Microsoft To Open Azure Cloud Data Center Region In Spain

The cloud provider also will leverage Madrid-based Telefónica's infrastructure as part of an expanded partnership with the Spanish telecommunications company that will include joint go-to-market plans.

Microsoft will open an Azure cloud data center region in Spain and leverage the infrastructure of Telefónica as part of an expanded partnership with the Spanish telecommunications company that will include joint go-to-market plans.

The two companies will collaborate on solutions in all European and Latin American countries in which Telefónica operates. Those countries are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, England, Germany, Mexico, Northern Ireland, Peru, Scotland, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela, according to Telefónica's web site. Joint customers will be able to offer new services that require low latency, security and assured bandwidth around 5G, edge computing and “Industry 4.0,” the companies said, and Telefónica will train “hundreds” of its own employees in Microsoft cloud services.

“In a world where every aspect of our work in life is being transformed by computing, we have an unprecedented opportunity to apply digital technology to create new opportunity in Spain to help make every small business more productive, every Spanish multinational company more competitive worldwide, every government institution more efficient and improve health and educational outcomes,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said.

The publicly traded, Madrid-based Telefónica also will use Microsoft Azure as its cloud platform internally. Its employees already are using Microsoft 365 globally to communicate and collaborate.

“The excellence provided by the Microsoft cloud is backed by Microsoft's deep expertise in data protection, privacy and helping customers meet industry compliance requirements,” Telefónica CEO José María Álvarez-Pallete said. “And that's why we are also walking the talk, betting on the Microsoft cloud internally as part of Telefonica('s) internal data transformation.

Microsoft cloud services delivered from the new Spanish data center region will include Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. It declined to say where in Spain the data center would be located, how much it’s expected to cost and when it’s targeted to open.

Microsoft, which is runner-up to Amazon Web Services for cloud computing market share, currently has 56 data center regions globally and availability in 140 countries. Last week, it announced it would build a data center region in Mexico.

Álvarez-Pallete called the planned data center region in Spain a “game-changer.”

“Cloud is one of the key priorities in Telefónica, as we announced in November, with the launch of Telefónica Tech, the new unit to boost the solid growth of digital services,” he said in a statement. “This global strategic partnership with Microsoft will certainly help to achieve that objective.”

Last February, Microsoft and Telefónica announced a strategic partnership to accelerate innovation at Telefónica and design the “telco of the future.” They previously had worked together on the use of data and Telefónica’s Fourth Platform, its open-source, internet-of-things solution stack, for offerings including its artificial intelligence-powered Aura digital assistant.