Costa del Silicon: Málaga to host Europe's biggest cyber-security centre

ONCE, Spain's southern and Mediterranean coasts were predicted to become 'the California of Europe' – and now, it looks as though the former may well be in some way, thanks to a massive investment by one of the world's most dominant cyber-giants.

Over the next five years, Google plans to invest over US$650 million (more than €530m) in a Silicon Valley-type centre on the Costa del Sol.

By the year 2023, Málaga's Paseo de la Farola will be home to the biggest and most complete cyber-security hub outside of the USA.

Not all of us are internet-literate

According to Google, the European Centre for Professional Training and Development has revealed that among residents in Spain aged 16 to 74 inclusive, as many as 43% of us 'have little or no basic digital competence', despite estimates that by the year 2025, 'nearly 70% of all employment' in the country will be carried out by workers with 'medium- to high-level' qualifications in the online arena.

Clearly, then, for those within that age bracket who are currently between 16 and 63 approximately, some serious investment in cyber-training is going to be essential to ensure everyone who needs to work is able to find a job, so that competition for the 30% of positions that do not require advanced IT skills is kept to a minimum.

And yet, even with estimates of seven in 10 jobs needing at least undergraduate digital qualification-level skills within the next four years, before the pandemic only 14% of companies in Spain had any kind of 'paperless plan' – in fact, even today, a year after Covid-19 entered Europe, barely 16% are using Cloud services and firms' digital presence remains very much in the minority.

This is where Google's 'excellence centre' for cyber-security is expected to help bring about the transformation Spanish companies and their workforce need in order to keep up.

Security, training and transformation

Training, workshops, talks, mentoring schemes, and other methods of leading Spain by the hand and introducing us gently into the world of digital competence and safety will be key to the Google hub's operations, along with product development and research – both of which are described by the planet's widest-reaching search engine as 'the greatest challenges associated with the digital transformation'.

Professional and personal, the training proposed will be 'key for society to successfully embrace opportunities in a changing world', Google says.

Mainly, the 2,500-square-metre office in Málaga will be a primary international intelligence centre in the ongoing battle against hackers, malware, online fraud and other dangers lurking out there in cyberspace.

Working jointly with Spain's main telecommunications firm Telefónica, the Málaga complex will become 'the first Google Cloud Region in Spain' and will spearhead the installation of Google's first private under-sea cable linking Spain with the USA and UK – an infrastructure known as 'Grace Hopper'.

This will allow Spanish companies in the private and public sector, and government functions, to speed up their transformation and roll out the full potential of their Cloud services at high speed and optimum performance levels.

Creating and updating employment, especially for young adults

Google Iberia's deputy chair Fuencisla Clemares has reportedly been in contact with Spain's minister for economic affairs and digital transition, offering the corporation's 'full support and commitment' in the modernisation and recovery of the nation's economy, which has, along with that of most countries on earth, taken a battering as a result of lockdowns and restrictions imposed in an attempt to contain the Covid pandemic.

And Google's 'support and commitment' is likely to be a bonus after a calendar year which shrank the workforce by around 622,600 people, and in which youth unemployment or under-employment was already too high; in fact, since before the pandemic struck, the number of employees aged 24 and under has taken a nosedive of around 19% nationwide.

“At a time like the present one, public- and private-sector cooperation is proving essential for encouraging innovation, in the context of socio-economic changes, and we're proud to form part of Spain's digital transformation and to contribute to the objectives of its Digital Agenda 2025,” Clemares says.

Why the Costa del Sol?

Opting to set up a technological satellite in the city of Málaga was not a random decision, according to Google.

“This is a region which boasts enormous talent, an ecosystem of vibrant start-ups and of accelerators and incubators of companies that have been harvesting the technological fabric for some time,” explains the corporation.

“Google acquired VirusTotal in 2012 – a team which works constantly and closely with Málaga University to fuel that ecosystem – and it will be developing its work from our cyber-security excellence centre in the city.”

Despite having a team of just 40 staff, VirusTotal holds the largest cyber-safety database on earth, allowing it to examine over two million files and URLs a day – of which about a quarter, or half a million, turn out to be 'suspect'.

Its clients include Facebook, Apple, NetFlix and Samsung.

And the Málaga-based IT engineer Bernardo Quintero's influence has been a major driving factor in creating the Google hub on the Costa del Sol, promoting his native city as an ideal choice of location.