The Spanish Semiconductor Industry Association (AESEMI) hopes that the call for expressions of interest launched by the Ministry for the forthcoming Major Project of Common European Interest in Advanced Semiconductor Technologies (IPCEI-AST) will lead to a series of initiatives which, taken together, could mobilise more than €1.4 billion in public and private investment in Spain.
This estimate is based on the internal consultation process that AESEMI has launched amongst its members and partners—companies, universities and R&D centres—to identify and quantify the potential of the Spanish ecosystem in relation to this European instrument. The result: 26 specific projects, ranging from initiatives costing between €2 million and €5 million to large-scale industrial infrastructure projects involving individual investments of over €150 million, with more than half of the participating entities positioning themselves as direct participants in the IPCEI.
The projects identified cover the five major technological areas that account for the strategic demand for advanced chips in Europe: artificial intelligence and advanced computing, advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration, photonics and optical communications, advanced sensors, and manufacturing equipment and metrology. The priority target sectors are automotive and transport, defence and aerospace, HPC/AI, healthcare and industry.
However, AESEMI stresses that the IPCEI-AST is a one-off instrument, not a mechanism for sustained support. The association considers it essential that Spain simultaneously designs a mechanism to provide continuity to the PERTE Chip programme, offering structural backing to projects emerging from the national industrial sector. Spain needs to be in a position to co-invest in large industrial facilities of foreign origin that choose our country as their destination, but also — and with equal priority — to support, over the long term, Spanish companies, universities and R&D centres that are developing their own capabilities in design, advanced packaging, photonics and other strategic segments of the value chain. A robust technological ecosystem is not built on a call-for-proposals-by-call-for-proposals basis.
“The IPCEI call for proposals is an opportunity for Spain to position itself ambitiously at European level”, says Alfonso Gabarrón, Manager Director of AESEMI. “Our data shows that the Spanish ecosystem has mature, diversified projects that are aligned with the priorities of the European Chips Act. Now is the time for the government to back up that capacity with a funding framework that is up to the task, and to start building the instrument that will ensure the continuity of that support beyond this call for proposals.”
In this regard, AESEMI recommends that Spain negotiate a minimum public funding framework of €1 billion for the IPCEI-AST, which would enable all the identified projects to be included, provide scope for new additions, and position the country as one of the main contributors to the IPCEI at European level.
