As the capital of the Catalonia region in Spain, Barcelona’s geo-strategic location along the Mediterranean Sea aligns the city as a unique gateway to the Middle East, Africa, and Southern Europe, as well as an attractive locale for world-leading companies, hyperscalers, and innovative service providers looking to expand operations globally. Barcelona’s booming metropolitan population of 5+ million, growing economy, and commitment to renewable energy make it a strategic destination. With a thriving tech scene and a pool of skilled workers, the city offers a robust support system for entrepreneurs, which is also ideal for start-ups.
The Digital Agenda
Spain’s ambitious digital transformation roadmap, España Digital 2026, aids Barcelona’s growth, and is designed to leverage innovative technologies and achieve more substantial and sustained economic growth. España Digital 2026 includes:
- New investments in the country’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
- Digitalization of businesses
- An emphasis on heightened cybersecurity
- The adoption of AI
In addition, as a European Entrepreneurial Region award winner, Barcelona has an abundant availability of renewable electricity and a strong focus on digitalization and sustainability, making it an optimal locale.
With all of that digital support country-wide, what else does forward-leaning Barcelona have to offer?
Barcelona is also home to a strategic network of intercontinental subsea cables, which provide high-speed, low-latency connectivity and are an added draw for Cloud, Content, Networks, IT providers, and telecoms. As the graphic below notes, Barcelona offers EMEA organizations the lowest latency possible via access to three new next-generation subsea cable systems, connecting the city to 61 global locations.
Check out the infographic below to learn more:
In a rapidly emerging geo, time to market is key. The EdgeConneX Barcelona data center offers a carrier-neutral network connectivity platform that delivers high-quality, low latency, and international connectivity to accelerate content delivery, cloud access and communications services to the region. EdgeConneX has the in-country resources, expertise, and people on the ground who understand the regulatory landscape and local nuances. Our Barcelona data center offers:
- Availability for 8MW N+1 initial design
Located next to super grid substation - Carrier-neutral
- Extensive fiber, power density and peering options
- Access to DE-CIX with 35 connected networks
- An alternative or addition to Marseille to avoid a single point of failure
- Subsea Hub with direct links to the Barcelona Cable Landing Station (CLS)
Barcelona CLS is an initiative of AFR-IX Telecom, an infrastructure and telecom operator that, since 2013, delivers Data, MPLS, SDN, peering and advanced managed solutions to local sites in Africa for corporates, iCarriers and local telecom operators. AFR-IX Telecom has the largest pan-African Corporate Data Network and was designed as an open-access CLS that will accommodate eight cable systems and enable them to be interconnected with backhaul providers and fibre networks. Meant as an open and neutral facility where subsea cables and network operators, ISP’s and corporates are able to interconnect and reach any place in the world with the lowest latency. It is scheduled to connect Southern European countries (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, and Greece) with North African 
countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt) with 16 landing points.
The partnership between EdgeConneX and Barcelona CLS opens a high availability and low latency bridge to the African Markets through the AFR-IX Telecom network, with access to more than 60 PoP’s and IXP’s in the most thriving markets in the sub-Saharan countries.
Learn more about EdgeConneX interconnection to the Barcelona Cable Landing Station (CLS) HERE.
To learn more, download the EdgeConneX Barcelona data sheet HERE
Download the S&P Global Market Report on EdgeConneX 8MW Barcelona Expansion on our resources page: HERE
To schedule an in-person tour or for more information, please contact: capacity@edgeconnex.com
