Schneider Electric will expand the technological 'brain' of the Sagrada Familia

The management of ticket sales and admission to access the Sagrada Familia Basilica, the audio-video guide platforms for visitors, the video surveillance of the entire monumental complex, connectivity, the engineering design and construction processes of the work started by architect Antoni Gaudí... everything in the Sagrada Familia is in the hands of a modular and mobile data center that was installed with the technical specifications of the multinational Schneider Electric.

Eight years after its launch, and awaiting its definitive location somewhere inside the temple when the works are completed ---which due to the halt caused by the pandemic will be beyond the scheduled date of 2026---, the data center or technological brain of the Sagrada Familia is at 75% of its capacity.

Therefore, by the time the definitive location is found, possibly underground, the officials of the Sagrada Familia Construction Board and the multinational Schneider Electric already take for granted that the 10 server racks of installed power in the data center must grow to absorb the growth in visitor demand foreseen in the future, as well as to respond to the technological advances that are incorporated ---Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Augmented Reality---.

In 2014, when the then IT department saw the need to have a data center that incorporated all the hardware drivers to gain capacity and global management control, it was necessary to digitize commercial, security, and construction processes. Schneider Electric engineers devised an ad hoc structure for the Sagrada Familia of the latest technological generation. This earned it, among others, the international DatacenterDynamics Leaders EMEA Award in the modular implementation category. Later, other projects have come for the city of Barcelona, such as the one by the company Abertis, in the Vallcarca maintenance area.

Schneider Electric builds this type of facility in the factory it has in Sant Boi de Llobregat. In the case at hand, the module was delivered with racks, UPS, power distribution, cooling, and monitoring, pre-installed and ready for deployment. The external structure of the module was designed to be durable and secure, with electrical and mechanical connections that can be easily disconnected in case it is necessary to move the module from the data center or the components of the interior infrastructure.

An event that has already occurred once in a move within the same premises that was carried out in 48 hours, since the construction works of the basilica must continue without interruptions for its visitors nor for the more than 15 architects who work in the premises for the project and, therefore, the brain of the Sagrada Família cannot stop thinking 24/7, 365 days a year.