The Government of Extremadura and Merlin-Edged, a subsidiary of Merlin Properties and Edged Energy, have sealed an alliance for the promotion of two large data center campuses in the community focused on generative artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing.
The chosen locations, in Navalmoral de la Mata (Cáceres) and Valdecaballeros (Badajoz), stand out for the “abundant” electrical power available and would allow the progressive development of several ‘data center’ buildings with approximately 1 gigawatt (GW) of capacity in each location, as reported by the company.
The president of the Government of Extremadura, Maria Guardiolamet this Tuesday with the CEO of Merlin Properties, Ismael Clemente, to address the development of the facilities.
Specifically, Merlin-Edged will be in charge of probing the international market in search of “turnkey” tenants and the technical design, engineering, construction, equipment and subsequent long-term operation of the facilities.
Specifically, the Navalmoral de la Mata campus will be located on the land of Expacio Navalmoral, where the company has already reserved land, as reported by the Government of Extremadura in a statement.
It will have between 8 and 10 buildings with 100 megawatts (MW) of capacity each and will use dark fiber networks from Lisbon to Madrid to communicate, including the one enabled by Merlin-Edged to interconnect its data centers in Vila Franca. from Xira (Lisbon), Getafe (Madrid), the Free Trade Zone (Barcelona) and Arasur (Vitoria).
Due to the status of finalist land for the land on which it is located, it will be the first campus to be internationally promoted. The Valdecaballeros campus, for its part, will be located on land belonging to the nuclear power plant site that was never commissioned in the town.
It will have 10 buildings with 100 megawatts of capacity each and will require prior infrastructure works in terms of road and fiber connectivity. The land will also require urban planning procedures at the local and regional level and, therefore, this campus will be the subject of subsequent international promotion.
Energy competitive advantage
With this public-private collaboration project, the Government of Extremadura and Merlin-Edged intend to highlight the “enormous sustainable energy generation capacity of the region, from renewable sources and nuclear energy, with low or no carbon emissions.”
Currently, Extremadura produces approximately six times the electrical energy it consumes and many of its facilities cannot feed all of their production into the grid. highlights the company.
Along these lines, he adds that the development of “cutting edge technology” in an eminently electro-intensive industrial activity such as data centers would mean “substantially rebalancing the relationship between generation and consumption”, creating “high training and remuneration” jobs. both in the construction of the facilities and in their subsequent operation, added to an “important indirect economy” in the area.
The president of the Government of Extremadura, María Guardiola, has highlighted that with this agreement “it is possible to take advantage of the competitive advantages of Extremadura in energy matters.”
Likewise, he has expressed that with these two data center campuses the region “a new time begins” in which he is “teaching the world that a traditionally rural environment can be cutting edge thanks to new technologies.”
Meanwhile, the CEO of Merlin Properties has highlighted that having the “opportunity to design, develop, market and one day be able to operate” two hyperscale data centers in Extremadura of “this magnitude” is an “immense joy” and a “huge responsibility”.
For the first time, he adds, the region has a “great competitive advantage” over other territories based on its energy generation capacity.
“We can contribute to developing it with state-of-the-art digital infrastructures, which establish population and employment with high added value,” says Clemente.
For the manager, the success of this initiative would also have “ramifications” in auxiliary industries, services, public revenues, vocational training and universities.
In this sense, he thanked the Government of Extremadura for having “identified” the “potential” of these locations for data centers and for having “become involved” in this opportunity that arose from a series of previous conversations held with the previous administration on logistics. in Navalmoral de la Mata.
«It is a magnificent example of public-private collaboration that has ended up crystallizing in a concrete and exciting project, with very few comparable in size internationally,” he added.
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