IBM, Google and Microsoft In the last ten days, three major investments were announced in our country to install cutting-edge technology centers. The same week that the president of Government, Pedro Sánchez, intervened in the Davos forum to claim before world business leaders the benefits of investing in Spain.
The words of Sánchez They are not accidental and respond to a strategic measure by the Executive and the Ministry of Economic Affairs to attract foreign investment to Spain, especially technology companies.
This newspaper already reported on these movements at the beginning of this year when we revealed the meetings of the economic vice president, Nadia Calviño, to “sell” Spain to foreign investors.
The last part of the year 2020 was already full of meetings at all levels in which members of his ministry and of his different secretariats of State have transferred large international companies the benefits of investing in our country.
In 2021, the idea was to close agreements and ensure the arrival of a large part of these companies to Spanish territory. The focus was mainly on the digital and audiovisual world as an integral part of the reconstruction of post-Covid Spain and hand in hand with European funds, that 30% will be destined to digitization.
Meetings with Nadia Calviño
A reality that has begun to take shape from the second half of this year and that has confirmed significant investments in companies such as those mentioned IBM, Google and Microsoft, but also from Vodafone, NTT or Amazon.
The sources consulted by this newspaper indicate, however, that we are only before the beginning of the arrival of other great technologies that are finalizing the landing in our country. In this way, similar announcements from other large digital multinationals should multiply in the coming months, as Invertia has learned.
The objective of the Government and the ministry led by Nadia Calvin is to turn Spain into a global technology center that serve as a bridge between Europe and Latin America. A place where the world’s great digital companies coexist in a collaborative environment, with a more favorable tax system and with help for the installation of these hub.
In this line, IBM announced last Wednesday the installation in the Community of Madrid of its first Cloud Multi-Zone Region (MZR) in Spain. For the technology giant, “Spain, and especially the Madrid’s community, has become a hub of digital businesses in southern Europe thanks to its strategic geographical position, the high demand for cloud services and the ability to generate and attract talent “.
It is hub technology will support companies to accelerate the development of intelligent workflows based on the hybrid cloud of IBM y RedHat Openshift, while helping them meet industry compliance, data sovereignty, and security requirements with industry-leading capabilities in IBM Confidential Computing. As a culmination, IBM announced that CaixaBank will join this Multi-Zone Region as its first client.
Microsoft and Google
On Monday it was also announced that Microsoft chose Spain, specifically Barcelona, as base of operations for your new R&D hub specialized in the application of artificial intelligence technologies to improve the user experience on the web.
The one of Spain will be one of the eight research centers that it has worldwide Microsoft’s WebXT (Web Experiences Team) division, an organization of more than 5,000 people, focused on the development of advanced user experiences based on the use of technologies of Artificial Intelligence and deep learning.
The hub Barcelonian seeks attract talent from all European countries and is part of the Search & AI team led by Jordi Ribas, corporate vice president of Microsoft Corporation in the United States.
Last September 9 Google announced the installation of Grace Hopper, its submarine cable, in Sopelana (Bilbao). An advanced submarine cabling system that connects United States with United Kingdom and Spain.
The cable of 16 pairs of fibers, designed to increase service reliability and offer high levels of network speed and flexibility, will increase the capacity and power of the Google, and will improve the overall European telecommunications infrastructure.
Vodafone and NTT
It is the first cable financed by Google to reach the country, and “is part of the commitment to the economic recovery of Spain “, offering consumers better access to Google products and businesses better performance of enterprise products such as Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspace. It will have the help of Telxius, of Telefónica.
Last May it was also announced that the group Vodafone will set in Málaga its european center of I+D+I for the development of new technological solutions and new generation digital services in the city of Málaga.
This European center of Vodafone Business It will mean the creation of more than 600 jobs, incorporating new highly qualified profiles, as indicated by the company.
In July it was also known that the Japanese telecommunications giant NTT announced the opening in Madrid of its subsidiary NTT Cloud Infrastructure United Kingdom Branch in Spain. The new company began operations on June 8, with the provision of cloud computing services as a corporate purpose.
On the other hand, in December last Amazon announced that it will open three data centers in Spain to enhance its cloud computing services, marketed through its division Amazon Web Services (AWS). The centers will be operational in late 2022 or early 2023.
Alliances with Telefónica
The American multinational has not disclosed the investment figure, but the Herald of Aragon ensures that will allocate 2,500 million euros and will generate 1,500 direct jobs in a period of ten years.
In the same way, Google teamed up with Telefónica and announced its first data center region in Spain. A Google Cloud region will be opened in Madrid that will take advantage of the infrastructure that the teleco has in the Spanish capital.
In this line, Telefónica and Microsoft announced a year ago an expansion of their strategic alliance, aimed at accelerating the digital transformation of public and private entities of all sizes. The US group will open a data center infrastructure in Spain.
What’s behind all these ads? The government It pledged in the summer to invest 140,000 million in digitizing the economy in the next five years. Of them, 70,000 million will be invested in the first three and of these only 20,000 will be public funds.
The remaining 50,000 million will have to come from private resources that cannot be fully paid for by the companies currently established in Spain. This forces to look for new partners.
Digital Spain Plan
Last year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs began to lay the legal bases to attract foreign investment in these areas with a battery of tax aid, exemptions, improvements in financing and bureaucratic simplification that contains the Digital Spain Plan 2025.
Some of these measures have already begun to be deployed and others will do so in 2021. This new investment-friendly playing field has seven draft laws, 50 royal decrees, 95 agreements and 112 regulatory projects in the areas of competence of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, particularly in the field of financial, telecommunications and audiovisual regulation.
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Reference-www.elespanol.com