“For an archipelago, latency is measured in kilometres.” The line belongs to Jorge Alonso, consulting director at Velorcios, and it is the clearest of those spoken on Thursday 22 October in El Sebadal, at the Canarias7 offices, during the forum “Nodos Edge: dato soberano, inteligencia en tiempo real”. The newspaper organised it and Telefónica sponsored it, which is worth remembering when reading the enthusiasm.
The concrete fact is this. Edge computing processes data close to where it is generated, instead of sending it to distant data centres. Telefónica has completed 17 nodes in Spain this year, housed in former copper telephone exchanges, and two are in the Canaries: one in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and one in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The company’s February press release listed them among the five nodes to be added in 2026. The project is part of a European initiative (IPCEI) and is funded by Spain’s Recovery Plan. Services range from virtual machines with GPUs and AI agents to low-latency connections over fibre or 5G, and private 5G networks.
Speakers at the forum included Ciro Gutiérrez, deputy minister for universities and research in the Canarian government, Guadalupe González, director general for digital transformation of public services, Ángel Verde and Juan Flores of Telefónica, and two local executives: Alonso and Ruperto Santana, managing director of Inerza. González argued that this time insularity and distance do not work against the islands, and mentioned shorter waiting times for administrative procedures thanks to technology. Santana listed the uses he sees: telemedicine, health data management, mobility, tourism trend analysis. Then he held back: it is a first step, and only later could it serve small and micro businesses.
The concrete examples are ones the islands already know. During the Tajogaite eruption on La Palma, decisions in the field were made in real time with drones. Another case cited was early wildfire detection. Some caution is needed here: the forum report does not make clear whether those systems already run on the new nodes or are examples of what edge would make easier. Nor are there figures on costs, prices for Canarian businesses or commercial start dates on the islands.
So why is it news for people who live here? Because for years the argument has run the other way: the island as a disadvantage, the cable that comes from far away, the data that takes a long detour before coming back. A node in Las Palmas and another in Tenerife move part of the processing to where it is needed, for hospitals, ports, hotels and administrations. Whether Canarian small businesses benefit will depend on prices and on who builds applications on top. Juan Flores said technology brings equity and that Canarians “no van a tener que envidiar a ningún sitio del mundo”, will not have to envy anywhere in the world. It is a stage line. In a year it will be possible to check how many local projects really run on these nodes.
