible scaling depending on the needs.

- Integration with power and cooling systems - taking into account efficiency and costs.

- Customised to meet industry needs: from financial institutions to medical research.

Mission Control is a centralised control panel that ensures the synchronised operation of all data centre components in real time. It takes automation and control to a new level.
This project is not just a technology showcase. It is a clear benchmark for countries seeking digital sovereignty. And that is why Colosseum is important for Ukraine.
We have a great demand for secure AI infrastructure, especially in the defence sector, financial industry, government agencies, and telecoms. But most importantly, Ukrainian businesses and the government are increasingly seeking to store data on their own territory, have control over its processing, and reduce dependence on global cloud giants.
Colosseum is proof that local AI infrastructure can be powerful, secure, and meet the highest standards.