Catalonia presented in Brussels its strategy for leading the design of semiconductors in southern Europe

This Thursday, Catalonia Trade & Investment organized a round table in Brussels on investment opportunities in the semiconductor sector in Catalonia. The event featured a presentation on Catalonia's strategy in the chip area, with examples of successful investments in this field.

The event was attended by the CEO of ACCIÓ - Catalonia Trade & Investment, Albert Castellanos; the delegate for the EU from the Government of Catalonia, Ignasi Centelles; Intel’s Vice President for European Affairs, Hendrik Bourgeois; the CEO of the Catalan company Ideaded, Eduard Puig; the senior researcher at the Barcelona Supercomputer Center, Miquel Moretó, and the EU’s head of the microelectronics and photonics industry unit, Colette Maloney.

The event took place at Catalonia Trade & Investment's office headquarters in Brussels.

During the round table, Albert Castellanos emphasized that "Catalonia has all the assets to lead the semiconductors sector in the design phase in Europe: we have the best talent, the industry, the tech ecosystem, and all the infrastructures needed to accomplish it”.

Castellanos stressed that “the semiconductors sector in Catalonia already has 4,400 professionals and 104 companies and research entities”. He also noted that “projects from companies like Cisco, Intel or Ideaded, as well as the portfolio of 22 potential projects that Catalonia Trade & Investment is working on, show that we have excellent perspectives to develop a key industry from Catalonia”.

For his part, Intel’s Vice President for European Affairs, Hendrik Bourgeois, explained that "Catalonia has a lot of talent and capacity to build an ecosystem of researchers, universities, and potential customers. It is an interesting region and many companies, not only Intel, should think about Catalonia".

Precisely, last week the Government of Catalonia, through ACCIÓ - Catalonia Trade & Investment, signed an alliance with 12 other European regions to promote semiconductors on the continent. Called Alliance of European Semiconductor Regions, the initiative aims to boost the growth and competitiveness of the semiconductor industry in Europe through the exchange of knowledge, good practices, and cooperation between regions.

The Catalan semiconductor ecosystem

According to figures from the study Semiconductors in Catalonia performed by ACCIÓ - Catalonia Trade & Investment, there are 86 companies in the semiconductor sector in Catalonia, with a turnover of almost 160 million euros and employing 700 people.

These workers join 3,700 researchers with research projects in the field of semiconductors; meaning that, today in Catalonia, this ecosystem is already made up of 4,400 professionals. 

According to the report by ACCIÓ - Catalonia  Trade & Investment, 81% of the companies in the sector in Catalonia are SMEs (and 8% are startups), while 37% have a turnover of over 10 million euros per year. The document also points out that the semiconductor industry is in the development phase in Catalonia but has excellent growth forecasts.

This analysis still doesn’t include those business projects announced in recent months by several multinationals, given that they have not yet been put into practice, such as those from the American companies Cisco and MPS.

Furthermore, the Catalan Government is working, via ACCIÓ - Catalonia Trade & Investment, with a portfolio of 22 potential foreign investment projects in Catalonia from multinational companies in this sector. If all of them were finally deployed, they would represent an investment of over 1,600 million euros and the creation of 1,800 jobs over the next two to three years.