Microsoft's spending cuts globally will not affect the construction of three large data centers in Spain with billion-dollar investments in the coming years, the company's president in Spain, Alberto Granados, said today at a breakfast at the Nueva Economía Forum. .
Nor will they prevent the group from continuing to grow in Barcelona, where it wants to create a reference environment. Despite the adjustments at an international level, the company plans to hire one hundred people in Barcelona to strengthen its commitment to the city and work on tools such as the artificial intelligence of ChatGPT.
"There is a great opportunity to become a great European digital hub. We are already the fourth country in Europe in terms of digital certificates, behind the United Kingdom, Germany and France," he said. As part of Spain's potential as a "great European hub", the city of Barcelona is the reference. "We opened in Barcelona and 50% of the workers already come from abroad," she said.
The company's workers in Barcelona will also have the opportunity to participate in the new major agreement with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, the application that is set to revolutionize digitization. "Part of the Barcelona artificial intelligence center will work with GPT3 and GPT4," she added.
When alluding to the cuts among the big technology companies, Granados explained that "all companies are adjusting to demand by reprioritizing certain areas and prioritizing projects that are more strategic", but "it will not affect the construction of data centers" in Spain. "It is true that there are certain areas in which we have disinvested and certain projects that are adjusting to demand."
Microsoft's biggest investment bet in Europe in the coming years will consist of building 17 centers to protect national data sovereignty after investing 12,000 million dollars, about 11,040 million euros. Three of them will be in Spain, in the Community of Madrid. Around these centers, "we will create 50,000 jobs, throughout the ecosystem in Europe," said Granados.
Where the cuts can reach is employment, although Granados did not offer details. The company, he explained, is slimming down its workforce "after having raised its staff by 50% in three years." "A 5% adjustment to the workforce is not excessively significant, it is something normal, it must be done, no one is unpunished for the current situation and projects and resources must be prioritized in an agile manner," he said.
Granados indicated that, despite the announcements of job cuts from large technology companies, a study carried out by Microsoft and LinkedIn shows that, in the coming years, 2 million jobs will be created around digitization. "More developers are being hired at companies like Repsol, Telefónica, General Electric or Mercedes. Of the 20,000 Mercedes employees worldwide, 10% are developers, so it is already more of a software company than a car company," he said. .
The digital ecosystem, outside of Microsoft's operations, continues to lack "sufficient professionals to tackle the projects." In cybersecurity alone, he pointed out, 26,000 professionals are needed in Spain. "The adjustment part does not mean job destruction," he said.
In Spain, the group calculates that in 2030 40% of GDP will be based on digitization and that 70% of businesses will be digital. The group's strategy in the country is to establish alliances with large companies. Granados cited the agreements with Repsol in artificial intelligence, with Ferrovial in data centers and with other companies such as HM Hospitales. He has also allied with Telefónica and Minsait (Indra) to "protect data sovereignty."
Granados also alluded to the other great business move by Microsoft in recent weeks, which is its alliance with OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT. Granados gave some examples of what the new tool can achieve, including allowing anyone to make an app by "drawing it on a napkin."
"Part of the agreement is that we leave all of our computing capacity at your fingertips so that you can create texts as well as images and automatic codes, which is the most important part," he said. "That will allow anyone to be part of digitization and develop programs. They can paint an application on a napkin, take a photo of it, and automatically have the application," she said.
The idea is to "provide GPT with the business part to start it up". GPT3 already processes 175 billion parameters and the idea is to launch a GPT4 that can process a trillion parameters. "You can write a book in 10 minutes" and "the idea is that it can be incorporated into all Microsoft solutions," he said. "Our idea is to democratize digitization."
