From tourist hot spot to tech haven: why Vodafone wants to lure Irish businesses to Malaga

This article originally appeared in the Business Post on April 14, 2026

Malaga may not seem the most obvious location for an innovation campus, given its reputation as a tourist haven. But the warm weather, which attracts visitors from across the globe, is also a pull factor in attracting employees. To date, over 500 staff drawn from more than 40 countries have relocated to the Costa del Sol to work for Vodafone’s hub.

Even more attractive than the weather is the opportunity for staff to focus on ground-breaking innovations as part of collaborations with organisations from across Europe. Rather than just employing telecom engineers, as might have once been the case for a company such as Vodafone, the centre has specialists spanning multiple fields, including engineering, networks, software, data, cybersecurity, and business transformation. Working together, they are tasked with coming up with
new tools for use by both Vodafone and its many global customers.

Vodafone first established a European R&D centre in Malaga in early 2020. Initially, it specialised in developing technology solutions based on unified communications, the Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, mobile private networks, and Open RAN (Open Radio Access Network architecture). This has since blossomed into a full innovation campus, covering not just these technologies but many others as well.

Backed by a €225 million investment, the Malaga campus is, according to its lead, Jesus Amores, firmly focused on working with customers to uncover better ways of using technology.

“The centre started out as a pure engineering centre, but we quickly realised the importance of opening it up to be something that customers could actively use. By working together, we can validate ideas, prototype potential products, and then move towards commercialisation,” he says. “It’s really about us opening our minds to new products that can be built on our network.”

Joanna Gilfoy, head of business at Vodafone Ireland, who is seeking to encourage more Irish companies to use the centre, describes it as a “living lab.”

“The focus is on being innovative but ensuring that it has a purpose, because it is very easy to focus on innovation for innovation’s sake, but if it is something that customers can’t use, then there’s no point to it,” she says.

Vodafone has partnered with multiple organisations to leverage its extensive infrastructure and cybersecurity expertise. It’s increasingly co-creating new technologies with household names, including fellow telcos such as Orange and Telefónica, as well as industrial firms like Veolia and Caterpillar. The company also collaborates with global tech giants like Microsoft and Cisco to offer cloud services and AI-enabled products.

Among the initiatives currently being explored is a way to ensure better mission-critical services for first responders and public safety services. Currently, some emergency services are using platforms like Tetra, which are increasingly limited, or have switched to insecure consumer apps such as WhatsApp.

The new system demoed at the campus gives control rooms better situational awareness and two-way guidance. It can create geofenced dispatch groups, prioritise emergency traffic (including issuing man-down alerts), and work across 4G/5G for richer data while still retaining the familiar push-to-talk interface that users are accustomed to. This technology has already been trialled in several locations, including Ireland.

While mission-critical communications are essential for first responders, enterprises also require dedicated bandwidth. At the campus, Juan Antonio Escalera, Vodafone’s lead solution architect, highlighted the use of Mobile Private Networks (MPNs) by industry.

He notes how companies in manufacturing, mining, utilities, and logistics often turn to MPNs when Wi-Fi and public cellular networks can’t provide sufficient capacity. While some organisations may initially only seek MPNs on a temporary“5G in a box” basis, many end up wanting to continue with dedicated private networks once they see the value. Highlighting examples such as SSE relying on them for its wind farms in Ireland, Escalera says MPNs are a game changer for organisations needing “dedicated capacity, very low latency, and stronger security.”

As a sign of the advanced tech the hub is focused on, one need look no further than the partnership with the University of Malaga and AST SpaceMobile. Together, they have established Europe’s first research hub for integrated Low Earth Orbit (LEO)space- and land-based mobile broadband services.

Located on the campus, this centre focuses on the design and validation of open-source hardware, software, and processing chips that can work interchangeably in both space and terrestrial networks. Coincidentally, as Connected was visiting the Malaga campus, the company back in Ireland completed what is believed to be the state’s first mobile phone video call made to a satellite using a standard smartphone, from Clare Island to AST SpaceMobile’s LEO constellation.

“We have exclusivity in terms of what we are doing,” explains Jose Antonio Sánchez Aragonés, lead engineer at the hub. “At the moment there are five satellites in space, but by the end of the year we expect to have between 45 and 60.”

The Internet of Things (IoT) remains a core focus. The company has partnered with water utilities in Spain, such as Aqualia and Canal de Sabadell, for large-scale deployments to give them real-time visibility of assets and leak detection. Vodafone Ireland is also running proof-of-concept pilots with Irish utilities such as ESB and Gas Networks Ireland, with the possibility of local roll-outs. Beyond utilities, the hub has partnered with the Malaga port to use IoT and video analytics for cargo safety.

In the realm of AI, Vodafone is moving beyond internal processes to co-create solutions, like the initiative with the Turkish Ministry of Education. Communicating via real-time translation services, the team developed a unified dashboard to monitor 46,000 schools using 70,000 telco switches and 60,000access points.

One final, surprising area of transformation is weather forecasting. By combining live sensor data gleaned from its antenna masts with analytics, Vodafone is providing hyperlocal weather insights to support planning across sectors like transport and insurance. Luis Francisco Vera, lead data scientist, notes that because the solution uses existing hardware, it is an "easy win" for the company and its many partners.

By turning everyday infrastructure into high-tech solutions, the Malaga hub is proving that while the weather may be a draw, the work being done there is the real forecast for the future of the industry.

Speaking to Connected, Jaime Diez, head of mobile private networks, cloud and cybersecurity engineering at the Malaga hub, reiterates Gilfoy's earlier point that while the campus is home to innovation, it has to have a purpose.

“We follow a rigorous methodology to determine if there is a proven business case for anything that is being developed, rather than just implementing something for the sake of it,” Diez says.

“Everything we do is driven by demand,” he adds.

Gilfoy, meanwhile, is keen to emphasise that while Vodafone has progressed considerably from ‘just’ being a telco, what was core to the company originally remains critical now.

“Our power comes from our ability to connect, and that, together with our focus on innovation, is central to what we do,” she says.

Gilfoy points out that in addition to working with Vodafone on solutions, the company’s clients are also able to lean into the firm’s network of partners too.

“We have large global partnerships with the likes of Microsoft, Cisco, Palo Alto, Fortinet and others, and so we have a fabulous ecosystem where everyone plays to their strengths to help customers create solutions,” she says.

Gilfoy is hopeful that Vodafone’s many Irish business customers will make the trip to Malaga to see how the campus can help them develop technologies to help them
thrive.

“Any of the customers who have been here so far have been taken aback by what we can offer. There is a real sense of ‘oh, I didn’t realise that you could do that’ from them. But we are very much a high-tech company, and our campus provides real examples of all that we can help organisations achieve,” she adds.

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