It’s an all in one. It integrates the Barcelona Free Trade Zone and its spaces rented to industrial companies. incubators startups. Hybrid forums of new economics and logistics. The nerve center of DFactory, a center international reference for technology companies, many of which are multinationals, which share developments and productions in consolidated businesses. An ecosystem in full employment and full projection: DFactory will multiply its impact by expanding from 17,000 square meters to 60,000. The first phase alone has already generated almost 1,000 direct and indirect jobs. All elements come together in District 4.0 to attract more businesses and at the same time connect physically and socially with the rest of the city.
“Project” is usually interpreted in the sense of purpose, of objective. Is District 4.0 already in the results phase?
NAVARRO PEARS. Our ecosystem has been evolving and strengthening for years. In the industrial area of the Free Zone we have full employment and DFactory, the brain of District 4.0, already integrates 40 leading companies in technology, the new economy and industry 4.0; the last one, a large healthcare company, for example. They could have chosen another place on the planet, but they are here for a practical model of collaboration to generate real businesses, products and services. If we want to attract the best agile, flexible and innovative 4.0 companies, our cooperation model must be agile, flexible, innovative… transversal collaboration because industry 4.0 reaches all sectors, how it is produced, how it is distributed, how it is consumed, how we make all this more sustainable from an environmental, social and economic point of view. It has a direct impact on the whole of society by creating quality jobs, for the future, and as an industrial engine of long-term wealth, with the will to last.
Therefore, in the sector, physical contact remains irreplaceable…
BLANCA SORIGUÉ. We connect sectors as diverse as healthcare or aeronautics with electric mobility, advanced robotics or 3D printing, with one logistics industry producing forklifts, another designing autonomous vehicles, and algae innovating sustainable materials for all of them. Now we are here, at the DFactory, in a meeting room and coworking. If we open the curtain we see right there a 200,000 m2 industrial warehouse for last mile distribution. On the third floor they are building a logistics drone, an artificial intelligence platform. Next door there are shared laboratories, a space to have a coffee or participate in the presentation of an industrial robot to potential customers. What am I saying with all this? That we are all connected, that we all have to tell each other something, and that by stepping out of our comfort zone we really do make opportunities not only add up, but multiply. The transversality of business and the connections between professionals and companies are an absolute reality. What we try to do is move it from concept to experience.
PN We are creating the physical, but also mental, space for collaboration between companies that create and adopt transversal technologies, which evolve rapidly when they interact. This collaboration is essential to the industry’s ability to adapt to the dizzying speed of change, which is also accelerating. Who was talking about artificial intelligence just three or four years ago? Just a small group of visionaries. Today it is developed or applied by literally all of our companies at DFactory. What will happen in three or four years? We don’t know, but we know that we must be ready to adapt quickly to all these permanent changes.
The establishment of large companies in the Free Zone and the DFactory is making headlines. What role do they play? startups in that ecosystem?
BS They are a fundamental pillar and this is why more than seven years ago we created incubators for emerging sectors such as 3D printing or logistics 4.0. Let’s consolidate startups from all the main vertical sectors of Industry 4.0. We welcome entrepreneurs who work for a large company, see a need, an opportunity, and create their own. start to take advantage of it. Someone who has an innovative idea and develops it with the intention of selling it to a company. But we give priority above all to those who consolidate their project of long-term wealth creation, but also of intrapreneurship within companies. These are the ones who interest us most and pass our filter, technically brilliant entrepreneurs, but with a genuine vocation to transform society for the better. They can’t do it alone, they don’t just need financial support, because there is money in the world, what they need is to multiply that capacity for positive impact by strengthening each other with other talents. That is why we facilitate this physical meeting and the means for their collaboration. If it is the scarcest resource, it is clear that talent attracts talent.
From what you can see on the urban map, that physical connection is also established with Barcelona…
PN Hence the name District 4.0, we are becoming another neighborhood in the city to transfer all this knowledge. We are overcoming physical barriers, two metro lines already arrive here, we participate directly in municipal training, sustainability and economic projects, we are already included in several Generalitats and Government of Spain, we include high-level research centers in the ecosystem, we talk to employers, unions, citizens’ associations, we have equality and female leadership projects in the industrial field… We have also reserved a road to test connected electric vehicles in a real urban environment, not in a closed circuit, a pioneering idea in Europe. And from the Consorci de la Zona Franca we have sold 185,000 square meters to the Municipality for the construction of approximately 1,700 protected houses. The city, its cultural pulse, its industrial tradition, its lifestyle are other important ingredients for attracting businesses.
BS None of this happened before. Previously the industry was taken as far as possible. And now we are starting to be a resource, an added value of the Barcelona brand. We are part of yours horizon physical, but also mental, of the city and its metropolitan area. We work so that citizens understand that they can come here and see us as just another neighborhood. That they can come because in reality they are already coming, you can believe it. Furthermore, we will add the second phase of DFactory, with four buildings that will strengthen this connection with more than 40,000 new square meters to host 4.0 companies, but also corporate and cultural events, services, restaurants… It will be a quality urban space, with an iconic image like that of the DFactory Cub, a large glass cube connected to Barcelona by a new avenue.
Can other entrepreneurial attraction projects in the world compete with you?
PN There are several centers of attraction in other metropolitan areas, Singapore, Boston, New York, Paris… We also start from renting square meters to attract companies, but our model is unique in some important aspects. First of all, we are public, from a perspective of social impact, not just economic, and for that model of collaboration and integration in the city that we have not seen in other experiences. As our general manager says, this added value means that we do not rent square meters, but cubic meters. I would say that we have no competitors, in the sense that our ecosystem is designed, planned and developed to create networks of mutual learning and collaboration capable of generating greater opportunities. Some companies at the beginning of DFactory had some doubts: they told us, well, everything is transparent here, our competitors will see what we do, right? Today they see that this network is a competitive advantage, it benefits their individual capabilities but also the sector and the economy as a whole. This is why the attitude is so important, we believe in this model and when it is confirmed by the results, we and the companies believe in it more.
BS Proof of these results is that delegations from all over the world come to meet us. Everyday. Last year we welcomed more than 5,000 people from companies, administrations and even governments, with this aim. Tomorrow one will arrive from South Korea; shortly after, one from China. And we are a reference for the free zones of other continents, including Africa and America. A couple of weeks ago we had our stand to present District 4.0 at the Smart City Expo World Congress, here in Barcelona. Precisely because these are cities that must improve their services to citizens, and thus attract other citizens capable of generating an economy superior to the one those cities have today.
Can geopolitical uncertainty or tariffs slow down its development?
PN I answer with a question: when has the world not gone through a turbulent situation, when, at least in recent years, have we not been faced with a high level of uncertainty? The January 2020 World Economic Forum risk report did not consider a pandemic. Nor were the wars in Ukraine or Gaza foreseen, nor Trump’s tariffs, or almost no one did… Changes that cannot be predicted, but which happen. That’s why we talked about flexibility and adaptation earlier. Companies that establish themselves here have learned the lesson of transcending punctuality, adapting with agility to whatever happens, without trying to project much further because no one can predict the future. It is the model that we apply with caution, but also with optimism. The proof is that, despite the economic and geopolitical landscape at the moment, in District 4.0 we will not only have full employment, we will certainly have a space problem because demand continues to increase.
