BSC-CNS Newsletter March 2025

BSC presents the first quantum computer in Spain developed with 100% European technology

The new system will be available to the research community, companies and public organisations in Spain, thus strengthening technological and industrial development throughout the country. The new system is part of Quantum Spain, an initiative coordinated by BSC and promoted by the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Administration. The presentation event was attended by the President of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Minister for Science and the Minister for Digital Transformation.

Europe takes a major step towards digital autonomy in supercomputing and AI with the launch of DARE

The DARE project has officially launched, marking a significant milestone in Europe’s journey toward technological autonomy in HPC and artificial intelligence. Coordinated by BSC and supported by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, DARE brings together 38 leading partners across Europe to develop cutting-edge European-designed supercomputing technology for research and industry.

ALIA, Europe's first public, open and multilingual AI infrastructure

The project, coordinated by BSC, provides open and transparent language models to promote the use of Spanish and co-official languages in the development and deployment of AI. ALIA-40B, the most advanced public multilingual foundational model in Europe, trained on the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer, emerges in this context. The initiative is 100% publicly funded to provide a service of public interest and democratise access to AI for citizens, public administrations, universities and companies.

Researchers use the Hallmarks of Cancer to get a new perspective on tumour growth

A team led by BSC and the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute shows, for the first time, that within a tumour, the expression of the different hallmarks of cancer is not cell-specific, but rather position-specific. Under this new light, tumour architecture emerges as a valuable source of information to understand tumour dynamics and predict its sensitivity to anticancer drugs. The results were recently published at the top journal Cell Reports.

BSC coordinates the AHEAD project to promote AI responsible innovation in healthcare

This project brings together 14 partners from various fields, including medicine and biomedicine, ethics, AI development, gender dimension, law, sociology, psychology and software engineering, with the goal of establishing standards for the responsible implementation of AI in the healthcare sector by encouraging researcher mobility, skills development and innovation.

BSC Connects: an innovative business immersion programme to drive public-private collaboration

BSC has presented the BSC Connects programme, an innovative initiative to boost public-private collaboration and optimise business processes and competitiveness. Thanks to this new programme, the business sector will be able to access the knowledge and technology of BSC and apply the computational capacity of the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer and other BSC computational resources, AI and quantum technologies, with the aim of promoting the development of innovative solutions to address their main business challenges.

Banco de España and BSC sign agreement to promote AI in the financial sector

BSC will work with the Banco de España to assess its computational needs for research projects. The two institutions will explore the possibility of launching a research programme focused on social sciences, which could include a line of analysis in AI applied to the financial sector. BSC will also explore the design and development of a regulatory test environment (sandbox) that will allow the supervisor to evaluate new financial technologies in a controlled environment.

BSC presents its most innovative technologies at MWC

For the first time, BSC had its own stand at MWC, with a 100m² booth in 4YFN. Our participation was a success with near 50 activities, 200 business opportunities, 12 institutional visits, the presentation of 10 spin-offs, over 20 scheduled meetings with investors, and 25 project initiatives. One of the activities in the BSC stand was the ‘Language Fair’, an early 20th century fair with games that used language models developed by BSC and trained on the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer.

Rachel Lowe and Kim van Daalen win Ciutat de Barcelona 2024 Award

The BSC researchers have been awarded the Ciutat de Barcelona 2024 prize in the category of Environmental and Earth Sciences for their research on climate change’s impact on health. The jury of the awards honoured Lowe and van Daalen for The Lancet Countdown Europe 2024 Report on Health and Climate Change, which highlights the negative impacts of climate change on human health and the delay in action by European countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

BSC, FECYT, TBA21 and the Pau Costa Foundation join forces in Organismo

The collaboration explores the study of fire from an interdisciplinary perspective and foster knowledge exchange between artists, scientists, managers, and civil society. BSC hosted the workshop Pyroecologies which brought together the research and cultural sectors. The event is part of the programme Organismo, an experimental initiative promoted by TBA21 and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in collaboration with the FECYT, BSC and the Pau Costa Foundation.