Barcelona, 21 September 2023. Barcelona is solidifying its position as a digital hub in Southern Europe. The opening, at the end of last year, of the Barcelona Cable Landing Station (Barcelona CLS), the international submarine cable landing station located in Sant Adrià de Besòs, next to Barcelona, along with the strong commitment to position Barcelona as a technological capital through initiatives like Intelligent Connectivity and 5G Barcelona, both from MW Capital, are contributing to the Catalan capital becoming one of the leading European hubs for connectivity.
This is highlighted in a report by the Spanish Data Centres Association (SpainDC), prepared by the Pontificia Comilas University – ICADE in collaboration with the real estate consultancy CBRE. The report reflects that projects like Barcelona CLS, which serves as a strategic point for high-capacity fibre optic connections, not only have a significant impact on the increase in data traffic and the improvement of internet connections but also carry strong economic implications for investments in the coming years.
Fertile ground for Data Centres thanks to Barcelona CLS
In fact, Barcelona is considered, for the second consecutive year, as the top city in Europe with the best strategy for promoting and attracting foreign investment, ahead of capitals like Dublin, Berlin, and Munich, according to the fDi Intelligence report European Cities and Regions of the Future 2023.
Therefore, investment in the development of data centres in Barcelona, one of the main drivers of digitalization, is estimated to exceed 3.5 billion euros over five years, until 2026, as highlighted in the SpainDC report. This report reveals that investment in digitalization, with a significant emphasis on the implementation of data centres, could add up to 60 billion euros to the national GDP by 2026, while in the case of Catalonia, economic activity is estimated to grow by more than 11 billion euros.
Precisely, when compared to other emerging cities, Barcelona is the market that projects the highest growth in the coming years in terms of developing new data centres, with an average annual increase of 52% between 2022 and 2026, surpassing Milan (15%), Warsaw (24%), or Johannesburg (27%).
The commitment of companies like AFR-IX telecom with the deployment of the Barcelona Cable Landing Station, which already hosts two international submarine cable, being one of them the 2Africa cable, along with the announcement from Digital Realty, a European provider specialized in managing neutral data centres, to build a new Interxion data centre near the station; the expansion of Equinix’s capacities in Barcelona; the announcement from AQ Compute to develop a data campus in Cerdanyola del Vallès, or EdgeConneX‘s announcement that it will soon open a new data centre in Sant Boi de Llobregat, directly connected to Barcelona CLS to offer international connectivity routes via submarine cables to its customers, all confirm the industry’s promising growth.
