Santander and the CSIC join forces to spearhead research into advanced and responsible AI for the future of banking

The agreement comprises research and innovation initiatives in advanced, responsible and explainable AI, causal inference, privacy, security, and new computational capacity applied to the financial and other sectors.

In the past five years, the bank has allocated 84 million euros to university research programmes in partnership with the CSIC and CRUE.

Madrid, 30 June 2026.
Banco Santander and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spain’s Council for Scientific Research, or “CSIC”) have signed a partnership agreement to explore future research, innovation and knowledge transfer initiatives in such strategic areas as advanced artificial intelligence and its link to quantum computing, hybrid quantum-AI applications, and other computational capacities.

This agreement, with an initial three-year term and renewable thereafter, lays the foundations for future R+D+i projects, specialized training programmes, industrial doctorates, scientific awareness, and joint participation in public and private research and innovation tenders. 

Santander AI Lab, led by José Manuel de la Chica, and the CSIC’s AI research ecosystem, will look to combine scientific knowledge and knowledge transfer applied to real challenges.

According to Iñaki Bernal, Chief AI Officer of Grupo Santander, “this agreement enables us to bring together the scale, knowledge and real challenges of a global bank like Santander with the scientific excellence of the CSIC to explore new advanced AI capacity that will help us roll out more transparent, robust and reliable solutions”.

Bernal added that the aim is to “boost an AI ecosystem that helps us get to grips with complex systems, make better decisions, and make headway in areas such as explainability, federated learning, bias detection and mitigation, advanced simulation, data privacy, security, and responsible governance. Pioneering research can only have a true impact when built on ambition, rigour and collaboration”.

According to Ana Castro, Deputy Head of Innovation and Transfer at the CSIC, “we firmly believe that science of the highest order must serve society and help address the major challenges of our time. As Spain’s leading public research organization, we’re working to build trailblazing, transferable knowledge that can have a true impact. Partnerships like this one with Banco Santander provide a huge opportunity to pair our scientific capability with specific challenges and come up with innovative and responsible solutions”.

Deputy Head of Scientific and Technical Research at the CSIC, José María Martell, said “this agreement fits perfectly into the CSIC’s 2025-2030 AI Strategy, especially in the development of advanced and reliable AI, knowledge transfer, and other key areas. What’s more, it underpins something we consider extremely important: to continue building a solid AI ecosystem in Spain, where research, talent and innovation work hand in hand to create value and prosperity”.

This agreement forms part of Santander’s “Data & AI-first” strategy to make AI cross-cutting, secure and useful in the bank’s way of working, decision-making, and customer and employee value creation. 

In turn, the CSIC will provide scientific capability, talented researchers, expertise and research infrastructure to drive through high-impact projects and address real financial sector challenge using the latest scientific breakthroughs.

Commitment to research

This latest link-up is part of the close partnership that Banco Santander, the CSIC and Fundación General CSIC have enjoyed since 2010 to promote research, innovation and knowledge transfer through joint programmes such as Proyectos Cero (scientific research) and ComFuturo, which Fundación General CSIC runs to encourage the recruitment and retention of outstanding young science and technology researchers in Spain.

These agreements fall under Santander’s unwavering commitment to enhancing knowledge and research. In the past five years, the bank has allocated 84 million euros to academic research programmes that it runs alongside the CSIC and Conferencia de Rectores y Rectoras de las Universidades Españolas (Spain’s University Rectors Council, or “CRUE”).

Under this new partnership, Santander and the CSIC are strengthening the connection between cutting-edge scientific research and its application in business to promote technology that enables the development of more secure, transparent, interpretable and reliable AI systems, as well as to explore the potential of quantum computing to address some of the digital economy’s most complex challenges.