Málaga has been the city chosen by the Interuniversity Microelectronics Center (IMEC), based in Belgium, to install its second R&D center in Europe in Spain, as announced by the Minister of Digital Transformation and Public Administrations, José Luis Escrivá, during the presentation of the strategic lines of his department for the next legislature before the Economy, Commerce and Digital Transformation Commission of Congress this Monday.
Escrivá has also explained that his department has worked “very intensely” in recent weeks with both the Junta de Andalucía and the Malaga City Council to close the agreement that “is still pending finalizing the final details.”
IMEC – based in Leuven – is a global reference for semiconductor research and development. It has around 5,000 researchers from 95 countries and around 600 industrial partners, among which are “all the large international companies in the sector.” It is a leading center in the world and is an example of the attractive investment that Spain has for investment in new technologies,” the minister assured.
In the last year, various multinationals have announced the location in Spain of strategic high-tech centers such as in the field of semiconductors and microelectronics, such as the one Cisco has already located in Barcelona or Broadcom. This last company announced before the summer an investment of almost 1,000 million in a chip plant in Spain. The final location of this investment is currently being negotiated, as recognized by José Luis Escrivá, and it is not the only one that the Government has open. “We are going to be surprised at the end of this legislation with the number of investments that will come to Spain, I have more information than you,” Escrivá commented to the PP deputy, Mario Cortés, who reproached him for the regulatory risk of Spain to attract that foreign capital.
At the national level, Escrivá has announced the Government’s intention to promote Artificial Intelligence as one of the strategic points of the legislature and the first of the three great consensuses on which he wants to base his work at the head of the Ministry.
“We are going to promote the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the private sector to improve competitiveness and also in the public administration to act as a driver of this change. An impulse that will be accompanied by a humanistic use of this new technology. Society must feel that we are going to set the limits to where machines can make their own decisions and where humans have to make them,” the minister assured during his appearance.
On the part of the administration, the first materialization of this objective involves expanding the radius of action of the Digital Kit and opening it to the financing of AI projects, in addition to allowing medium-sized companies that have between 50 and 250 to access this aid. employees.
So far, the digital Kit has distributed half of the total allocated and in the coming days it will open a new call to which for the first time medium-sized companies, those with the most interest in AI projects, will be able to attend, although the objective of the ministry is to “also stimulate small companies to advance in this technology at all levels, since only 5% of small companies are using AI,” said the Secretary of States for Digitalization and Digital Agenda, Maite Ledo.
But beyond this specific action, José Luis Escrivá has demanded a political and social consensus to set the limits of this new technology that can contribute to the Spanish economy an average of five tenths of GDP in the next five years.
“I believe that this has to be the result of a reflection and a common commitment that has to involve the entire society,” he assured, identifying this consensus with the one achieved in the Toledo Pact with pensions, promoted from his previous position as Minister of Social Security.
Along the same lines, he has requested an agreement for the development of the country’s technological capabilities to modernize the Administration and improve the digital skills of citizens. The minister has once again drawn on his experience in Social Security regarding the necessary evolution of the language between the Administration and citizens. “I have always seen a significant gap between the language in which citizens approach the Administration with their own vision about the difficulties, the problems, the benefits they require and how the administration tends to respond with language that in many cases is administrative and not always understandable by its final recipients. We must work so that AI helps us make this communication much clearer.
A technological development that cannot be separated from the basic security guarantee, which is why José Luis Escrivá has committed to bringing a cybersecurity law to the Council of Minister to provide a general response that allows us to reduce the probability of cyberattacks in the critical infrastructures and in companies in general, reduce response times when they occur in addition to reducing the impacts that occur to minimize the impact on the economy.
Among these critical infrastructures that must be safeguarded will be the new data centers that the Government also wants to promote in the coming years, with the aim of Spain becoming a hub for attracting investments for this type of infrastructure given the strategic conditions of the country. such as its geopolitical situation, the possibility of access to more affordable energy than other countries as well as the great connectivity that the country offers, the only one in Europe that has 100% of the population connected to high-capacity Internet either by fiber or satelite.
