A2A is Italy's largest multi-utility company, headquartered in Milan, providing energy, waste management, water, and environmental services across northern Italy. Through its smart city division, A2A delivers integrated urban technology solutions including intelligent street lighting, environmental monitoring networks, IoT sensor platforms, and digital energy management systems.
The company manages over 100,000 connected smart streetlights in Milan and other Italian cities, using adaptive lighting technology that adjusts output based on traffic, weather, and time of day while serving as mounting points for environmental sensors and connectivity infrastructure. A2A's smart city platform aggregates data from across its service networks to provide municipalities with real-time dashboards for urban management, covering energy consumption, air quality, waste collection efficiency, and water distribution.
A2A invests heavily in circular economy infrastructure, operating waste-to-energy plants and material recovery facilities that contribute to Milan's sustainability goals. The company's district heating network in Milan is one of the largest in Italy, reducing building emissions through centralised thermal energy production.
A2A participates in European smart city research consortia and collaborates with Politecnico di Milano and other research institutions on urban innovation projects. A2A's integrated approach — combining traditional utility infrastructure with digital innovation — exemplifies how multi-utilities can become central platforms for smart city transformation, providing the data infrastructure and service networks that underpin intelligent urban management.