Lex Delles, Luxembourg Minister of the Economy, SMEs, Energy and Tourism;
Credit: MECO
From Tuesday 4 to Thursday 6 November 2025, Luxembourg Minister of the Economy, SMEs, Energy and Tourism, Lex Delles, carried out a working visit to Barcelona.
According to the Ministry of the Economy the purpose of the visit was to strengthen exchanges in the fields of digital technologies, urban innovation and energy efficiency and promote Luxembourg’s presence at the international Smart City Expo World Congress.
The working visit began with an immersion into Barcelona’s technological ecosystem. Minister Delles visited Pier 01, an incubator run by Tech Barcelona, where he held discussions with the initiative Payment Innovation Hub. He then visited The Collider, a Mobile World Capital programme that supports scientific and innovative projects in their transition from laboratory to market.
The minister concluded the first day with a visit to Pier 07, an incubator that hosts the Barcelona AI Factory (BSC-AI). BSC-AI, like the L-AIF (Luxembourg AI Factory), is one of seven artificial intelligence (AI) Factories in Europe and supports SMEs in adopting artificial intelligence and digital transformation.
During Luxembourg’s economic mission to Spain in May 2025, Minister Delles had already visited the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre. His visit to the newly created BSC-AI completed his overview of Catalonia’s technological infrastructure.
On the evening of Tuesday 4 November, following the official reception at Barcelona City Hall with H.E. Ambassador Elisabeth Cardoso to mark the opening of the exhibition, Minister Delles dedicated the second day of his visit to the Smart City Expo World Congress.
Luxembourg participated in the event for the sixth consecutive time. The Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Defence, Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade jointly organised the national pavilion. The pavilion welcomed 15 exhibitors from Luxembourg, including ArcelorMittal Sheet Piling, IEE, DEEP, RSS Hydro, LuxGeospatial, G-Core Labs, the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) and the cities of Luxembourg and Differdange.
Minister Delles also visited the pavilions of Wallonia (BEL), North Rhine-Westphalia (DEU) and the national pavilion of France. Fira Barcelona organised a guided tour focusing on leading-edge technologies, during which the minister visited the stands of Globant AI, Google and Dassault Systèmes. Throughout the day, he met companies from around the world offering innovative solutions of potential interest to the Luxembourg market, including NVIDIA and Microsoft.
The Embassy of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg in Madrid and the Honorary Consulate in Barcelona supported a networking reception held at the Luxembourg stand. Minister Delles met, among others, the founder of MABU Concepts, a company from Stadtbredimus and finalist in the World Smart City Awards in the category “Enabling Technologies” for its innovations in IT consultancy, software development, cloud services and cybersecurity.
To conclude the visit, Minister Delles visited Districlima, a company specialising in innovative and energy-efficient heating and cooling systems for urban applications. Its network includes a 5,000 m³ cold-water reservoir that optimises energy consumption between day and night.
Minister Delles said: “As part of the Smart Cities project call that we launched this year in Luxembourg to encourage and enable municipalities to deploy smart solutions that facilitate the daily lives of citizens, an event such as the SCEWC represents an exceptional source of ideas and exchanges. Building smart, inclusive and technologically advanced cities is essential for citizens’ well-being, to meet decarbonisation requirements, strengthen our competitiveness, attract new talent and investors and ensure sustainable development.”
He added: “Spain is positioning itself as a key partner for Luxembourg, particularly in the areas of digital technologies, decarbonisation and renewable energy, and I am confident that we will continue to deepen our economic relations and cooperation in these fields.”
