The report, titled "The Iberian Distributed Digital Capital: Powering Cloud & AI Through a New Geography of Digital Hubs," identifies the region as the world's first "Distributed Digital Capital," a model based on the interconnection of multiple digital hubs rather than the concentration of infrastructure in a single city. In this case, the ecosystem is structured around Madrid, Barcelona, and Lisbon, connected by low-latency networks and complemented by other locations across the Iberian Peninsula.
The study, presented at the Atlantic Convergence event in Lisbon, also forecasts nearly 9 gigawatts (GW) of new data center installations in the coming years.
Madrid, Barcelona, and Lisbon form a distributed digital capital.
The Dstream Group report highlights the combination of digital infrastructure and geographic distribution of the Iberian Peninsula as one of its main characteristics. Unlike traditional digital capitals, concentrated in cities like Frankfurt, London, or New York, the Iberian model connects different infrastructure hubs.
Madrid acts as an interconnection center, while Barcelona and Lisbon provide coastal connectivity via submarine cables and internet exchange points. According to the study, these three hubs are connected with a latency of between 7 and 8 milliseconds, enabling data exchange between different locations and supporting distributed workloads, including those related to artificial intelligence. The ecosystem also incorporates other complementary centers, such as Valencia, Bilbao, and Sines, in addition to the regions of Aragon and Extremadura.
An infrastructure with 35 submarine cables and more than 100 data centers.
The study includes the following figures on the digital infrastructure of the Iberian Peninsula:
Infrastructure Figure
Submarine cables 35
Submarine cable landing points 20
Large terrestrial backbone networks 12
Internet exchange points 13
Data centers More than 100
Networks connected in the ecosystem More than 800
Latency between the main hubs 7–8 ms
According to Dstream Group, this concentration of infrastructure offers a density comparable to that of some of the world's leading digital capitals.
The report also highlights the Iberian Peninsula's position as a connection point between Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as the opportunities it offers for developing data processing infrastructure under the sovereign framework of the European Union.
Nearly 9 GW of New Data Center Installations:
One of the report's key findings is the forecast of nearly 9 GW of new data center installations in the Iberian Peninsula over the next few years. Dstream Group links this expansion to the growing demand for digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence applications. The distribution of data centers across different locations, along with low-latency connectivity, would allow for the combination of infrastructures dedicated to training and inferring AI models.
The study suggests that this model can meet both the needs of the domestic market and the provision of digital services to other regions.
DE-CIX Madrid surpasses 220 connected networks.
The publication of the study coincides with the tenth anniversary of DE-CIX's entry into the Iberian market. The company began operations in the region with DE-CIX Madrid in 2016, followed by DE-CIX Lisbon in 2018 and DE-CIX Barcelona in 2021. Currently, DE-CIX Madrid is the largest Internet exchange point in the Iberian Peninsula, according to the company.
Its key figures are:
- Over 220 connected networks.
- Over 11 terabits of connected capacity.
- Peak traffic exceeding 1.5 Tbit/s.
DE-CIX Madrid operates as an exchange point for Internet, cloud, and artificial intelligence services.
Together with the Lisbon and Barcelona points, it forms part of the interconnection infrastructure that allows connecting networks, cloud platforms, companies and digital service providers on the peninsula.
DE-CIX Highlights the Region's Potential for Artificial Intelligence.
Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX, believes the study confirms the unique nature of the Iberian ecosystem and its capacity to join the ranks of leading international digital hubs. He recalls that when DE-CIX began operating in Madrid ten years ago, the Iberian Peninsula was not yet among the top investment destinations for many infrastructure operators.
According to Ivanov, the growth of investments linked to artificial intelligence is changing this situation. He also emphasizes the role of DE-CIX's AI Exchange functionalities in facilitating access to digital infrastructure for networks and businesses. Serge Radovcic, co-author of the study, underscores the region's international connectivity and the importance of having Internet exchange points that enable direct, secure, and low-latency connections.
The report concludes that the combination of distributed infrastructure, international connectivity, and data center expansion positions the Iberian Peninsula favorably to become a European hub for artificial intelligence.
