· In her speech, the Secretary of State informed the participating entities that they can already apply for the Kit Data Spaces grants which, with an investment of 60 million euros, will be “the ‘subscription’ with which effective AI solutions will soon flourish in all sectors”
The Government of Spain has supported a total of 44 data projects in the agri-food sector throughout Spain with grants of 36 million euros, which are expected to achieve a total mobilization of more than 56 million euros. This was highlighted by the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, María González Veracruz, at the opening of the Field Demonstration Day of the VII DATAGRI Forum, which took place today at the Murcian Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Research and Development (IMIDA) in Murcia.
During this national event, which has been consolidated as a reference of southern Europe on digital transformation in the agri-food sector, the Secretary of State recalled that “there are many policies that we are promoting from the Government of Spain in the digitalization of all sectors”. In addition, he explained that “we are convinced that the systematic work of the data, throughout the value chain, can help the agri-food to achieve more efficiency, precision and sustainability”.
In this regard, he said that “data spaces are the ‘subscription’ with which we are going to make new effective artificial intelligence solutions flourish in all economic sectors.” And he stressed that “agrifood is the second most active sector within the National Plan for the Promotion of Data Spaces, to which the Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Public Service has allocated 280 million euros in public subsidies”.
In the Region of Murcia, of the five projects that are being supported within the framework of the Plan, with grants totalling 3 million euros, two involve the agri-food sector. These are ‘EDS4Agro’ from the company Odin Solutions; and ‘Food Tech Specs Data Space’ from the company AMC Natural Drinks. “These projects are developing key data architectures for agriculture such as optimizing activities such as AI irrigation and sensors, predicting crop status using satellite data, and improving agricultural decisions by crossing experiences. And the creation of data spaces for the beverage sector is also being promoted, with which the way in which information is managed for companies and for the final consumer is going to be modernized,” he said.
Open call for the Data Spaces Kit
Likewise, the Secretary of State has informed the Murcian entities participating in the day about the opening, until March 31, of the deadline for requesting the convocation of supports Kit Data Spacesto which the Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service has allocated 60 million euros, with the aim of facilitating the incorporation of public and private entities into sectoral data spaces. In this regard, it has confirmed that the Data Spaces Kit will work as the Digital Kit, in order of arrival if the requirements to receive the bonus and even exhaust funds are met.