Palma will compete to host the Spanish Artificial Intelligence headquarters

Palma will compete to host the headquarters of the future Spanish Agency for the Supervision of Artificial Intelligence (AESIA). This is what the President of the Govern, Francina Armengol, told the Secretary of State Carme Artigas, with whom she met to share regional policies on artificial intelligence and digitisation.

Artigas congratulated Palma and the Balearic Islands because “being able to articulate a candidacy that values the public and private ecosystem is already a winning candidacy”. For his part, the Councillor for European Funds, University and Culture, Miquel Company, assured that “from the Government we will work together with the Palma City Council and with all the resources of our ecosystem in this area”.

So far, many cities have shown their interest in hosting the future headquarters: Granada, Guadalajara, Zaragoza, Gijón, Tenerife, La Rioja, Burgos, Ávila, Alicante, A Coruña…

A “great opportunity”

Company pointed out that this is “a magnificent opportunity that forms part of the Balearic Islands Investment Strategy 2030 with the objectives of diversifying the economy, attracting talent, creating jobs and favouring the positioning of the islands”.

During the meeting, the Govern informed the Secretary of State about projects such as the creation of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Supercomputing of the Balearic Islands and a chair based on sustainability and health that has the collaboration of the UIB. In addition, the Government is also preparing a strategy for cybersecurity, 5G and Big Data.

For his part, Artigas welcomed the fact that the Balearic Islands will host the Gaia-X governance council, which will make the autonomous community “the nerve centre of European data”. Artificial intelligence will help to increase the productivity of companies, the efficiency of public administration and health care, and will also help to mitigate the effects of climate change, as it will improve the efficiency of agriculture and transport.

The president of the Govern explained to Artigas that the islands are prepared to achieve this milestone, since they have important research teams led by the UIB with more than 15 teams in artificial intelligence and more than 500 publications.

In addition, several Balearic companies are already developing products and services applying this technology, such as weather forecasting, citizen services and energy management.