Madrid, June 7, 2024.- The Government of Spain, through the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service, finances three national projects for the research and development of advanced cloud computing technologies. An investment that is part of the Project of Common European Interest in Integrated Computing Systems (IPCEI-CIS) and that is going to allocate 111 million euros to finance projects of Telefónica, Open Nebula and Arsys.
The support of these projects is a further step by the Spanish Government in strengthening our country’s infrastructure capacities to increase the impact of the potential development of 5G. An investment financed through the Next Generation EU Funds, within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.
Spain is one of the twelve Member States participating in this European initiative. For its development, the Government resolved at the end of last year the national call UNICO IPCEI for competitive competition to finance direct participants.
The three estimated proposals are led by the companies Telefónica, OpenNebula and Arsys and will develop infrastructures and services for this data processing technology with access in the cloud. This investment aims to have positive spin-offs across Europe, improving cross-border digital infrastructure connectivity and supporting next-generation infrastructure and services projects in the cloud and edge.
The Telefónica project aims to design and deploy at least 28 Edge nodes to create a decentralized, sustainable, secure, distributed and multi-vendor cloud solution. It aims to complement 5G technologies and fiber networks to offer advanced services such as the metaverse, industry 4.0 or immersive experiences.
The Open Nebula project aims to create open source software that will allow companies to deploy cloud-edge instances in the European cloud in a very simple way. For its part, the Arsys project will create a digital twin to improve the sustainability and efficiency of Data Processing Centers (CPDs) and Edge nodes in the operation of the 5G network and a monitoring system to improve their management and performance.
The financing of these national projects in Spain is in line with achieving the digital sovereignty and strategic autonomy of the European Union, objective in which this launch of the IPCEI-CIS marks a before and after in cloud computing and on the edge at European level. Participating companies will develop an open-source edge and cloud environment that will enable real-time, low-latency services using distributed computing resources close to users.
The Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure, María González Veracruz, stressed that “these 111 million public investments are a crucial investment for projects that develop infrastructures and technologies for data processing in the cloud. It is another milestone in the reindustrialization that we are leading from the Government, implementing in our country technological activities and initiatives that are key in the present and will be decisive in the future”
About IPCEI-CIS
The Major Project of Common European Interest for Next Generation Cloud Infrastructure and Services (IPCEI-CIS) is the first IPCEI in the field of cloud and edge computing. It focuses on the development of the first European interoperable and open-access cloud data processing ecosystem to the edge by multiple providers.
The IPCEI-CIS, whose launch was presented a few months ago by representatives of the European Union in Brussels, plans to mobilize a total of 2.6 billion euros, with 1,200 coming from public funding.
It will develop data processing capabilities, software and data exchange tools that facilitate federated, reliable and energy-efficient distributed data processing technologies in the cloud and on the edge, as well as related services. The innovation offered by IPCEI CIS will offer a new range of possibilities to European companies and citizens, which will boost the digital and ecological transition in Europe.