New million dollar investment in the Aragon data center sector. Blackstone, one of the largest investment managers in the world, has chosen the Aragonese region to invest 7.5 billion euros in the “Rodes Project”a data center that will be developed in the Zaragoza municipality of Calatorao and that will create around 1,400 direct jobs, as announced by the President of the Government of Aragon, Jorge Azcón.
“This is a historic announcement” at a time when “impressive challenges” arise and “incredible opportunities open up in our territory,” Azcón stressed.
To this end, the extraordinary Government Council approved this Monday the declaration of regional interest for this project. Azcón highlighted that “it is undoubtedly one of the most important investments in Spain and throughout Europe”.
The Government of Aragon considers that the project “This will result in a contribution of between 16,500 and 25,450 million euros to the Aragonese GDP over the next 25 years.”
The major players in the sector are betting on Aragon
This is not the first major investment made in Aragon in the data center market where other large companies such as Amazon (AWS) or Microsoft have already announced million dollar projects which add up to a total investment of more than of 32.5 billion euros.
Blackstone’s announcement only confirms the potential of the region, which the sector describes as “the pretty girl” due to its characteristics which make it a strategic enclave for this type of installations.
“The lack of land with available electricity in Tier I locations, such as Madrid, pushes the main cloud service providers to develop their new availability zones in different locations, such as Aragon, which becomes one of the regions more attractive for the development of data centers in the Iberian Peninsula,” says consultancy firm Colliers.
The large plots of land available, guaranteed electricity supply in the short and medium term, access to renewable energy sources, excellent connectivity and collaboration with administrations.make Aragon the new technological enclave for the development of data centers, explains Colliers.
Aragon’s installed capacity will reach 108 MW IT with a forecast of 12 billion euros of future investments in this market.
“The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and the attraction of setting up near hyperscalar availability zones are leading international operators, who are not yet present in Spain, to analyze opportunities in the region to develop new central campuses. 100,000 m2″, specifies the firm.
Announced projects
Microsoft is one of the companies Aragon is betting on with a planned investment of 6.9 billion euros. The technology giant purchased 84.4 hectares of land intended for this activity for 24.5 million euros in the municipality of La Muela (Zaragoza). The company will create more than 2,000 jobs with the launch of a data center.
On the other hand, Amazon Web Services (AWS) will increase investments in Aragon and it is doing so in a considerable way. The company will invest 15.7 billion euros to expand the three data centers it has in Huesca, El Burgo de Ebro and Villanueva de Gállego (Zaragoza), and add a new site in Zaragoza, with which The creation of 6,800 new jobs is expected in the region. This is the largest technological investment made to date in Spain and southern Europe and will make Aragon the largest technological power in the country.
QTS last June, announced the construction of a 300 MW macro IT data center on an area of 200 hectares in Calatorao, Zaragoza. The investment in this case is estimated at approximately 2 billion euros.
To these investments, we must add that which will be undertaken Box2bitwhich plans to award 1 billion euros to the first renewable self-consumption macro data center in the Aragonese community.
