He did not become President of the Spanish Government, but he has been president – since July – of a Japanese artificial intelligence (AI) company, with American capital. Pablo Casado ceased to be leader of the PP in 2022 after demanding explanations from Isabel Díaz Ayuso about the alleged collection of a commission by her brother in the management of health supplies. He was replaced, in an extraordinary congress, by Alberto Núñez Feijóo. After this split within the PP, Casado’s role has been very discreet and he has focused his activity outside of politics, especially in the field of business and investment funds. His name returned this Tuesday to the front pages of the economic press and on the lips of the president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page during the inauguration of a project in Puertollano.
At the beginning of this year, its participation in the venture capital fund Hyperion Fund FCR, focused on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, had already been made public. Among them are also Ricardo Gómez-Acebo Botín -nephew of the president of Banco Santander, Ana Patricia Botín- and two experts from the arms industry. Its objective is to invest in military technology as “dual use”, a term used to refer to military equipment that can also be applied in civilian contexts.
Now, Pablo Casado’s interest in artificial intelligence has led him to become president of DataSection, a Japanese company based in Tokyo whose business is also focused on artificial intelligence and which has just landed in Puertollano (Ciudad Real).
A company with a foot in Puertollano
The company was founded in 2000. Big Data analysis and machine learning are at the heart of its business. It already has a data center in the Japanese city of Osaka. Its strategies also include the creation of an AI service in the cloud, particularly focused on Europe, in response to “the recent increase in geopolitical risks.”
The former PP president was appointed CEO last July and since then his role in the company has not transcended until now, when the company set foot in Puertollano, considered the industrial capital of Castilla-La Mancha, to build an artificial intelligence “data center”.
It will do so with the help of Solaria, which this week signed an agreement with the Japanese company to give it its famous “white houses” in the city, rooms with a high level of insulation and air quality that were once used for the manufacture of photovoltaic cells.
DataSection happens to be a partner of the artificial intelligence computing companies NVIDIA and Supermicro. Precisely, the aforementioned “clean rooms” will house in the coming months the supports from Supermicro and the latest generation microchips from NVIDIA, which will be the “brain” of the future data center.
Pablo Casado did not show up at the signing ceremony for this transfer, but he was mentioned several times. This was done by his CEO of DataSection, Norihiko Ishihara, to celebrate his appointment as president, and by Emiliano García-Page, who presided over the signing event.
The President of Castilla-La Mancha proclaimed that the fact that the future data center is being built by this Japanese company is “a mark of guarantee that this project is serious, that it is signed, committed and strongly supported.” And in the same spirit, he congratulated Pablo Casado, thanking him for his “commitment to the country” to “attract large investments.”
Meanwhile, Casado maintains his role as operator of Hyperion, which bills itself as “the first venture capital fund in Spain focused on the areas of aerospace, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.” These are three branches of the technology industry that, separately, have long been accustomed to their companies becoming military contractors.
The big step that took place last year, at the same time as generative intelligence was developing in the civilian sphere, is the integration of aerospace technology, cybersecurity and AI into a single military tool. Machine learning algorithm systems capable of collecting data from very diverse sources, analyzing it, interpreting it and making strategic decisions based on it.
