El TECNALIA Technology Centre In 2025, TECNALIA achieved a 3,1% increase in activity compared to 2024, developing 4.759 technological solutions for 1.962 companies. TECNALIA is aware that this commitment from companies is occurring during a period of geopolitical uncertainty and volatility that affects their daily operations, and therefore makes it more difficult to invest in R&D&I during this extremely challenging time.
These figures are part of the 2025 activity report for the technology center, which was released this morning by the president of TECNALIAAlex Belaustegui, and its CEO, Jesús Valero. As Valero explained, “2025 has been a year that has unfolded in a complex context marked by an unstable international geopolitical environment that has affected companies; even so, we have achieved record results that help us to reindustrialize, enhance talent, anticipate challenges and maximize the impact of Basque industry.”.
Thanks to this vision based on transferring R&D&I to companies and with the aim of making a dual economic and social impact, TECNALIA closed the 2025 fiscal year with a turnover of €156 million, representing a 5,4% increase compared to the previous year. Regarding its impact on the surrounding area, its activity has contributed to generating €914 million of GDP in the Basque Country in 2025. For every euro that Basque institutions invest in TECNALIA, €34,10 of GDP is generated.
TECNALIA currently has a team of 1.512 experts, 43% of whom are women. Furthermore, 45% of management positions are held by women, contributing to the creation of quality jobs and gender equality in the Basque Country. In fact, TECNALIA It has been recognized as one of the 100 best organizations to work for in Spain (ranking compiled by Actualidad Económica). It is also worth noting that for every job at the center, another 9,16 are maintained in the Basque Country, representing a total of 13.258 jobs sustained on average by 2025.
Intellectual Property and Patents
In the area of Intellectual Property Sales (IPS), TECNALIA has established itself as one of the leading organizations in Europe in terms of return on IP by 2025. It has generated revenues of over €6 million in this area. It has created 3 deeptech startups and invested in 21 others, which have achieved a turnover of €8,75 million. Furthermore, TECNALIA has 645 patents and 388 software registrations in its portfolio, with a total of 24 European patents expected by 2025, and a 91% success rate in European patent applications granted since 2012.
At the European level, TECNALIA TECNALIA consolidates its leadership as the top private organization in Spain in contracting, participating in, and leading projects within the European Commission's Horizon Europe program, and ranks 21st among the 3.179 European research organizations participating in Horizon Europe. Furthermore, the TECNALIA brand continues to strengthen. In the latest awareness and positioning study conducted by the European Research Survey (ERS) in 2025, TECNALIA maintains its leading position in R&D&I brand awareness.
Milestones in 2025
TECNALIA maintains a strategic alignment with the Basque Government through numerous initiatives that promote plans for industry, food and gastronomy, energy transition, digitalization, health, etc. and has a high participation in the executive's flagship projects, reinforcing the center's role as a driving force for innovation and impact for the country.
As Jesús Valero explained, “Throughout 2025, our focus has been on addressing major industrial challenges, emphasizing all the areas in which we work, from mobility, health, advanced manufacturing, energy transition, and digital transformation—all fundamental areas for the coming years. This has all been integrated into the 2025-2027 Strategic Plan, in which our greatest challenge is to continue anticipating changes and driving technological projects and challenges so that we can act as agents of transformation.”.
Thus, the technology center focuses its efforts on 14 strategic areas that revolve around the major challenges that the Basque Government has for industry: the energy transition and digital transformation, achieving more sustainable mobility, achieving a friendlier urban ecosystem and a population with better aging, among others.
Among the main milestones of TECNALIA The following stand out in 2025:
- In the field of sustainable and smart mobility, the start of construction on a building located in the Mubil Hub in Donostia-San Sebastián stands out. This building will house three laboratories dedicated to air mobility and clean propulsion technologies such as renewable hydrogen. In addition, a pioneering laboratory has been launched, dedicated exclusively to the development of technology for the generation, transport, storage, distribution, uses, and safety of hydrogen.
- Furthermore, the capacity for large-scale fire testing for international markets has been expanded by achieving accreditation according to the regulations of countries such as Canada, being the only European laboratory with this capacity.
- After the summer, the Quantum Lab was launched, the first laboratory that designs and manufactures quantum sensors from a technology based on synthetic diamonds.
- Another milestone has been the inauguration of the 'Proactive Factory Lab,' an advanced manufacturing laboratory designed to anticipate problems by integrating new production models to improve productivity, flexibility, and energy efficiency. And this year will see the consolidation of 'The Proactive Factory,' the new smart factory of the future—a new factory model representing a production ecosystem capable of learning to anticipate and act, combining awareness, flexibility, and collaboration to sustainably maximize company productivity by 18% to 25% and generate operational savings of around 15%.
Strategic Plan and Challenges for 2026
For this fiscal year 2026, TECNALIA It foresees an investment plan of 24 million euros — 20% more than in the previous year — dedicated to new strategic equipment and infrastructure, updating existing infrastructure to adapt it to the challenges that the new strategic centres of excellence already require, and the expansion of facilities dedicated to smart manufacturing, mobility and the digitalization of all of them.
It is also continuing with its 2025-2027 Strategic Plan, which aims to boost the role of TECNALIA as a transformation agent for companies and help them adapt to the challenges of the future through the following pillars: promoting reindustrialization, enhancing excellent talent, anticipating the problems of the industrial fabric and maximizing the economic and social impact, transforming technological research into prosperity.
As the president summarized, “Our goal this year is clear: to anticipate and accelerate the transfer of technology to companies, attract and develop excellent talent, and strengthen our ability to anticipate in cutting-edge areas such as energy, mobility, circularity, digitalization, health, and advanced manufacturing.”.
To make this possible, their strategy is built on two pillars: the promotion of strategic areas of excellence, such as flexible automation, cybersecurity, digitalization of electricity networks, hydrogen generation and distribution, smart construction, and technologies for manufacturing medicines, among others; and the development of critical technologies, such as artificial intelligence, quantum physics, intelligent robotics, and advanced materials.
As explained by the president of TECNALIA, Alex Belaustegui, “Our priority is to increase our impact on GDP, the industrial sector and its revenue, and the jobs we create. At the same time, we want to expand our work with companies, because we are a tool at the service of organizations and society, and we must enhance our economic and social impact through technological research and innovation, acting as agents of transformation for businesses and society to adapt to the challenges of the future.”.