Telefónica activates Edge commercial services to empower businesses in Spain

Telefónica activates its commercial Edge Computing services for businesses and administrations as part of its leading deployment plan in Europe. The company has taken a new step in this pioneering Edge project and now offers B2B (Business to Business) services in five nodes, located in Madrid, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao, and A Coruña.

The productive ecosystems around these cities have Telefónica’s first Edge-based services, benefiting from open, differentiated, and interconnected infrastructures capable of providing large computing and data storage capacities at the edge. This will enable companies to enjoy lower latency and greater efficiency in their processes, from the technological vanguard associated with this new wave of digital transformation for sectors such as industry and society in general.

Telefónica’s Edge Plan envisages 17 nodes in this first phase for the current year. Of that total, 12 infrastructures are already deployed: the five corresponding to Madrid, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao, and A Coruña, all with B2B services; and seven more nodes, located in Madrid (its second node), Barcelona, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, Valladolid, Terrassa, and Merida.

This year, five more locations will be added to these 12 nodes: Zaragoza, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Gijón, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and Santiago de Compostela. This means that by 2026, Telefónica will have 17 nodes, which will gradually activate their commercial Edge services from differentiated infrastructures, adding to the leading communications networks that the company accredits for fixed (FTTH fiber) and mobile (5G Stand Alone SA) technology, and taking advantage of the benefits offered by Open Gateway APIs.

Telefónica recently partnered with CAF (Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles) to launch the first European B2B pilot integrating Edge and 5G SA capabilities applied to the railway sector. Thanks to Edge, CAF can deploy interior perception solutions based on artificial vision without the need to install processing nodes in each car, maintaining low latency and ensuring processing close to the asset. Following this innovation project, Telefónica is now beginning to market its Edge services.

Telefónica identifies needs, collaborates with the necessary players, and provides solutions that were not feasible until the emergence of Edge, which powers applications and use cases. The new services allow information to be processed as close as possible to the activity, factory, office, store, or business, reducing latency, dependencies, and risks, which represents an evolution of the Cloud offering. From this unique position in the Spanish market, Telefónica Empresas is launching two levels of services: Edge Básico and Smart Edge, adaptable to each case and to the requests of each company. The portfolio is supported by the TTCP (Telefónica Tech Cloud Platform) service operated by Telefónica Tech, to offer the advantages of Edge from the infrastructures.

Basic Edge: capillarity and sovereignty

The Basic Edge is based on the capillarity and sovereignty of this deployment, through a stable and predictable Edge infrastructure. This static level brings the Cloud closer and ensures data control, in compliance with sovereignty requirements according to the required regulatory framework, whether national, regional, or even local. Each node defines an availability zone, allowing companies and administrations to deploy their applications with additional guarantees of business continuity and enhanced communications resilience.

In terms of access to a node from a factory, store, or business, when the customer has Telefónica fiber (FTTH), the route that traffic follows between both locations is highly optimized and remains within the service region, reducing network hops.

Edge Basic opens up a range of sovereign cloud services, including advanced computing capacity, thanks to virtual machines with GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), specialized units for high-performance AI computing. Companies and institutions will be able to use these GPUs in service mode, with low latency and in a sovereign manner, without having to make the corresponding initial investment.

It also incorporates sovereign AI capabilities through agents and adaptability with RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), which provide flexibility, accuracy, and scalability. Basic Edge relies on the best secure and controlled storage solutions, close to the data to avoid movement to the public cloud. The service also includes comprehensive license management for the main business solutions that the customer needs.

Smart Edge: mobility and dynamism

The next level in terms of services offered is the dynamic Smart Edge, with the advantages of mobility for real-time application operation: low-latency connectivity in critical processes with the possibility of operating services on the move or in a distributed manner, all while bringing AI closer to the point where business activity takes place.

This intelligent and dynamic service is capable of adding key advantages such as selecting the optimal node at the right time and instantiating applications, i.e., creating a single, functional operational copy (instance), allowing it to be executed in memory under the direction of the user, who chooses when it is in operation. The Smart Edge service provides access to the chosen node via FTTH or 5G SA, depending on preferences, with the option to request quality of service (QoS) and private 5G access points (APN).

Telefónica’s Edge connects to the company’s next-generation fixed and mobile networks, which stand out in Spain for their coverage and capillarity, a footprint that is reinforced by the creation of 17 nodes, both on the mainland and in the archipelagos. The facilities chosen for deployment are located in former copper exchanges converted into Edge centers, in compliance with high availability requirements and the necessary security conditions.

This enables the next generation of advanced services, with enormous potential in sectors such as Industry 4.0: mobile robotics, logistics management, traceability and inventory solutions, automation and digitization, production line robotics, predictive maintenance, data analytics, operator assistance and safety, fleet management, route optimization, and storage measures. The Edge will also be crucial in other areas such as logistics, retail, ports, mass communications, digital twins, and autonomous driving.

Sovereignty to control data

The nodes function as small, low-latency data centers to process, analyze, and store data, and thanks to Edge technology, all of this is executed as close as possible to the source of the information, unlike large data centers or centralized cloud infrastructures. Edge computing is distinguished by its scalable and efficient architecture, capable of managing information generated by a large number of devices. In addition to the high availability and elasticity of the cloud, edge computing adds technological features and greater control over data, which contributes to strengthening digital sovereignty within a framework of local regulations.

This deployment opens up the option of reducing technological dependence on service providers with platforms based outside the European Union. Instead of a closed, centralized solution owned by a large cloud provider, Telefónica’s Edge Plan offers an open, decentralized, multi-provider model in which interfaces are shared and interoperability is guaranteed, benefiting the ecosystem and, of course, future customers.

The project is part of an Initiative of European Common Interest (IPCEI) coordinated by the European Commission to strengthen the digital capabilities of European industry. Telefónica España’s proposal was the highest rated nationally in June 2021 and received the Commission’s backing. This approval enabled its financing through the Spanish Government’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, accelerating the creation of a network of sovereign Edge nodes that reinforce the country’s digital autonomy and contribute to Europe’s.

At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) being held in Barcelona from March 2 to 5, Telefónica will present its latest developments in this area. On Wednesday, March 4, at 9:30 a.m., the session

Immediate Future: Leading the Low-Latency 5G Edge

will take place at the company’s stand in the Agora, with Alejandro Alonso, Innovation Expert at Telefónica Spain; Yolanda Bueno, Marketing Manager for Infrastructure and Cloud for B2B at Telefónica Spain, and Igor López Orbe, Head of Communications & Cybersecurity Center of Excellence at CAF.

For more information: Telefónica at MWC2026