This Friday, the European technology industry and several members of the European Parliament have urged accelerating the granting of permits and access to the power grid with the aim of tripling the capacity of data centers in the European Union (EU) within a time horizon of between five and seven years.
As detailed by Ametic, the employers’ association for the digital industry in Spain, after the day on the "Cloud and AI Development Act" (CADA) held in Madrid, nearly 90% of the added value associated with the construction and equipment of these infrastructures remains in European territory.
The main speaker of this regulation in the Eurochamber, Diego Solier, has said that authorization procedures and connection to the power grid are the two major bottlenecks for the sector, and has highlighted that Spain starts from an advantageous situation due to its energy cost, the deployment of fiber optics, and the presence of submarine cables.
However, Solier warned that there is a risk that part of the projects planned in Spain will be moved to neighboring countries if security in administrative timelines is not guaranteed, and he defended boosting the European industry "not to isolate ourselves, but to have more options."
Along these lines, the chief executive officer of Merlin Properties, Ismael Clemente, has criticized that the current administrative procedures "are designed not to do, but to not do," and has proposed establishing closed deadlines with positive silence for what he described as "the industry of the 21st century."
In turn, the president of Ametic, Francisco Hortigüela, has emphasized that "regulation is vital" to reduce the productivity gap in Europe, while Lorena Mullor, the representative of the Spanish Banking Association (AEB), has called for not imposing sovereignty requirements on the private sector if there are no equivalent European alternatives.
Lastly, Solier has argued for incentive measures in the face of regulatory blockages, including reserving around 25% of the capacity in acceleration zones for European projects for twelve months, and he has pointed to public procurement as the key tool to open the market to community suppliers.