Spain is experiencing a real race to become one of Europe's major hubs for data centers. The arrival of tech giants, the rise of artificial intelligence, and multi-billion euro investments have put the country on the map for a strategic industry. However, the sector warns that success will not depend solely on the ability to attract capital, but on resolving the bottlenecks that threaten to slow its growth.
In this interview with DEMÓCRATA, the president of Spain DC, Emilio Díaz, argues that Spain has the conditions to lead this transformation, but calls for greater administrative agility, predictable energy planning, and a state vision to avoid missing an opportunity that other European countries are also vying for.
Question: Spain is an ideal enclave and is experiencing a sort of data center boom, but is our country prepared to absorb that growth, or are we lagging behind demand?
Answer: Resoundingly yes, we are prepared. Like anything, it has its challenges that must be overcome, and we should work in this sector because it is very interesting for the country and as an industry. We must turn the challenges into something we can overcome with ease to continue in this fight that began many years ago, especially far from Europe, in the United States and China.
In the last 10 years, it has also become very relevant in Europe. In Spain, specifically, it was around 2018 and 2019 when we began to talk about data centers in a sustained way. What triggered all of this is the arrival of hyperscalers in Spain. Amazon arrived in Aragon, and there was a ripple effect.
Q: In DEMÓCRATA, we have spoken with various sector agents and published information about one of their concerns: the lack of connection points to the electrical grid. Is this the main bottleneck?
R: In those challenges I mentioned, the main difficulty we have in growing at the speed the market demands is access to energy, which is not a simple issue. Spain has advantages. We have sun, wind, there have been very powerful investments in renewables… This will undoubtedly give us an advantage in the future, both in cost and availability, in generating the clean and cheap energy we seek. The difficulty is how it is distributed and how it is transported to places where we need to consume that energy, where the data centers are located. The location is not arbitrary; it depends on the type of data center to be built. Some are within cities, closer, and others, everything related to artificial intelligence, are more distant because the requirements are different.
Yes, this is the main problem we have, and from Spain DC, we work with all the actors, and there are many, to solve them: the central government through the Ministry of Ecological Transition, autonomous communities, city councils, distributors, electricity companies, etc. There is still a long way to go for it to be predictable, which is what we from the sector are asking for, predictability about when we will be able to have access to energy at a certain point to be able to pace investments and convince or explain to your clients 'we can do this, but unfortunately, we cannot have access until 2029'.
There is still a long way to go for it to be predictable, which is what we from the sector are asking for
You request an access and connection point today, they can grant it to you, and there is no predictability on whether you will have it in five years, three, two, or one. We would be satisfied if there were predictability.
We would be satisfied with this to be able to explain to the client when they implement with an operator or themselves. It is always done with a short-term implementation, medium-term, and a long-term vision; that is, I am going to start with a 20-megawatt data center, but my perspective is to be at 100 megawatts in five years. This is the path we must guarantee if we want investments to stay with us. Aragon is doing very well and is an example within Spain of acceleration and predictability.
Q: How can that predictability you speak of be solved? Is it a matter of infrastructure, a regulatory matter, fragmentation…?
A: It's the three things. There is a very complex permitting process for us, for energy distributors, and for the electricity grid itself, I understand it's the same for the Autonomous Communities and the city councils, each with their own responsibilities. What we are requesting is a one-stop shop where you can set up a data center within a reasonable timeframe and someone tells you there are no environmental problems, that the building permit can be obtained with the corresponding projects, and that the energy will be available in two years. To synchronize everything. It's a complete flow to paint because each Autonomous Community and each city council has to do something afterwards. All investments are contemplated in the General State Budgets and, with the situation we have [without PGE], I don't know if they are being contemplated as they should be.
I was saying that Aragon is an example because it assumes the large part of that workflow and organizes it. It doesn't speed up the timeline, but at least you know when the energy is available.
Q: Are we moving towards that one-stop shop?
A: Well, we ask for it whenever we have the opportunity. In Aragon, the deployment of data centers began with the previous socialist government and continues afterwards because there is absolute consensus between the two political groups [PP and PSOE]. There are no comparable investments: 70,000 or 80,000 million euros. When we talk about car factories, which Aragon also does very well in attracting, we are talking about 3,000 or 4,000 million euros. Amazon has expanded its investment window precisely in Aragon and is talking about 18,000 million, which, as a country, is very significant.
We ask for administrative processes to be streamlined. When the technical process requires expropriation to lay a cable, it takes its time and no one disputes it, but it makes no sense to waste too much administrative time.
There are no comparable investments: 70,000 or 80,000 million euros. We ask for administrative processes to be streamlined
We also encounter something we don't quite understand. In certain segments, there is disagreement with data centers. We argue that it is a modern industry, that it generates quality jobs, that it attracts millionaire investments, and that it guarantees the country's sovereignty. Without your own data centers in your territory, there is no data sovereignty.
It is an interesting market that perfectly coexists with any other industry, such as tourism, fishing, or agriculture, which we defend. It also generates a great ecosystem around it. In the Community of Madrid, companies and thousands of jobs have been developed around the deployment of data centers in areas such as Alcobendas or Alcalá de Henares.
It is positive for developing areas. Nearby universities are beginning to develop chairs dedicated to this world, a startup ecosystem is developing that is establishing itself around the regions where data centers are located.
Q: This development is undeniable, but there are also critical voices, for example, because it has been detected that data centers raise the temperature of the places where they are located, access to water is limited in a country like Spain, and they produce energy expenditure. Are these issues being polished or solved?
A: I'll go in order. The issue of water is a recurring question. There are old constructions that use water. You have to consider where you are locating. If you do it in a Nordic country, you forget about water consumption. In Spain, you restrict water consumption within the data center. The technology is there to use it, and with modern developments, consumption is residual. In general, they are closed water circuits with refrigerants. You have to fill it at the beginning, but after that, there is no evaporation, which is what caused water loss.
As for temperature, it's not like we release 30-degree heat either. I mean, look at the heat here in Madrid. There is district heating, the ability to channel the heat you generate to heat a university, a residential building... We don't manage to get heat out at more than 30-32 degrees, which is nothing for global warming. I think this is a myth.
And access to energy, well, I mentioned it at the beginning. What do we request? In Spain there are five-year plans. The current one is the 2020-2025 Plan and we are awaiting the 2025-2030 one, which will say what infrastructures will be available in that period of time. But it is 2026 and we still do not know it. And from the previous Plan there are unfinished things that will conclude in 2027, 2028 or 2029. If we want to be in that fight for modern industry and what Europe demands… Europe is going to launch several directives. I always like to say that Madrid does not compete with Barcelona, nor Barcelona with Bilbao. Madrid competes against Milan, Barcelona against Marseille and the Nordic countries. We have the competition outside.
From Spain DC, which I take this opportunity to say that we are almost 300 partners at the moment and we bring together not only data center operators but the entire value chain of the industry, we want to structure Spain with data centers. Not only in Madrid, Barcelona or Valencia. There are types of data centers that have to be in Madrid and others, in Extremadura.
Q: The five-year plan no, but what the Government has done is introduce a new fee for data centers. What real impact can it have on investments? It affects precisely the predictability you mention.
A: We partially agree with the royal decree you are referring to, and partially disagree. We are the first interested parties in avoiding speculation, and the fee is against the speculation of people who have an access point and want to resell it to a third party.
What the RD says is, if I make certain economic payments, whoever is not going to build a data center and whose only intention is to make an economic profit, I will penalize them by imposing fees that will make them desist at a given moment. It is a measure that may be reasonable, but it does not promote predictability because payments begin, and four or five years may pass, and if it has not been fulfilled, nothing happens, they continue paying all this. They start to be significant amounts when you put millions in a pot, and within three months, a few more…
We are the first interested parties in avoiding speculation, and the fee is against the speculation of people who have an access point and want to resell it to a third party
The worst part of the royal decree is the discretion to decide if a [connection] point is complex. If there is a cement company and a data center, we want to see no prioritization of data centers over other industries, which we neither understand nor respect. The investment is brutal, wild, and we believe one must be very serious when regulating. If we compete among industries, we will lose that opportunity with European competitors.
Q: With all this we are discussing, I wonder if Spain continues to be that ideal country to attract this type of investment. And I'm going to a specific and vital topic for the sector: the Spanish candidacy to host one of the EU's five AI gigafactories.
A: I don't know the project in detail, we haven't been asked to participate as Spain DC, but of course, we support the project. I think it's good for Spain. It can undoubtedly be a handicap when you compete with someone who can have that energy available in two years. Hopefully, they get it and the procedures can be accelerated and they have the necessary network connectivity.
Q: I conclude this chat with the feeling that Spain has all the ingredients, but it lacks the articulation of the menu to be a top-tier restaurant. If it were up to you, what measures would be implemented starting tomorrow?
A: I think it's unstoppable. We have connectivity with the rest of the world, an ideal position between the Middle East, Africa, and the rest of Europe, wonderful engineers, and the investment is ready. I believe that the one-stop shop is the solution, but not the only one.
The energy issue needs to be resolved. We are not asking for energy in 14,000 places in Spain, but in concentrated points: in Madrid, in the Henares and Alcobendas area; in Valencia, in the Paterna area; in Barcelona, in two places; in Arasur… We are talking about seven or 10 spaces in which the network needs to be strengthened. That it's complicated, we don't dispute that; if private investment is needed, it's ready.
And contingency measures are needed. When things don't go down path A, you look for plan B and plan C. Here, only A exists, which is network planning. We will have many things resolved there. We'll see when it comes out.
The conversation ends as it began: with optimism, but also with a warning. Emilio Díaz insists that the opportunity remains intact and that the investment is ready to arrive, as long as the rules of the game are favorable. "The industry is unstoppable," he maintains. The unknown, he concludes, is not whether Spain can become a European data center powerhouse, but whether it will be able to do so before that window of opportunity closes and investments take another direction.