Portugal and Spain agreed this Saturday (March 6) to present a joint application, on a par basis, for the development of a European Artificial Intelligence (AI) Gigafactory. The project, which emanates from the Iberian Summit, foresees an investment of 8 billion euros aimed at increasing the technological and digital capacity of the Peninsula.
The strategic project presupposes the installation of technological infrastructures in both countries, ensuring a balanced distribution of resources and skills. According to a Portuguese Government source told DN, this initiative represents the largest joint investment ever made between the two nations, consolidating a candidacy that is intended to be “robust and competitive” in the demanding global innovation market.
The central objective of this partnership is to reinforce the positioning of Portugal and Spain — and, by extension, the entire Southern Europe — at the forefront of AI development. With this step, the two governments intend to create the necessary conditions to convert the region into a true nerve center for innovation in Artificial Intelligence, capable of competing with the main technological blocs in the world.
The planned gigafactory will not just be a data processing center, but an integrated ecosystem that aims to attract foreign direct investment and retain highly qualified talent. The scale of 8 billion euros reflects the ambition to create physical infrastructure (high-performance computing centers) and logic (development of algorithms and language models) with Iberian DNA.
The authorities emphasize that the parity nature of the project is fundamental to ensure that the benefits of the digital transition are felt equally in both territories, enhancing synergies in areas such as energy — where the Peninsula already has a competitive advantage in renewables — and international connectivity.
Iberian Summit as a strategic driver
The decision to move forward with this AI gigafactory is the culmination of a process of political and economic rapprochement that has characterized these annual meetings in recent years, which bring together heads of government and respective ministers from cross-cutting portfolios.
Historically, summits focused on cross-border cooperation, management of common river basins and rail links. But more recently, the agenda has recently been dominated by the “Common Cross-Border Development Strategy” and the assertion of the “Iberian Bloc” in Brussels.
The now-proposed gigafactory is part of the European Union’s new “Open Sovereignty” vision, which seeks to reduce dependence on critical technologies from external powers.
By choosing AI as the next great common project, Portugal and Spain seek to stop being just consumers of technology and become producers of critical infrastructure, in a logic of taking advantage of the current moment of digital reindustrialization in Europe.
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