The Spanish Sectoral Hubs of the BSC AI Factory (BSC AIF) have selected the first set of AI use cases that will move forward to development, marking the next step in a process that has brought together organisations from across Spain’s strategic sectors to identify common challenges and opportunities for the application of artificial intelligence.
Financed by the Spanish Secretary of State for Digital Transformation and Public Administration (SEDIA) and coordinated by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), the Sectoral Hubs aim to develop solutions to address concrete needs identified within each sector, creating reusable technological assets that can ultimately benefit a wide range of organisations across the ecosystem.
From sector challenges to AI solutions
The priority projects were chosen by a joint selection committee comprising SEDIA, BSC, and leading hub organisations, following consultation and co-creation sessions with industry ecosystems. Proposals were evaluated on technical feasibility, data availability, potential operational impact, and future scalability, resulting in two targeted initiatives for each of the five Hubs:
Health, Biotech and Pharma
Agriculture, Climate and Blue Economy
- An intelligent knowledge platform focused on the microbiota–gut–immune system axis to identify therapeutic targets,
- An explainable, multimodal AI model that combines high-resolution CT scans and biomarkers to predict the progression of chronic lung disease.
- An open-model conversational agronomy assistant offering technical guidance on crop management
- An automated climate risk assistant designed to translate real-time weather alerts and extreme event data into actionable local responses.
Energy
Communications and Media
- A natural-language query engine to analyse public energy data from entities like Red Eléctrica de España and OMIE
- Predictive modelling tools designed to optimise real-time decisions surrounding energy generation, grid distribution, and storage.
- An automatic audiovisual description system that generates synchronised, editable audio tracks for visually impaired audiences
- Automated platform for speech transcription, subtitling, and translation into Spain's co-official languages.
Finance and Legal
- An intelligent knowledge platform focused on the microbiota–gut–immune system axis to identify therapeutic targets,
- An explainable, multimodal AI model that combines high-resolution CT scans and biomarkers to predict the progression of chronic lung disease.
The next step: implementation
Following the selection process, the Hubs will now work on the detailed definition of the selected use cases, validating requirements, identifying the necessary data sources and preparing the corresponding development plans. The development phase will make use of existing software and hardware resources available through the BSC AIF, including resources at the BSC and participating centres.
“The Sectoral Hubs aim to turn complex sector needs into intelligent, deployable solutions. By combining sector expertise with the capabilities of the AI Factory, we can create technologies that are not only useful for individual organisations, but can become shared resources for the wider ecosystem.”
More opportunities to get involved
The next workshop of the Sectoral Hubs will take place as part of the AI Congress in Barcelona on 21 October. It will provide an opportunity to share progress on the selected use cases and development plans, while also identifying new initiatives for future development rounds. For more information and to register, click here.