Malaga attracts a major 'digital brain' with an investment of 1.2 billion, set to start construction in 2027

Héctor Barbotta

Seville

The Governing Council of the Junta de Andalucía will approve this Tuesday the declaration of strategic interest for the construction project of a data center that will involve an investment of 1.2 billion euros. The initiative, promoted by the entity Saltburn Holding SL, under the direction of businessman Rafael Benjumea, will be located in the expansion area of Málaga TechPark.

The planned investment reaches 1.257 billion euros. This is reflected in the administrative file opened to achieve this qualification, which has been directly supervised by the Minister of Economy, Finance and European Funds, Carolina España, after gathering the mandatory reports from the areas of industry, territory, sustainability, agriculture, culture, and health.

According to the project report submitted to the Delegate Commission for Economic Affairs, the facility will be classified as a Tier III / Tier III+ data center. This technical standard ensures high levels of redundancy and availability for storage services, data processing, artificial intelligence, and cloud connectivity. The plant will be built on an area of 71,415 square meters.

The technical design of the complex includes an information technology power of 100 megawatts

The technical design of the complex includes an information technology power of 100 megawatts, with an expected electrical consumption that rises to 150 megawatts. This magnitude of power requires a stable and large-capacity supply infrastructure. In this regard, the management of Saltburn Holding has linked the start of operations to the effective obtaining of the electrical grid connection. This procedure is underway and if it is resolved during this fiscal year, the company estimates that the data center will enter the operational phase within approximately five years, a period that encompasses the development of the asset, construction, and commissioning.

Priority Processing

The declaration of strategic interest, adopted under the framework of Decree-Law 4/2019, allows the project to benefit from preferential administrative processing and the streamlining of deadlines through the Project Accelerator Unit. The validity of this exceptional measure will remain active until December 31, 2031.

Regarding the labor impact, the promoter's forecasts point to the creation of 710 direct jobs during the construction phase of the building and technical facilities. Once the data center begins its commercial exploitation, 254 direct permanent jobs are expected, mostly composed of qualified profiles such as systems engineers and personnel specialized in the maintenance of critical infrastructure. However, the total volume of employment linked to the development of the project, including indirect positions, could rise to 3,000 workers during the execution process.

The promoter's forecasts point to the creation of 710 direct jobs, although the total volume may rise to 3,000

The choice of location in the Málaga TechPark responds to technical criteria of connectivity and geography. The proximity of the infrastructure to the landing points of submarine fiber optic cables favors the reduction of latency, an essential parameter for real-time data distribution. Additionally, the project seeks to meet the growing demand for digital services both regionally and nationally, taking advantage of the consolidation of the Malaga capital as a convergence point for technology sector companies.

The CEO of Saltburn Holding, Francisco Ruiz, has indicated that the group currently has the support of an investor with significant financial capacity to undertake the work, although details about the identity of this partner will be made public in the coming weeks. The financing and execution of the project are framed in a context of expansion of digital infrastructure in Spain, where regions such as Aragon, Madrid, and Barcelona already host facilities with similar characteristics driven by large international corporations.

Regarding the electrical supply, one of the critical points for the development of large data centers, the company has indicated that the process to ensure the necessary power at the Cártama substation follows the usual technical channels. The final resolution depends on the coordination between Red Eléctrica and Endesa for the allocation of the requested power, a prior and indispensable step for the five-year timeline set by Saltburn Holding to be met.

Supervision

The supervision by the Ministry of Economy in this file, in which the minister has been personally involved, underscores the relevance that the regional government gives to the attraction of capital-intensive projects. The strategic declaration not only implies a reduction in bureaucratic deadlines but also places the project under constant monitoring by the Accelerator Unit to resolve potential bottlenecks in the processing. In this way, the plot of more than 70,000 square meters in the TechPark is reserved for an infrastructure intended to function as a central node in the data architecture of the southern peninsula, provided that the electrical transport network can handle the projected consumption loads.

The completion of this data center would endow the Malaga technopolis with large-scale computing and storage capacity, aligned with the needs of cloud services and artificial intelligence deployment demanded by companies installed in the park. With this Tuesday's approval, the project enters its decisive administrative phase.

• More topics
• Junta de Andalucía
• Carolina España