On 8 September 2026, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) and Kyndryl Spain formalised their collaboration within the European AHEAD project, signing a Partnership Agreement in front of MareNostrum 5. The agreement was signed by Prof. Mateo Valero, Director of BSC-CNS, and Enrique Cortés, President of Kyndryl Spain, during a meeting held at BSC-CNS headquarters in Barcelona.

A high-level institutional visit

The Kyndryl delegation, led by Enrique Cortés and joined by Antonio Rodríguez Perales (Vice President Enterprise), Pilar Roch (Director of Institutional Relations), Salomé Valero (Director of Innovation) and Xavier Gatius (Director of Public Sector in Catalonia), was welcomed by the BSC-CNS team, including Prof. Mateo Valero; Dr Claudia Rosas Mendoza, Lead Researcher; María José Rementeria, Social Link Analytics Group Leader and representative of Bioinfo4Women; Dr Salvador Capella Gutiérrez, Director of the Technologies for Biomedical Research Lab; Dr Davide Cirillo, Head of the Machine Learning for Biomedical Research Group; and Marcel Bigas, Institutional Relations Manager.

The visit followed a full agenda. It began with an official welcome from Prof. Mateo Valero, followed by a round of presentations: Prof. Valero opened with an overview of the centre, Dr Claudia Rosas Mendoza followed with an introduction to the AHEAD project and the Life Sciences department’s work, and Enrique Cortés closed the session with remarks from Kyndryl Spain.

The agreement was then signed by Prof. Valero and Enrique Cortés in front of MareNostrum 5, marking the occasion with an official photograph, before the visit concluded with a tour of the facilities.

Enrique Cortés (President of Kyndryl Spain) and Prof. Mateo Valero (Director of BSC-CNS) after signing the agreement

Kyndryl’s role in the project

Kyndryl Spain joins AHEAD’s network of 8 non-funded associated partners, alongside Kyndryl Portugal, supporting the project’s 7 funded beneficiaries, coordinated by BSC.

As an associated partner, Kyndryl Spain does not receive EU funding and is not a signatory to the Grant Agreement, but it commits to carrying out the project tasks assigned to it and to complying with key articles of the Grant Agreement covering proper implementation, conflicts of interest, confidentiality, ethics and visibility.

Its contribution is primarily in-kind: it brings domain expertise to real-world use cases, takes part in co-creation and dissemination workshops and, notably, will make its facilities in Portugal available to host BSC researchers on secondment, without any associated cost-reporting burden for Kyndryl.

In return, Kyndryl gains early access to the AI health evaluation methodology and the OpenEBench platform, visibility within a network of 15 partners across 11 countries, and the opportunity to host researchers trained through a leading European project.

This collaboration has its roots in a conversation started a year ago by María José Rementeria, former Project Investigator (PI) of the AHEAD Project, who made the first contact with Salomé Valero, Director of Innovation at Kyndryl Spain, opening the door to what would become this formal partnership between BSC-CNS and Kyndryl Spain.

“AI is now a real part of our lives, present in critical systems and scientific disciplines related to biomedicine and health. Joining forces between academia and private companies is the best driver for relevant and trusted innovation,” said Dr Claudia Rosas Mendoza (BSC).

This new partnership marks a significant milestone for AHEAD, bringing together academic research and industry expertise in a shared commitment to advancing the responsible use of AI in biomedicine and healthcare across Europe.

Enrique Cortés (President of Kyndryl Spain) and Dr Claudia Rosas Mendoza (BSC) at BSC-CNS headquarters.