Synthetic diamond chip factory rules out €1 billion Malaga investment due to power shortage

Business

Leonardo DiCaprio-backed Diamond Foundry opts for Zaragoza after Malaga TechPark fails to guarantee required electrical capacity

Nuria Triguero

Málaga

In February of this year, the president of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, announced a one-billion euro investment by the US multinational Diamond Foundry for the ... manufacture of synthetic diamond for the production of microelectronic components in Zaragoza.

According to Azcón, this is the largest investment planned in Spain linked to the chip industry and is complementary to the company's existing plant in Trujillo (Cáceres). What few people in Malaga knew is that this project was on the table of Felipe Romera, the director of Málaga TechPark.

The American company - which has Leonardo DiCaprio as a major investor - was interested in setting up in the technology park, close to where IMEC is going to build its chip centre.

But in the end it decided not to do so for a very specific reason: it could not guarantee the electrical power it needed.

Romera himself has revealed this clear example of the opportunities Malaga is losing due to the lack of electrical infrastructure: “There was a very interesting company linked to DiCaprio - you may have seen it on television - a company that manufactures artificial diamonds for use in the production of chip wafers. They have discovered that wafers made from this material consume less energy. The company visited us to explore options for setting up in the technology park. They initially requested five megawatts of electrical power, but were only offered one, so they moved to Zaragoza instead,” he explained on the Canal Málaga programme Málaga a examen.

Romera added: "Energy is the big problem we have at the moment in Malaga. And I'm not just saying this because of all the industrial projects or data centres that we are losing in the city: I'm also saying it because of the housing that will not be built, given the need there is. In the end, the lack of electricity capacity undoubtedly slows down the development and progress of the city." His opinion is supported by data revealed this week by SUR: Endesa has denied a total of 142 residential, business and other types of projects in the province since January last year due to a lack of grid capacity to supply the required power.

"At most they give you one megawatt"

The director of Málaga TechPark has revealed that, as things stand today, any company arriving with a project to set up is “given at most one megawatt”, since the Cártama node, on which the technology park depends, is already saturated. IMEC’s case has been an exception to the rule, as, being a strategic project for national technological sovereignty, promoted by the Government itself through SETT, it includes its own electrical substation within the project, guaranteeing the energy supply it requires.

On the other hand, there are other important projects that are also intended to be installed in the technology park and whose viability is in the air due to the lack of electricity infrastructure. The most extreme case is the