Iberian Peninsula is the world's first digital capital prepared for AI

“ A region represents a unique digital ecosystem, prepared to serve the needs of AI with a distributed infrastructure that connects the strategic hubs of Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon ", says the study, which was presented in the third edition of Atlantic Convergence, one of the main digital infrastructure events in Europe, which takes place in Lisbon, in the Pateo Galé.

Together, “these interconnected hubs create a unique digital ecosystem that combines geographical diversity with the low latency connectivity required for AI and other workloads for intensive data use”, so the Iberian Peninsula “joins to the group of traditional digital capitals focused on a single city such as Frankfurt, London and New York”, reads the study.

The publication of “The Iberian Distributed Digital Capital: Powering Cloud & AI Through a New Geography of Digital Hubs” coincides with the 10th anniversary of DE-CIX’s entry into the Iberian market and the creation of DE-CIX Madrid, currently the largest IX on the peninsula.

“ The Iberian ecosystem currently comprises 35 submarine cables with mooring at 20 coastal points, 12 large land main (backbone) networks, 13 Internet Traffic Exchange Points (IXP), more than 100 data centers and more than 800 networks – a density that compares favorably with that of some of the major global digital capitals”, according to the data.

The low latency connectivity “of 7-8 milliseconds (ms) connects the Madrid interconnection hub to the two coastal hubs of submarine cables and interconnection of Barcelona and Lisbon,” says the document.

“ This allows a continuous exchange of data for AI and other workloads distributed throughout the peninsula.” That is, in this way, the Iberian Peninsula “provides a unique opportunity to combine AI training and inference infrastructure with the strength of EU sovereignty and meet the needs of network operators and data centres as well as companies”.

With the accelerated growth of the AI, the Iberian Peninsula “has had unprecedented growth, especially in the data centre sector, with almost 9 gigawatts (GW) planned in new facilities for the coming years,” according to the study.

As a strategic gateway “for the interconnection linking Europe to the Americas, Africa and the Middle East, the Iberian Peninsula provides a safe, high-performance and sovereign infrastructure for AI use, both for domestic and export consumption.”.

Together with the main hubs in Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon, “the Iberian Peninsula is gaining even more depth through support us such as Valencia, Bilbao and Sines, as well as through the regions of Aragon and Extremadura”.

“The Dstream Group study clearly demonstrates the uniqueness and importance of the Iberian ecosystem – unlike any other on the planet,” explains Ivo Ivanov, CEO (CEO) of DE-CIX, quoted in a statement.