IBM, the government of Spain collaborate on AI strategy

The President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, and the Senior Vice President of IBM and Director of IBM Research, Dario Gil, met this afternoon at the Moncloa Complex, where they celebrated the new agreement reached between the Executive and IBM that will allow the development of foundational models for Artificial Intelligence, native in Spanish and co-official languages. During the meeting, which was also attended by the Minister for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service, Jose Luis Escriva; the director of the Office of Economic Affairs of the Presidency of the Government, Manuel de la Rocha, and the president of IBM Spain, Portugal, Greece and Israel, Horacio Morell, they shared challenges and initiatives that are opening up in the field of artificial intelligence and supercomputing. Afterwards, the Government of Spain, through its Ministry for Digital Transformation, the Civil Service, and IBM today signed a Memorandum of Understanding to promote their collaboration in the field of Artificial Intelligence and AI supercomputing, advance the development and practical deployment of open, ethical and responsible generative AI in Spain, and sharing the vision to create a leading suite of foundation models including both large language models and small language models, proficient in the Spanish language and co-official languages. During the meeting at La Moncloa, the President stressed that agreements such as this one demonstrate Spain’s commitment to accelerate the ethical and responsible use of AI, particularly in the public sector, with great impact on productivity for many sectors of the economy and on Europe’s strategic autonomy.