Microsoft continues to strengthen its commitment to Barcelona. The American multinational software company launched last September in the Catalan capital an artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning research and development (R&D) hub, the first for all of Spain. It started with about thirty professionals, a number that has already grown to ninety, all of them highly qualified profiles specialized in software engineering, data science, and machine learning.
The initial forecasts, which contemplated exceeding a hundred workers in the first years of the center's operation, have thus been accelerated. The good reception its opening has received and the multiple candidates who have applied for its hiring processes explain the rapid growth of the workforce. "We are delighted with the high specialization of the professionals who have already joined our AI-focused R&D hub team in Spain, and this has encouraged us to expand the number of hires," says Jordi Ribas, corporate vice president of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and leader of the Search & AI team, which includes the new center.
Ribas, a telecommunications engineer trained at La Salle Engineering School in Barcelona, is today one of Microsoft's top executives in the United States. He began his professional career at the Japanese NTT and Sharp, and joined Microsoft 21 years ago. Within the company, he has become one of the main people responsible for the development of the Bing search engine.
The company emphasizes that Spain is one of the ten most attractive countries for attracting and retaining digital talent, being the fourth in Europe in the number of cloud professionals and developers, which represents almost 10% of the total available profiles. "Our goal is for this hub to consolidate as a pole of attraction for talent, making Catalonia and Spain a European reference in AI innovation. The very satisfactory response to the vacancies we have offered is further proof that Microsoft's investment and commitment in our country is correct," adds Microsoft Spain president, Alberto Granados.
The new center in Barcelona is one of the eight research centers that Microsoft has worldwide in its WebXT (Web Experiences Team) division, dedicated to improving the user experience when using the Bing search engine, the Edge browser, the Windows operating system, Office programs, or the Microsoft Azure cloud computing service. This unit employs 5,000 people worldwide.
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