The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, visited the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) this Sunday, accompanied by the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa; the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant; and the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, in a new scene of technological rapprochement between Mexico and Catalonia. The visit comes just one day after the Mexican president’s participation in the IV Meeting in Defense of Democracy, held in the Catalan capital, and four months after Illa’s visit to Jalisco, where the BSC sponsored the Data Analysis and Supercomputing Center of the University of Guadalajara (CADS).
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The tour of one of Europe’s main scientific hubs seeks to strengthen cooperation between both territories. Catalonia has become a strategic partner for Mexico’s plans to strengthen its technological sovereignty, and the BSC is a central piece in that strategy. “We want to show first-class facilities,” emphasized the leader of the Generalitat upon his arrival, visibly satisfied by Sheinbaum’s presence in a facility that acts as a calling card for the Catalan scientific model.
The visit was accompanied by a very diverse delegation. The head of Research and Universities, Núria Montserrat; the spokesperson for the Comuns and first secretary of the Congress Bureau, Gerardo Pisarello, and the singer Joan Manuel Serrat joined.
Morant framed the meeting within a broader reading of the role of public science. “It is a way to build democracy, to build peace, to work on cooperation and multilateralism,” insisted the minister, who also recalled the ongoing collaboration between Spain and Mexico in areas such as artificial intelligence, largely channeled through the BSC. Barcelona, she added, has consolidated itself as a scientific hub with international traction capacity.
Illa had already used the Barcelona Supercomputing Center as a great Catalan ambassador and calling card to move around the world. In fact, one of the major milestones of his official visit to Mexico last December was the cooperation agreement recently signed between it and the Data Analysis and Supercomputing Center of the University of Guadalajara,
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This protocol foresees collaboration in research, innovation, and training, with academic exchange programs and the shared use of high-performance computing infrastructures. The distance between both systems is still considerable: the Barcelona-based MareNostrum operates in hundreds of petaflops, while its Mexican counterpart operates on much more modest scales. But the agreement responds less to technical equality than to a long-term commitment: to transfer knowledge, generate scientific ecosystems, and accompany the growth of the Mexican supercomputer, which is already attributed a central role in the country’s technological development from Guadalajara.
Collboni emphasized the political dimension of the meeting. Relations between Spain and Mexico, he assured, are of “great depth,” and Sheinbaum’s visit strengthens them at a time of recomposition of international alliances. “It’s great news that we celebrate with great enthusiasm,” remarked the mayor.
The gesture also comes after Sheinbaum ruled out the existence of a diplomatic crisis with Spain on Saturday, although she insisted on the need to recognize “the strength of indigenous peoples” as a central element of Mexican identity.