Spain will propose the creation of an Ibero-American artificial intelligence alliance at the first Ibero-American Digital Forum, to be held in Madrid ahead of the region’s summit of heads of state and government on November 4 and 5. The meeting will bring together 22 ministers and agencies responsible for digital transformation to outline common policies for AI in Spanish, Portuguese and other languages spoken across the region.
The initiative seeks to establish a shared technological framework among countries with common linguistic and cultural ties. Its goals include exchanging expertise and infrastructure, protecting linguistic sovereignty and achieving the market scale needed to develop alternatives to the largest American platforms. For Spain, the project is part of its Plan AI 360, which aims to position the country as a bridge between Europe and Ibero-America on regulatory and ethical issues.
Spain will ask the participating ministers to sign the Madrid Declaration. The document is expected to be submitted the following day for ratification by the heads of state and government attending the summit in the Spanish capital.
The proposed cooperation is organized around three main areas. The first is the development of AI models based on shared languages, initially Spanish and Portuguese, with the gradual incorporation of co-official, Indigenous and other native languages from the 22 countries. The stated aim is to ensure that these systems reflect the region’s cultural diversity.
The second area involves creating a shared Ibero-American data space. Under the proposal, information contributed by participating states would be managed through interoperable, open standards to enable secure exchanges of public data while preserving each country’s legislation, control and sovereignty over its information.
The third focuses on high-performance computing. The plan calls for greater regional cooperation and more equitable access to strategic computing infrastructure for public-interest projects with significant social impact. The proposal follows existing cooperation between Spain and Mexico on similar infrastructure, alongside the supercomputer already being developed at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
The initiative builds on the Ibero-American Charter of Principles and Rights in Digital Environments, approved at the 2023 Santo Domingo Summit. That charter established a shared commitment to protecting people’s rights online and ensuring that the benefits of digitalization reach society as a whole. Its implementation has led to cooperation on personal data protection, consumer rights and more accessible and secure digital public services.
Progress on the new plan accelerated during 2026. At a meeting in Madrid in February involving representatives from 18 countries, participants agreed to advance cooperation on data, language models, supercomputing and training. In May, representatives from 19 countries discussed initial proposals remotely and agreed to create an eight-country working group to define priorities and prepare the next steps.
Since then, Spain and the Ibero-American General Secretariat have held additional plenary meetings and bilateral discussions with nearly all the countries in the region. The government says these contacts have helped incorporate different priorities and bring positions closer together. Political support has also been sought through high-level meetings, including the September visit by Digital Transformation and Public Administration Minister Óscar López to Mexico.
The Spanish government considers the alliance one of the leading projects in Plan AI 360, its roadmap for the next twelve months. The strategy is intended to combine Spain’s regulatory and ethical experience with the resources of Ibero-American partners to develop shared AI capabilities in the region.
Sources: La Vanguardia.