Meta has announced today a significant investment in personnel and infrastructure in Spain, placing our country at the center of the plans to build the metaverse.
And the company will do so by creating new highly-skilled jobs, supporting local tech companies and entrepreneurs, and investing in essential digital infrastructure.
Javier Oliván (Vice President of Expansion and Infrastructure, Meta) and the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, spoke about all this today at La Moncloa Palace.
“Bringing the metaverse to life and finding new ways for Europeans to connect with each other will require the collaboration and cooperation of companies, developers, creators and policymakers. The additional investments we are announcing are a vote of confidence in the strength of the Spanish tech industry. and in the potential of Spanish technological talent. We hope to continue strengthening our presence here, innovating in Europe, for Europe,” Oliván indicated.
The plan includes an agreement with Telefonica
Meta’s investment and growth plans for Spain are comprised with the following actions:
1.- Hiring up to 2,000 people in the next five years.
2.- The first Meta Lab in the world, a place of support for Meta remote workers in Spain, with space for local technology entrepreneurs and start-ups.
3.- Double the space of Meta’s offices in Madrid.
4.- A new connectivity infrastructure: the world’s first half petabit transatlantic submarine cable and the 2Africa cable will land in Spain, joining the existing Marea cable.
5.- A collaboration with Telefónica to establish a Metaverse Innovation Hub in Madrid focused on helping to accelerate the preparation of the metaverse network and devices.
6.- Start the process that will allow Meta to build a new Data Center in Castilla-La Mancha
7.- Explore possible collaborations between the industry, the academic sector and the Government to work on the construction of the metaverse in a responsible way, including privacy, security and diversity.
“We hope that our new Meta Lab will play an important role in the Spanish technology scene and help lay the groundwork for Spain to benefit from the metaverse. It will be a space for alliances, collaboration and innovation. And our connectivity investments, including Marea – one of the world’s highest capacity transoceanic cables – will benefit other technology companies, driving innovation and growth across the industry. According to an independent study, the Marea cable alone contributes some 18,000 million dollars each year to the European economy since 2019,” the Vice President of Expansion and Infrastructure of Meta underlined.
Why Spain?
In the words of Javier Oliván: “Spain is at the forefront of European technology. It has two strong technological centers with advantages for the country: Barcelona and Madrid, which are at the core of the technological landscape and attract local and international entrepreneurs, talent and investors, as well as other more recent centers in Valencia and Andalusia. In Spain, record levels of investment are being registered in start-ups that solve all kinds of problems, from online food delivery to neuro electronics. Meta has been present in the country for a long time: in addition to English, Spanish was the first language in which Facebook was available in 2007; we started operating in the country in 2009 and opened our first office here in 2015.
“When our company looks to the future, the advantages of Spain make it logical to invest here. We’re working with other partners to help build the metaverse: a new phase of the Internet built around interconnected virtual experiences. The metaverse will not belong to any company and will not emerge overnight, but it has the potential to help unlock access to new creative, social and economic opportunities, and we want the Spanish to help us shape it from the beginning. »
Image above the headline.- The President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez -left-, during his meeting with the Vice President of Expansion and Infrastructure atMeta. Photo: Pool Moncloa/Fernando Calvo.
Related Eastwind links:
Facebook turns full into Meta…verse
Facebook is hiring 10,000 people in Europe to build the open metaverse
Facebook announces $50 million investment to develop a “compatible” and “responsible” metaverse
For more information on the metaverse just type Meta or metaverse on the searchbox locte up right over the Eastwind header
