Just a week ago it was confirmed that one of the seven AI factories that the European Union was going to launch will be in Spain. Specifically, according to EuroHPC’s choice, it will be in the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), which will receive just under 200 million euros to develop and launch it. In total, there will be around 198 million euros, provided by different government institutions, as well as other organizations and entities.
The European Commission, within the framework of the Horizon Europe financing program, will contribute to the development of the BSC AI factory with 98 million euros, while the Government of Spain will contribute nearly 62 million. It will do so through the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service, as well as the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. The Generalitat of Catalonia will also collaborate in the project with another 14 million euros.
The project will also have various contributions from other countries. Thus, the Government of Portugal will invest 15.6 million euros, the Government of Turkey 6.5 million euros and the Government of Romania 1 million euros more.
The BSC proposal includes an expansion of the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer, which will incorporate advanced AI accelerator technology to train and develop large-scale generative AI models. In addition, the center will rely on the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES), which is an alliance of 14 organizations with supercomputers distributed throughout Spain to offer high-performance computing services.
The development project for this AI factory will begin to be implemented in 2025, and if everything goes as planned it will be operational before the end of the year. This AI factory is part of a new type of infrastructure designed by the European Commission to promote R&D in Artificial Intelligence.
The factory will integrate both advanced technological resources, data and specialized talent. It will be part of an ecosystem that will serve companies of all types and sizes, as well as institutions, so that they can access a supercomputing infrastructure optimized for AI. Also to a network of complementary services. Its objective is to democratize access to AI resources for sectors with limited resources and encourage innovation in areas such as biomedicine, climatology and chip design.
Regarding the use of AI factory infrastructure for the biomedical sector, the application of AI throughout the life cycle of medicines, in particular to analyze clinical data, is expected to maximize the development of specialized medical treatments.
According to Óscar López, Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Service«The Government of Spain has always been committed to responsible innovation in artificial intelligence. With the BSC AI Factory we take a firm step towards the democratization of access to artificial intelligence to increase the competitiveness of our ecosystem, but above all so that this competitiveness results in an improvement of our society”.
As to Diana Morant, Minister of Science, Innovation and Universitieshas highlighted the collaboration of the Government with this project, which «It will make it possible to position Spain as one of the reference countries in the development of artificial intelligence and, in addition, encourage both the public and private sectors to develop R&D projects with a notable impact on science and technology.”.
On the part of the Government of Catalonia, Núria Montserrat, Minister for Research and Universitieshas pointed out that «We are faced with a great and unprecedented opportunity to improve the quality of life of citizens. With this significant investment in cutting-edge projects, Catalonia promotes the implementation of disruptive technologies and the transition towards a more sustainable and competitive model«.
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