The grants awarded to the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) under the Spanish Research Agency’s (AEI) 2025 call for scientific and technical equipment acquisition grants will enhance the University’s research infrastructure, aligning it with strategic research and knowledge transfer challenges. Specifically, €749,992 has been allocated across four new projects, covering 40% of the equipment costs. The remaining 60%, nearly €1 million, will be co-funded by research centres, research groups and the University itself.

A microscope for three-dimensional nanoscale reconstructions

The Barcelona Research Center in Multiscale Science and Engineering (CCEM), comprising eight research groups and accredited as a María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence, will receive €468,904 to acquire a next-generation microscopy system for materials characterisation, replacing the current focused ion beam microscope operating since 2009.

This high-resolution electron microscope, featuring an ion beam column, will enable 3D reconstructions (3D tomography) with 5-nanometre accuracy, sample preparation for subsequent atomic-resolution transmission electron microscopy, large-area sample analysis to identify phase and chemical composition variations, and micromachining for microscale mechanical testing. The new equipment also allows the same sample area to be investigated using multiple microscopic and electroscopic techniques.

The UPC’s first institutional AI platform

With €160,000 in funding from this call, the UPC’s ICT Area will create the University’s first institutional AI infrastructure: a GPU-accelerated computing platform dedicated to AI model training and inference. The equipment will consist of two high-performance computing nodes with high-capacity GPUs, 5 TB of high-speed drives and 1 TB of RAM each, complemented by a storage array of at least 80 TB. It will be installed at the UPC’s Data Processing Centre on the North Diagonal Campus in Barcelona, serving all the University’s research groups and centres.

This platform is part of the AI Strategy that consolidates the UPC as a leading node in Catalonia’s AI R&D&I ecosystem, supported by the recent inauguration of the LEIA building (formerly Nexus I). The building acts as an AI hub at the UPC, housing key units such as the Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence research centre (IDEAI-UPC), the TECNIO-certified inLab FIB centre and ThinkUPC, the University’s advanced digital services provider.

Expanded high-performance computing capacity for research groups

The Heat and Mass Transfer Technological Centre (CTTC), located on the Terrassa Campus with over three decades of experience in high-performance computing, will expand its infrastructure with ten new nodes delivering 22.5 teraFLOPS of computing capacity, alongside four ARM-architecture nodes adding another 9.6 teraFLOPS.

The upgraded infrastructure, awarded €70,936, will be housed in a bioclimatic facility that reduces air conditioning energy use by up to 80%. It will support research groups in computational fluid dynamics, biotechnology, materials science, acoustics, aeronautics and computational physics, among other fields.

Spain’s highest-capacity hydrogen laboratory

With €50,125 in funding, the University’s Specific Centre for Hydrogen Research (CER-H2), which brings together 11 research groups across three UPC schools, will upgrade its electrical installation to boost its Diagonal-Besòs Campus weather station capacity from 30 kW to 120 kW.

First opened in November 2023, the upgraded laboratory will test systems such as fuel cells, electrolysers and power converters under controlled climatic conditions for sectors including automotive, shipping and aviation. This upgrade makes the CER-H2 the highest nominal capacity facility of its kind in Spain.

A call aligned with the UPC’s strategy

The UPC’s 2025–2028 Strategic Research and Knowledge Transfer Plan prioritises enhancing unique, interdisciplinary infrastructures as a core objective. The Plan considers these facilities essential for scientific leadership and for ensuring that generated knowledge progresses toward high-impact valorisation and transfer. The four projects funded through the AEI’s EQC2025 call aim to equip the University’s central research services with state-of-the-art scientific and technical equipment.

In this regard, several recent investments reflect this vision in action. In January 2026, the UPC received €3.2 million to fit out laboratories in buildings D and I on the Diagonal-Besòs Campus as part of the Catalonia Circular Materials Hub, an integrated laboratory complex designed to cover the entire materials value chain, from recycling to advanced component manufacturing. Selected among 14 projects funded by the Catalan Ministry of Research and Universities’ 2024 call for institutional singular grants and co-funded by European funds, this project highlights the sustained growth of the University’s research infrastructure.

Scientific and technical infrastructure forms a core pillar of research excellence, tackling present scientific and technological challenges while generating essential knowledge for society. Today, the University operates 1,416 scientific and technical services and 94 research facilities, supporting over 200 research groups and centres, 3,700 researchers and external companies and institutions utilising these facilities.

Projects EQC2025-009918-P, EQC2025-009642-P, EQC2025-009590-P, EQC2025-009701-P and EQC2025-009423-P, funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF, EU.