Spain backs AI gigafactory to boost European technological sovereignty
The planned AI gigafactory would host large-scale GPU capacity for training and deploying advanced models.
Spain has approved a €719 million investment in a national AI gigafactory project aimed at expanding advanced computing capacity and strengthening European technological sovereignty.
The investment was authorised by Spain’s Council of Ministers through the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service. The investment will be channelled through the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT), which will establish a public-private consortium to develop the project and submit a bid under a forthcoming European Commission call for AI gigafactories.
The government said the project is intended to expand European access to advanced computing resources, reduce technological dependencies and support AI development under European regulatory frameworks.
The planned Spanish bid will use a multi-site model, with locations in Móra la Nova in Tarragona and San Fernando de Henares in Madrid. The government said the AI gigafactory is designed as a large-scale industrial initiative and could become part of one of Europe’s main AI infrastructures.
Spain’s Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Service, Óscar López, said the investment supports technological sovereignty, reindustrialisation and leadership in reliable and sustainable AI. He argued that greater European access to advanced computing resources would accelerate innovation, support scientific research and enable public administrations to develop more advanced and secure digital services.
According to the government, AI gigafactories are specialised data centres designed to host hundreds of thousands of GPUs required to train and deploy advanced AI models. These include large language models and advanced computer vision systems.
The ministry said such facilities differ from conventional data centres because they are specialised for the large-scale computing capacity required by the next generation of AI. The ministry noted that infrastructure for training frontier AI models is currently dominated by US hyperscalers and, to a lesser extent, China’s domestic AI ecosystem.
Spain said the AI gigafactory project would support European efforts to build sovereign supercomputing hubs through EuroHPC, which includes the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, and programmes such as PERTE Chip.
The government said an AI gigafactory would benefit startups, SMEs, large companies, universities, research centres and public administrations that need significant computing capacity to develop advanced AI. It would also allow the European ecosystem to train, test, and deploy AI models without depending entirely on foreign providers.
The project is structured through a public-private consortium whose composition is still being finalised. Spain said the scale of the initiative requires a combination of public leadership, industrial capabilities, financing and technological expertise.
The ministry said SETT’s participation will provide public strategic direction, coordination, and execution capacity. The operation also builds on Spain’s existing AI infrastructure ecosystem, including two AI Factories linked to EuroHPC: the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the Galician Supercomputing Center, both supported by Spanish government funding.
Why does it matter?
The announcement reflects the growing importance of computing infrastructure in the global AI race. Access to large-scale compute resources has become a strategic requirement for training and deploying advanced AI systems, yet much of that capacity remains concentrated among a small number of US technology companies and, increasingly, Chinese providers.
Spain’s investment, therefore, goes beyond digital infrastructure. It forms part of a broader European effort to strengthen technological sovereignty, support domestic innovation ecosystems and reduce dependence on foreign AI platforms. If successful, the project could provide startups, research institutions, public administrations and businesses with greater access to advanced computing resources while reinforcing the EU’s ambitions to build a more competitive and autonomous AI ecosystem.
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