\n Most of Juzbado\u2019s high-tech workforce lives here.Credit: Andrey X. <\/p>\n
In Spain\u2019s most technologically advanced town, there are no robots, no bright traffic lights, and no fibre-optic internet. Welcome to Juzbado, the tiny village in Salamanca, with a population of 189 that quietly powers much of Europe. Thanks to a nearby uranium fuel plant, more than 91% of its registered workforce is technically employed in the tech sector. So how did this near-forgotten rural village become a statistical outlier on Spain\u2019s technological map?.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The factory that defines the town\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n In Juzbado, three kilometres outside, sits a heavily guarded compound called ENUSA\u2019s uranium processing plant.\u00a0 The only one of its kind in all of Spain. <\/b>It opened in 1985 and produces nuclear reactors in Spain, France, Finland, Belgium, and other countries. 17% of Spain\u2019s electricity flows from this uranium that is processed there. It is quite literally a part of Europe\u2019s backbone.\u00a0<\/p>\n The factory employs 381 workers, which is double the number of residents in Juzbado. And yet 23 of those workers are linked to that town. So while the plant pushes Juzbado to the top of Spain\u2019s tech rankings, the village remains an untouched, poetic, unchanged, and familiar place with more festivals than plutonium.\u00a0<\/p>\n A town untouched\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Since 2008, Juzdabo\u2019s has hosted some of the greatest poets in the Spanish-speaking world, including Ida Vitale, Francisca Aguirre, and Antonio Garmoneda, who have come to this tiny village to read their work. Their verses are etched in the bronze and fixed stone walls of Jusdabo.<\/p>\n By the numbers, 91% of Juzbado\u2019s workforce is within technology. Which is the highest percentage in Spain? But if you step inside the village<\/a>, you will find no data centres, no coworking spaces, and no electric scooters passing by. Instead, there is the following:\u00a0<\/p>\n