Spain will have a second AI Factory. It will be in Galiciaspecifically in the facilities of the community Supercomputing Center (CESGA)a foundation owned by the CSIC. This second factory in Spain will be focused on the healthcare sector, and will have an investment of 82 million euros. This has been confirmed by EuroHPC JU, the European institution in charge of channeling the AI Factories initiative.
Half of the investment announced for the development of this factory, 41 million euros, will be co-financed by the Government of Spain through the Ministry of Science (24 million euros) and the Xunta de Galicia (17 million euros). EuroHPC JU will contribute the other remaining 41 million for the development of the project.
In addition to the AI Factory that will host the CESGA, EuroHPC JU has announced the creation of five others in Europe, which will join the other seven that are already under development in other parts of Europe. Until now, only one of them was in Spain. Specifically, at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
The CESGA AI Factory will be called 1HealthAI, and for its launch a specific supercomputer for AI will be purchased, as well as an advanced supercomputing platform optimized for experimental AI. The Factory will be in charge of providing comprehensive support services to companies and research centers free of charge.
1HealthAI also has the participation of different partners, among which are the three Galician public universities, as well as several agents of the Galician R&D&I system. Such as the research centers of the CIGUS Network, as well as the European Digital Innovation Hub DATAlife and the Gradiant technology center. Furthermore, the candidacy of the CESGA and the CSIC has had the support of more than 60 entities at the national, European and international level. Among them, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
This Galician AI Factory will be in charge of promoting cooperation with other European AI factories that work in health-related or complementary sectors. It will also seek to address, from the point of view of innovation and research, the challenges of the One health approach, which seeks to balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems in a sustainable way.
Among its areas of action will be personalized medicine, healthy aging, marine resource management, blue biotechnology, agriculture, livestock, the forestry sector, functional foods, nutraceuticals, pharmaceutical and vaccine development, environmental biotechnology, the circular economy and bioenergy.
According to Eloísa del Pino, President of CSICwith this new infrastructure, «The CSIC reinforces its capabilities in the development of scientific services with high added value, making the most of the scientific data ecosystem generated by the institution. As the largest research institution in Spain, present in all areas of science, our participation has an impact that extends throughout the national territory, essentially complementing the Galician research ecosystem.«.
As for the Councilor of the Xunta de Galicia de Ciencia, Román Rodríguezhas indicated that the Galician government is working on the construction of a new headquarters for the CESGA, in the Sionlla industrial estate, co-financed through European funds within the framework of the PERTE Chip and the Xunta’s own funds. It will be there that the AI Factory will be installed. For him, the arrival of this second AI Factory in Spain is a «flagship project that links the areas of biotechnology and artificial intelligence and places us among the elite in this field in Europe«.
