Malaga's future IMEC nanoelectronics centre legally registers in Spain

IMEC and the national, regional and municipal governments have already taken firm steps toward creating a microchip design and manufacturing centre in Malaga.

They launched the tender for its construction, valued at 190 million euros, in January. One important detail was missing, however: IMEC did not yet have a legal presence in Spain.

Now it does. On 6 April, the official state gazette (BOE) published the registration of Fundación Imec Spain in the register of foundations, which will manage the Belgian research institute's activities in Spain.

The foundation was established on 7 October 2025, by Belgian company IMEC International with an investment of 30,000 euros. The aims of the newly formed entity are "to conduct pioneering strategic research in nanotechnology and digital technology to develop the building blocks that contribute to a better life in a sustainable society", as well as "to introduce new advances to the market through partnerships or startups and help companies and universities access these new technologies".

According to the BOE, Patrick Pierre J. Vandenameele-Lepla is President of Fundación Imec Spain, Johan Theophiel M. De Boeck is Secretary General and Rudi Cartuyvels is trustee member.

The project to build an R&D complex in Malaga for the manufacture of 300-millimetre wafer semiconductors has been making steady progress since the beginning of the year. This will be IMEC's first facility of this kind outside of Leuven.

The company is currently in the recruitment phase and expects to have "between 20 and 30 employees" by the end of this year. They will spend a year or two training at the Belgian headquarters and will gradually join the Malaga team, depending on their role, as construction of the factory progresses.

The first recruitees were the infrastructure engineers. "Starting in 2027, the hiring process will accelerate because, by 2028, we will need almost 100 of the 200 people who will work at IMEC once operations are under way," Director General of IMEC Van Gils said.

The construction phase is also progressing. In January, the Spanish society for technological transformation (SETT) launched a tender for the project design and construction of the facilities and it should announce the winner by June.

The company will then have six months to complete the detailed design. The goal is to begin construction in December 2026 or January 2027 and to finish in September 2028, at which point another equally complex phase will begin: the installation, commissioning and testing of all the necessary machinery, which will take approximately 15 months.

During a recent visit to IMEC's headquarters in Leuven, president of the regional government Juanma Moreno personally witnessed the Belgian company's commitment to meeting deadlines and expressed confidence that the project "would be completed, if all goes well, around spring, in June of 2030". The project will require an investment of over 600 million euros: the central government has already committed 500 million and the regional government 130 million euros.