Apple has increased its workforce in Spain by 20 percent at the end of the last fiscal year -September 2021- to reach 2,025 direct employees, according to data to which Europa Press has had access. In the case of the team dedicated to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AIML, for its acronym in English), located in Barcelona, the number of workers has doubled during the same period.
To accommodate this expanding team, Apple opened a new office in Barcelona last December, which has been operating at full capacity since last July. Located in a restored late-19th-century building across from Apple’s iconic Paseo de Gracia store, this office has become the largest Apple AIML center in continental Europe.
Despite the current context of economic uncertainty, the US company plans to continue growing in Spain and currently has more than forty vacancies in the country, as detailed by the company. “We continue to invest in Spain and increase our team. Thanks to the excellent local talent we are building a top-level engineering team in Barcelona,” says Elisenda Bou-Balust, Senior Engineer at AIML.
Bou-Balust was the founder of Vilynx, a Spanish startup that Apple acquired in 2020 and that uses Artificial Intelligence to improve devices’ understanding of audiovisual content in context, optimizing search results. A revolutionary technology that Apple is developing in order to improve the user experience through its services.
Currently, Elisenda is in the process of searching for engineers to join the company to work on technologies that improve the user experience in Apple products and services. “At Apple, you have the opportunity to work alongside the best professionals in the industry in an inclusive and diverse environment,” she says.
Beyond direct jobs, Apple indirectly supports more than 120,000 jobs in Spain thanks to the volume of business generated by iOS apps. Those from Cupertino have been operating in Spain since 1985 with constantly growing offices in Madrid and Barcelona and eleven Apple Stores throughout the country.