TECNALIA opens its new Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory to anticipate industry demands
- This new laboratory, Proactive Factory Lab, enables TECNALIA to increase its capacity by 62% compared to the previous laboratory
- TECNALIA has invested €5.5 million euros of its own funds in this new 476 m² laboratory, which extends current facilities and strengthens TECNALIA’s position as a benchmark for advanced manufacturing
- It aims to accelerate the transfer of knowledge to companies, enabling new advanced manufacturing technologies to reach a higher state of maturity and to be integrated into industrial solutions
Donostia-San Sebastián, 15 January 2026. Today, TECNALIA research and technological development centre has opened its new Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory. It is a new space created to respond to the growing demands for applied and scalable innovation facing the industry today.
This extension will allow TECNALIA to increase its capacity by 62% compared to the previous lab, going from 765 m² to the current 1,241 m², and to respond to the growth in industrial demand in advanced manufacturing required by companies. This demand is estimated to increase by 8-10% per year, driving the adoption of new smart technologies and strengthening TECNALIA’s position as a strategic partner of organisations in the development of key technologies that improve the industry’s productivity, sustainability and competitiveness. It is also estimated that there will be a 30% increase in the number of industrial tests that can be carried out annually, which will significantly improve the maturity of the technological developments carried out for their transfer and scalability in the market.
TECNALIA has invested €5.5 million euros of its own funds in this new 476 m² laboratory located in its Paseo Mikeletegi 7 building, in the Gipuzkoa Science and Technology Park. It was created with the aim of proactively anticipating the needs of companies, helping them to turn new smart manufacturing technologies into sustainable competitive advantages over time. Specifically, it should reduce the development or validation time of new technologies and increase their maturity for industrialisation in key sectors (machine tools, automotive, aeronautics, energy, etc.).
This new space, called Proactive Factory Lab, is characterised by testing and maturing pre-competitive technological solutions in fully functional and scalable environments. The aim is to carry out tests on TECNALIA’s own machines and means of production, and on those of other organisations, in the most realistic conditions possible, reproducing a factory in a real environment in order to validate the already competitive solution, ready for deployment, thus reducing the risk of its implementation and speeding it up. In fact, it is expected that there will be a 30% growth in companies served in four years in terms of developments around advanced manufacturing projects.
- The essential element and key feature of this Proactive Factory Lab is to optimise performance through the optimal use and integration of artificial intelligence, with the aim of maximising business productivity.
- The design of this new space aims to enhance the transfer of knowledge to the market, reaching higher levels of maturity of technological solutions that were not possible with the current means. This combines process and means excellence with digitalisation and intelligence possibilities. This reduces even further the so-called “death valley”, which separates research from industrial implementation, and bridges the gap between innovation and the market.
- TECNALIA seeks to shorten the time and reduce the risks of this critical phase in which many ideas and technologies stagnate, allowing this new advanced manufacturing laboratory to move from the theoretical phase to demonstrable reality in a productive environment and enabling companies to validate and scale new competitive technologies in a more agile, economical and safe way.
Areas of Activity
The Proactive Factory Lab is structured in three main areas available to companies: Advanced and Smart Robotics, Design and Optimisation of Smart Machines, and Smart Production Processes, which enable the main technological challenges of the industry to be tackled from an integrated perspective. It is a live and versatile environment that adapts to the requirements of companies, according to the needs of their projects.
- Advanced and Smart Robotics facilitates the development of solutions based on industrial and collaborative robotics, with a flexible and adaptive approach and advanced interaction with the environment and operators. It also enables companies to make the leap to smart robotics with high adaptability to production needs and changing environments, deploying robots with learning capabilities to respond to complex processes.
- On the other hand, the Design and Optimisation of Smart Machines area is a space equipped for companies with advanced design, development and experimentation solutions, aimed at developing future generations of more productive and precise machines, while integrating new functionalities to make them more flexible and adaptable to different production needs. In addition to powerful design and calculation capabilities, it integrates for the first time a high level of AI-based digitalisation of the machine to provide it with the intelligence required to adapt to the requirements of different types of manufacturing, as well as to enable user-friendly and intuitive interaction with operators.
- Finally, in the Smart Production Processes area, work is being carried out on the development and optimisation of mature or new processes such as machining, welding, additive manufacturing and water jet cutting. All of this is integrated with the next level of advanced digitalisation that allows for continuous real-time process control and optimisation to ensure the quality and integrity of the end result. This leap to a smart process allows for increased autonomy in the manufacture of demanding components and assists the operator to improve quality and productivity.
Open day for companies
The Proactive Factory Lab is an open and collaborative space where the focus in on companies. In the morning, the first thematic day organised by TECNALIA was held, in which more than 60 companies got to know the new laboratory at first hand. They also attended various demonstrations of adaptive welding solutions, machine digitalisation, flexible robotics, cable robotics, advanced user interfaces, etc., some of which are implemented in industrial environments, such as with Ibarmia, Jaso, MTorres, Irizar Forge, Inmapa, Zeatz, Astilleros Murueta, TrebezIA and Airbus.
Several demonstrations illustrating the proactive factory concept were presented during the event: an adaptive welding solution with iWeld; a mobile collaborative robotics solution with automatic programming depending on the part and the operation to be performed; a cable robot solution controlled by a voice interface for automated manipulations and assemblies; and a machine and component digitalisation solution for advanced diagnostic, monitoring, quality control and maintenance functionalities.
About TECNALIA
TECNALIA is the largest applied research and technological development centre in Spain, a European benchmark and member of the Basque Research and Technology Alliance. TECNALIA works with companies and institutions to improve their competitiveness, people's quality of life and achieve sustainable growth, thanks to a team of more than 1,500 people committed to building a better world through technological research and innovation. This is why TECNALIA's research has a real impact on society and generates benefits in the form of quality of life and progress. Its main areas of action are: smart manufacturing, digital transformation, energy transition, sustainable mobility, health and food, urban ecosystem and circular economy.
In the latest brand awareness and positioning study carried out by the European Research Survey (ERS) in 2022, TECNALIA tops the list regarding R&D and Innovation brand awareness.