Innovation advances daily in Barcelona, hand in hand with companies, institutions, startups, research centers, universities, and an entire connected ecosystem. But there are steps that accelerate this progress, and two key infrastructures have made a simultaneous leap that reinforces Catalonia's role as a hub of innovation and technology, at a European level. Although it does so in two very different sectors —though, like everything, connected—, both pave the way to consolidate Catalonia as a European benchmark in value-added technological sectors. In this case, AI and audiovisual.
The Government has approved allocating 14 million euros until 2029 to deploy the BSC AI Factory, while it has declared the Catalunya Media City of the Tres Xemeneies as a strategic project. In the case of the BSC, it will expand the capabilities of the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer with new accelerators specifically designed for artificial intelligence applications. Most of the resources will be concentrated this year, with more than 10.6 million euros of investment, while the rest will be executed progressively until 2029.
The objective is to reinforce the computing capacity necessary to train advanced artificial intelligence models and facilitate that companies, research centers, and administrations develop new applications in this field. With this expansion, the BSC aims to consolidate itself as one of the main European infrastructures dedicated to AI, taking advantage of the role that MareNostrum 5 already plays as one of the most powerful supercomputers on the continent.
The investment comes in a context of international competition to have infrastructures capable of responding to the computational needs of the new generation of artificial intelligence models. Beyond scientific research, this capacity is also considered key to boosting business innovation in sectors as diverse as health, industry, mobility, and energy.
Among these sectors is also the audiovisual one, which will be boosted with the new Catalunya Media City. Now, it has received the necessary administrative impulse to accelerate its transformation into a large audiovisual, digital, and video game hub, with the declaration by the Government as a strategic project. This step will allow for speeding up its development, especially regarding the essential energy infrastructures for the future hub to deploy all its activity.
Likewise, the Government has expressed its support for the project to be recognized as strategic by the State, which would facilitate administrative coordination and priority access to certain infrastructures and support programs. All this to accelerate the transformation of the old industrial site into an ecosystem dedicated to audiovisual production, video games, immersive technologies, research, and specialized training, in a project that aims to become one of the main hubs in Southern Europe in these areas. The new business district could host around 2,000 qualified professionals and generate between 3,500 and 5,000 indirect and induced jobs, by the sea in Sant Adrià de Besòs, and also next to public transport such as Rodalies and the Tram.
In this area of mobility, the Government has also taken a step forward. In the Executive Council, it has also approved a plan to dedicate 1,800 million euros of public-private investment to accelerate infrastructures. Specifically, it foresees 750 million for roads and another 700 million for the metro. One of the projects in which resources will be invested will be the L9, two weeks after the sinkhole that forced the evacuation of homes and businesses in Putxet. Precisely, the Government has also approved a package of measures and aid for those affected.