VALENCIA, 8 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The European Commission has officially approved the creation, in the city of Valencia, of the Consortium of European Digital Infrastructures for Local Networked Digital Twins oriented towards CitiVERSE, as reported by the city council of the Valencian capital in a statement.

The Councilor for Tourism, Innovation and Investment in this council, Paula Llobet, has indicated that this “represents a milestone” for Valencia “that will boost its economy, attract talent and technology companies and allow for the creation of quality employment.” Likewise, she has considered that this decision will place this city “as a cutting-edge reference in innovation.”

On February 1, the European Commission officially approved the creation of the first European Digital Infrastructure Consortium for digital twins and citiverse with its headquarters in Valencia. And this Wednesday, February 7, the measure was published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

At the moment, eight countries are part of it as founders: Croatia, Slovenia, Spain, Estonia, France, Latvia, Portugal and Czechia. Three other countries – Luxembourg, Belgium and Slovakia – have already formalized their application and have presented all the documentation to be members, detailed the Valencia City Council, which has highlighted that the forecast is that more countries will join soon.

These spaces, EDICs, are “the most innovative modality promoted by the Digital Decade Programme, the political program of the European Commission for the digital transformation of Europe until 2030, for the implementation of coordinated projects of several member states of the European Union”, has added the same source.

The main objective of EDICs is to provide a legal framework for investing in multi-country projects that, given their scale, cannot be established by individual member states.

The approval of this first consortium represents “a very important milestone both for the European Commission, as it is one of the first two EDICs to be created, and for the city of Valencia” because “it has managed to be chosen to be the city that hosts the campus”.

“It is a great achievement for the city of Valencia to host the headquarters of the first European consortium of digital infrastructures that will manage such disruptive aspects as digital twins and the citiveverse. It is an opportunity that will attract knowledge, talent, technology companies and will allow the creation quality employment,” said Llobet.

The municipal official has asserted that in addition, this EU decision “consolidates València as a reference city in the field of smart cities and knowledge in innovation.”

The Valencia City Council, through its Smart City Service, has participated this week in the ‘Research to Reality’ event in Brussels, within the framework of the Belgian presidency of the EU, to describe the process of creating the EDIC on Twins Digital towards the Citiverse, as a success story at the European level, the council has specified.

The representatives of this local administration have shared the knowledge and experiences acquired during this process with other EDICs in a less advanced state, including the EDIC on Imaging for Cancer Treatment, also led at the European level from Valencia through the Health Research Institute La Faith.

“We have to value the innovative talent we have in Valencia. The fact that this European consortium is installed in La Harinera, the innovation center of the Valencia City Council, is very important for our city, but also for the Valencian Community and for Spain,” said Paula Llobet.

The European Digital Infrastructure Consortium for the implementation of a Network on Local Digital Twins towards a CitiVERSO is part of a multi-state project called Local Digital Twins towards CitiVERSE.

With this milestone, València “confirms its leadership in digital innovation and smart cities on an international scale”, its city council has insisted. Thus, he commented that this city has been a trajectory that the council had started in 2013 when it “was the first city in Spain to deploy the first Smart City Platform complying with the European Fiware standard.”

The municipal administration has specified that “a digital twin is a virtual model of a physical space to which real-time information, advanced data analytics and management of simulation scenarios are added.”

Paula Llobet has indicated that “they are fundamental tools for the management of cities” and “a great advance to provide successful solutions through technology to the great challenges that cities have to face.”

Added to this is the citiverse, “which provides citizens with a platform that allows them to interact with their city government in planning processes or in economic and social activities,” the council added.

In addition to hosting the headquarters in Valencia, the city council, through its Smart City Service, will preside over the EDIC Assembly, the highest governing and decision-making body of the consortium.

The council has also highlighted that Valencia has been chosen to host one of the three European operations centers of CitCom.ai, the Southern Supernode of Artificial Intelligence applied to the Smart City.