Barcelona Free Zone Bets Big on AI as 12,000 Flock to New-Economy Hub

FTZ News: Barcelona New Economy Week opened Oct. 7. The Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona is putting it on. It runs three days. This year’s card adds artificial intelligence, agrofood, science, gaming and energy to aviation and space, talent and health.

According to Industry4o.com, in a report the same day, the organizer counts 270 speakers, more than 100 startups, 50 sessions and more than 50 hands-on activities. Opening day was AI, agrofood and science. Later days take aviation and space, talent, health, energy, gaming and startup pitches. Startup awards are on the program. The site calls it a physical and digital business-to-business event.

Blanca Sorigué, chief executive of the consortium, said the fair is where the new economy “becomes tangible,” and that people should see, touch and test the gear, not only hear about it. Pere Navarro, special state delegate and executive president, said the meeting keeps adding subjects without dropping its brief, and that it shows Barcelona wants in on big economic shifts.

Jaume Baró, secretary for business and innovation in the Catalan government, called it a fixture on the city calendar and a payoff for sticking with it. Technologies, he said, will not last unless the country has industry, and industry with fewer outside dependencies. Jordi Valls, deputy mayor for economy, finance, promotion and tourism, talked about mixing industry, technology and knowledge, and about dual-use technology and strategic autonomy. Artificial intelligence, pushed from a European angle, he said, is a political matter as well as a technical one.

Carlos Prieto, the Spanish government’s delegate in Catalonia, traced the fair to the pandemic and to Navarro and Sorigué. He said DFactory Barcelona has grown from 17,000 square meters to more than 60,000. Institutional cooperation and money spent on innovation, he said, are what the next round of economic and technical problems will turn on.

Names on the opening panels include Diego Perino of the BSC AI Institute, Mike Blackman of Integrated Systems Europe, Neema Balolebwami of NEEMA AI, Ricardo Oliver of BBVA Spain, Fátima López-Fernández of the Computer Vision Center, Alejandro Sánchez of the ALBA Synchrotron and Isabel Pérez Ennes of Novartis. Mayor Jaume Collboni is on the officials’ list. The report does not say how many people came in the first morning, or what was signed./.


photo: www.industry4o.com