Mobile Tech & Gadgets

Inditex has found a different way to grow

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There is a way to read the Inditex results in 2025 which makes them seem somewhat disappointing. Sales have grown by 3.2%, up to 39,864 million. Profit has risen 6%, to 6,220 million. These are record figures, yes, but the previous year profits grew by 9%, and the year before that by 30%. The curve is clearly moderating. And yet, the market applauds, the analysts are satisfied and the company does not seem at all worried. To understand why, we have to stop looking at “how much” Inditex grows and start looking at “how it grows.” Why is it important. For decades, the story of Inditex was told in stores. More shops, more markets, more square meters. In 2012, 482 establishments opened in a single year, an all-time high. Today that model is behind us. What has taken its place is something harder to see from the outside, but more valuable: a margin discipline that converts each euro of sale into more profit than before, with fewer physical assets. Between the lines. The most striking fact about the results is that in the last three years, sales have grown by 22% while the number of stores has decreased by 6%. The CEO himself, Óscar García Maceiras, pointed this out in the presentation of results, and it is not a minor fact. They are two curves that move in opposite directions, and that says a lot about the transformation that the group has experienced. At the end of the year, Inditex operated 5,460 stores all over the world. A year before there were 132 more. The dynamic is systematic: 190 openings, but 293 absorptions. It opens less and merges more, concentrating traffic in larger areas, better located and capable of also managing the flow of online orders. Stores have ceased to be simply points of sale and have become hybrid logistics points. The contrast. The number of establishments decreases, but the margin increases. The gross margin has reached 58.3% of saleswith operating expenses growing only 2.8%, below the pace of revenue. Every euro that comes in comes out cleaner. RBC analysts explained it this way after seeing the numbers: the result exceeded expectations precisely due to a higher gross margin and a greater volume of sales at full price, without discounts. Jefferies added another factor: reduced transportation costs and supply chain efficiencies. Everything points in the same direction. It’s not just that they sell more. They sell better. Main winner? The medium-sized brands of the group, which without making much noise are gaining weight. Bershka grew 12% in sales, Stradivarius 12.6% and Oysho 15%. Their pre-tax profits rose by around 20%, 15% and 35% respectively. Zara continues to be the driving force (it represents 70% of the group’s turnover) but it is no longer the only interesting story within the conglomerate. Main loser? Pull&Bear, the only chain in the group that has seen its profit before taxes fall: 7.8% less, from 458 to 422 million. It is also the only one with a return on capital employed that fell compared to the previous year, from 48% to 40%. In a group where almost everything goes up, that data draws attention. The big question. Can Inditex continue to break records if it grows more and more slowly? For now, yes. But the lever of store optimization is not an infinite resource. You can only improve productivity per square meter to a certain extent. Hence the 2,300 million that the company plans to invest in 2026 go mainly to technology, online platforms and channel integration. The next chapter will not be to open more stores but to make data and algorithms do the work that the square meter previously did. The start of 2026 gives reasons for optimism: sales have grown by 9% in the first weeks of the new year. Amancio Ortega, for his part, will receive 3,234 million in dividends this year. The machine works. In Xataka | Galicia will continue to be the heart of Inditex, but not of all its brands. Four firms are already preparing their jump to Barcelona Featured image | Salman Sidheek

There are people modifying their router so that ads stop appearing on their refrigerator

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A man had to install an ad blocker directly on his router to stop his $1,400 refrigerator from showing ads. They tell it in the Wall Street Journal and, although it sounds absurd, it is just one of the experiences of those affected by the questionable decision that Samsung made a few months ago. What has happened? Samsung Family Hub refrigerators (those with a screen built into the door) began showing ads in September last year. Samsung admitted itconfirming that it was a pilot program for some users in the United States. Six months later, the ads are still appearing, some showing Samsung consumables like water filters, but others are third-party ads and in some cases they are full screen. Samsung says that the latter appear when the browser is opened and that it cannot control them. The problem of the official solution. Samsung allows you to remove ads from its refrigerators, but be careful because there is a catch. The advertising is integrated into a widget that also displays news, weather and calendar. To remove them, you have to delete the entire widget and there are users who do not want to lose it. The unofficial solution. Brian Bosworth is one of those affected by this decision, but he refused to give up the widget because he found it very useful, so he took the long route: he logged into his router, installed ad-blocking software, and made sure his refrigerator was included in the filter. Result: You keep the widget and don’t see ads. Discomfort. There are owners who feel directly deceived by this situation. They paid $1,400 for a premium appliance and now it has been turned into an advertising panel, all without their prior consent. One of them wants to return the refrigerator and has said that he will not buy any Samsung device again, which leads one to wonder if Samsung has correctly calculated the benefit of this decision. Making things worse. Cases like this are one more example of the drift that the internet and digital services are taking. It’s what was coined as ‘enshittification’which translated would be something like shit. It is a deliberate degradation of products and services that responds to an economic objective. Advertising is one of the forms of this degradation and we have seen it flood all types of services such as Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video, Instagram and even apps to control home cameras. We didn’t expect to see it also in refrigerators, but that’s the way things are. Image | Xataka In Xataka | “I take things that are good and make them worse”: Norway has a plan to reverse the decline of the entire Internet

NASA has put a Spaniard in charge of the project for its future lunar base: Carlos García-Galán from Malaga

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Dressed in a jacket, light blue shirt and gold tie, Carlos García-Galán He did not occupy another chair at the NASA conference held in Washington. Escorted by the administrator Jared Isaacman and other top-level officials, the engineer from Malaga spoke before the press in the middle of the presentation of the agency’s new lunar turn. His presence at that time placed him at the forefront of a roadmap that redefines NASA’s priorities on the Moon. The context of that scene helps understand its relevance. Hours before,Isaacman had presented a roadmap that changes the focus of the agency. It is no longer just about returning to the Moon, but about establishing a sustained presence on its surface. The proposal involves deploying in three phases the initial elements of a permanent lunar base, with stable infrastructure and a logic that is more industrial than experimental. The man from Malaga who now pilots the Moon Base program This change of course also redefines the role of those who must execute it. In this context appears García-Galán, whose official position within NASA is “executive program” at the lunar base. This is a high-level management position, responsible for coordinate and guide program development, not an operational role on the ground. His role will be to lead the project from the agency structure, not to direct a facility on the lunar surface. García-Galán, remember, is not a newcomer, but an engineer who has developed his career within NASA and has been assuming responsibilities for years to get to this point. His presence in the announcement is linked to that trajectory, which now places him in one of the great bets of the US space agency at this stage. His career within NASA helps to understand why he has come this far. Before this appointment, García-Galán, according to LinkedInheld the position of “deputy manager” of the Gateway program, until now a relevant piece in the agency’s lunar architecture. With more than 27 years of experience In manned space flights, he has worked on the design, integration and operation of complex systems, participating in programs such as the International Space Station and the Orion spacecraft. His experience at Gateway also helps explain this appointment. In that program, García-Galán was involved in integration and management tasks within an environment with multiple partners and components. The new approach towards a lunar base requires precisely this ability to order diverse pieces, from missions to infrastructure, something that fits with the profile that has been developed within the agency in recent years. The program that he will now supervise is divided into several phases with a common objective: establishing a sustained presence on the lunar surface. NASA proposes a sequence of missions that will go deploying infrastructurefrom mobility and energy systems to communications networks and habitats. The idea is to advance progressively towards a base capable of sustaining longer-term human stays. Images | NASA (1, 2, 3) In Xataka | Elon Musk knows that TSMC is overwhelmed: Terafab is his idea to completely change the global chip industry

We have spent our entire lives blaming spring for our tiredness. Science has just shown that we have lived deceived

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March is coming, the days are getting longer, temperatures rise and suddenly our body begins to fill with a feeling tiredapathy and drowsiness that takes over us. Traditionally, this is considered ‘spring astheniaand people, logically, do not stop searching for their symptoms on the Internet and buying expensive vitamin complexes to compensate for the bad feeling that the change of season leaves. But… What is true in all this? A paradigm shift. Until recently, evidence on this phenomenon was scarce and contradictory; however, a key investigation published in the Journal of Sleep Research has recently come to shed light on the matter. The research, led by Dr. Christine Blume from the Center for Chronobiology at the Psychiatric University Hospital of Basel, followed 418 adults from Germany, Switzerland and Austria for more than a year, from April 2024 to September 2025. Every six weeks, participants answered questionnaires about fatigue, drowsiness, insomnia and sleep quality, and at the end of the research they only had to cross-check information to determine if there really was any interfering pattern. with our health. The results. Here what was seen is that a resounding 47% of the participants claimed to suffer from “spring asthenia”, but the reality is that when the information was cross-checked there was absolutely no seasonal or monthly variation in the levels of fatigue, daytime sleepiness or quality of sleep. And statistically the tiredness that people feel in spring is statistically identical to what they feel in autumn or winter. In fact, fatigue in daily activities tended to decrease slightly as the days had more daylight hours, without any specific “peak” of fatigue being recorded during the spring. In this way, the conclusion drawn is that the discrepancy between what people think they feel and what objective data shows suggests that we are dealing with a cultural phenomenon and not a genuine seasonal syndrome. Why do we believe it? This is where the study gets genuinely interesting, since the authors do not simply deny the phenomenon, but rather propose a psychological explanation for why we experience it so convincingly. Nocebo effect: if we expect to be tired in spring, we interpret any sign of fatigue as confirmation of what we thought was going to happen. Cognitive dissonance: good weather generates high social pressure to enjoy it with outdoor activities. The problem is that when the energy does not appear, saying that you have ‘spring asthenia’ is a good excuse to not feel guilty for not following the group. Labeling effect: Like wine tasting better when we’re told it’s expensive, knowing that “you get tired in spring” actively changes how we interpret our own physical sensations. What chronobiology says. It is a reality that we are not robots and that our body reacts to the environment, and this is where chronobiology confirms that there are seasonal variations in sleep linked to the number of hours of daylight we enjoy. Studies in pre-industrial populations in Tanzania, Namibia or Bolivia show that in winter they sleep approximately one hour more than in summer. Likewise, recent research on university students in Seattle confirms that exposure to daylight is vital for our circadian rhythm, however, none of these physiological changes translate into a “clinical picture” or a peak in fatigue in spring. In medicine. Nowadays, when you go to your primary care doctor, it is impossible to receive treatment for ‘spring asthenia’ because it is not included in any official classification. However, doctors warn that a patient who arrives with great fatigue for consultation should not be sent away, even though he relates it to the arrival of spring. It must be remembered that there are many diseases that can cause this condition, such as anemia, a severe allergy, an infection or even thyroid disorders, among others. A lucrative business. While science dismisses the existence of ‘spring asthenia’, the reality is that people’s sensation is the perfect breeding ground for private clinics and dietary supplement brands. When we feel bad, we want a quick solution with a pill, and this makes the sale of multivitamin complexes, caffeine pills and a host of products related to reducing fatigue increase their sales. Images | Vitaly Gariev Arno Smit In Xataka | Only one in four Spaniards has rested on vacation. The culprits: work anxiety and the inability to disconnect

The network does not always respond. Orange wants to remedy it by charging extra

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In big events there is a moment that we all recognize: we are at a concert, at a fair or at a massive celebration and just when we need the cell phone, the connection does not respond as it should. We want to send a location or publish something on networks and everything takes longer than normal or does not load at all. There is no mystery behind it, but a known problem: the network has to serve too many devices at the same time. And when that happens, the experience suffers. An extra connection. About that experience that we all know, Orange has launched “5G Fast Track”, a service that seeks to improve the connection in very specific situations. The company proposes it as a solution for events with a high concentration of people, where the demand for data skyrockets in a matter of minutes. What it introduces is an interesting nuance: the user can activate a connectivity boost to try to maintain a more stable experience in the midst of that saturation. “This service is complementary to the usual network: it is an optional extra, activated for a limited time, which optimizes the use of the network in extraordinary situations of high traffic and that are important for the customer.” Timely activation and different formats. One of the keys to “5G Fast Track” is that it does not require you to change the rate or maintain the service permanently. As our colleagues from Xataka Móvil explainthe user can activate it only when needed, for example, before entering a busy event. Orange sells it in three formats: 24 hours for 3 euros, 7 days for 7 euros and 1 month for 10 euros with automatic renewal. In this first phase, the service is available to residential, self-employed and small business customers. The company has announced that it will soon launch a modality for companies and public administrations. What about net neutrality. The idea of ​​paying for a better quality of connection in these contexts may raise questions, and the main one has to do with whether this clashes with the principle of net neutrality. The European regulation, in force since 2016, requires that traffic be treated equitably and without discrimination, something that Spanish legislation also includes. With the information available, there are no clear reasons to conclude that this service violates current regulations, among other things because it does not discriminate between specific applications or content, but rather acts on the quality of the user’s connection in a general way. The question. However, regardless of how it fits within the current framework, the proposal leaves an open question that is not minor. If paying for a better experience at specific times becomes established as an option, it is worth considering how far this type of services can evolve within the market. For now we are talking about a specific extra linked to very specific situations, but the idea of ​​introducing differentiated levels of quality in connectivity could generate debate if it is extended. Images | Orange In Xataka | MásMóvil has said goodbye to triple coverage. Although it may seem like it, it is not bad news.

OpenAI seemed unstoppable. Now he has decided to leave Sora behind and change course

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There was a time when OpenAI seemed to move forward without looking back, adding release after release while the rest of the industry tried to keep up. On that stage it appeared sorapresented in February 2024 as a model capable of generating video from text and, shortly after, as an application with broader aspirations. The idea was not only to create clips, but also to give them a place to circulate, share them and turn them into a more social experience. It was, in a way, the natural extension of a company that never stopped exploring new formats. The closure. What fit as one more step within that expansion has ended in a twist that is difficult to ignore. OpenAI has confirmed the end of the Sora app, a decision that the team itself has communicated with a direct message to those who used it: “We say goodbye to the Sora app.” According to The Wall Street Journalthe withdrawal would not be limited to the app: it would also affect the API and video support within ChatGPT. For now there are no specific dates or complete technical details, although the company has announced that it will offer more information shortly. What was Sora and why did it matter?. To understand what this closure means, it is worth clarifying what Sora was. It was a system capable of generating videos from text and expanding existing clips. Over time, that capability became a broader product, with functions for sharing content generated within the platform itself. It was not just another tool, but one of the proposals with which OpenAI sought to bring AI to the field of audiovisual creation. The change of prioritys. Less video, more code and agents. The closure of Sora is not an isolated move, but part of a broader change within OpenAI. According to the aforementioned newspaper, the company is reorienting computing capacity and part of its equipment towards productivity tools, programming and systems capable of acting autonomously on the user’s computer. In that same line, The company recently announced the integration of its ChatGPT app, its Codex code tool and its browser into a kind of “super app.”. The idea, as conveyed by management to employees, is to concentrate efforts on a clearer product vision. During his journey, Sora symbolized a stage in which OpenAI was exploring how far it could take its models beyond text. Its closure, however, points to a different reading of the current moment. The company seems to be leaving this stage of expansion behind to focus on products with more immediate applications in the professional field. It is not so much a resignation as a rearrangement of priorities. In that setting, video loses weight compared to tools that fit better into your current strategy. Images | OpenAI In Xataka | Terence Tao is the best mathematician in the world: he has recognized that he is using AI to solve one of the Millennium Problems

fines of up to 2,346 pesos

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If you drive through Querétaro and often pass in front of schools, there is one thing you should keep in mind so as not to be surprised. Exceeding 30 km/h in public school zones can result in a fine of up to 2,346 pesos and also the loss of points on the license. This is not just a general driving recommendation, but a penalty provided for in the state Traffic Law that has recently received attention again in different media. Most visible application. More than a new rule, what the sources reflect is that this penalty was already contemplated in state legislation and is now back on the table along with its consequences for drivers. So much Motorpassion as El Imparcial point out that the Traffic Law for the State of Querétaro already included this limit in its article 65. The focus on this measure is also framed in a context of concern about road accidents in urban areas where pedestrians, cyclists and motorists coincide. The specific sanction. If a driver exceeds the limit allowed in these areas, the law provides for clear economic and administrative sanctions. The fines range from 10 to 20 UMA, which is equivalent to between 1,173 and 2,346 Mexican pesos. Added to this is the reduction of between three and six points on the driver’s license. All this is supported by article 65 of the state Traffic Law, cited by sources. If you are stopped for exceeding the limit in a school zone, there is a procedure the officer must follow. Motorpasión explains that mobility officers must tell the driver to stop without affecting traffic, explain the reason for the stop and show their identification. They must also indicate which rule was violated and what the corresponding penalty is, in addition to requesting mandatory documentation for the vehicle and driver. The idea is that the infraction is applied with a clear protocol and not as an informal action. Consultation and payment. The digital front: Beyond the sanction, there is a practical aspect that should be on hand if you drive in the entity. There is a digital route within the portal of the Executive Branch of the State of Querétaro to check if you have pending violations and pay them online. The process, according to that publication, can be done by following these steps: Enter the portal of the Executive Branch of the State of Querétaro Access the section of the Secretariat of Sustainable Development Select the type of vehicle service Capture circulation card data Consult and, where appropriate, pay the violation In the end, beyond the fine or points on the license, what the sources make clear is that this type of measure aims to reduce risks in especially sensitive areas. In school areas, where there is a greater presence of pedestrians and students, the margin of error is much smaller. Therefore, rather than seeing it only as a penalty, it should be taken as a practical warning if you drive through Querétaro: adjusting the speed on these sections not only avoids a significant expense, it can also help reduce risks on the road. Images | Municipality of Querétaro In Xataka | Mexico is developing its first electric car and Puebla has the responsibility of delivering it: Olinia

The United States had not manufactured its most critical uranium for 20 years. He has just resurrected his production with an old metallurgy trick

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In the hills of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, lies a place that carries the weight of contemporary history in its foundation: the Y-12 National Security Complex. According to the files of the US Department of Energy (DOE)these facilities were born in 1943 as a vital cog in the Manhattan Project. However, for more than two decades, the halls of its most advanced nuclear processing sector had remained in a prolonged dormancy. Today, that industrial silence has been broken. The United States has just ended a long gap in its domestic processing capabilities. The milestone that marks this rebirth is as visual as it is forceful: the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has successfully manufactured its first “button” of purified enriched uranium, an achievement that opens a new era in the American nuclear deterrent. In short. From the NNSA have confirmed the restart of uranium purification at the Y-12 complex. It is not a sudden step; This achievement comes months after, in September 2025, the start of the project will be authorized electrorefining. This is the first authorization of its kind since the opening of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility 15 years ago. More in depth. The new process allows installation slam the door definitively on the old Y-12 plants. For years, uranium processing depended on complex chemical treatments that were inefficient and, above all, posed greater risks for workers. The new era abandons these legacy systems in favor of much cleaner and safer technology. A strategic milestone. According to the statement from the NNSAthis purified uranium is a critical material that will support unavoidable national security missions, from the production of nuclear weapons to providing the fuel needed for the reactors of the United States Navy’s aircraft carriers and submarines. This effort is not a coincidence, but respond directly to the security and defense guidelines promoted under the mandate of President Donald Trump. Added to this military strategy is a pressing need for independence of resources. In November of last year, the US Geological Survey (USGS) added uranium to its final list of 60 critical minerals. This government directive has a clear objective: to shield the country against the risks of interruption in global supply chains. The “magic” of electrorefining. The secret behind this renaissance is called electrorefining. Although it may sound like science fiction, it is based on well-established commercial processes commonly used to purify everyday metals such as aluminum, titanium or copper. The method was originally developed by the prestigious Argonne National Laboratory and later perfected by the Y-12 development team itself. A simple process (at first glance). To understand how it works, the magazine Science Direct explains it in a simple way: The process uses an electrolytic cell where two electrodes are immersed in a chemical solution. One of them acts as an anode (where the impure recycled material is placed) and the other as a cathode. Through a controlled electrical reaction, metal ions travel to the cathode, where the pure metal is deposited, while the impurities fall to the bottom as an “anode sludge.” The result: An astonishing 99.9% purity. The format: An NNSA spokesperson He explained that the process It first generates “purified uranium crystals,” which are then melted in a furnace to create the compact, secure, high-purity uranium “buttons.” Additionally, Nikolai Sokov, senior researcher at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, explained that this innovative technology allows recovering and recycling uranium from various byproducts. Along the same lines, this method drastically reduces the waste generated compared to old chemical treatments. The weight of history: environmental debt. No story about the Y-12 complex would be complete without looking at its darker side. The background documents of the US Department of Energy rreveal the heavy inheritance of the Cold War. During the 1950s and 1960s, facilities used massive amounts of mercury for lithium separation. The ecological toll was devastating: an estimated 700,000 pounds (more than 317,000 kilos) of mercury were lost in the buildings and the surrounding environment. Today, to contrast technological advancement with the mistakes of the past, the top priority of the Environmental Management (EM) program at Y-12 is the cleanup of this mercury. He DOE informs that it is being built the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility. Scheduled for 2027, this plant will be capable of treating up to 3,000 gallons of water per minute. This vital infrastructure will allow older, more contaminated facilities (such as Alpha-2 by 2029 and Beta-1 by 2030) to be safely demolished without mercury ending up in the nearby Upper East Fork Poplar Creek. A process of metamorphosis. Audrey Beldio, NNSA Principal Deputy Administrator for Production Modernization, summed it up forcefully in the statements. project startup: “Electrorefining revolutionizes the processing of enriched uranium.” With uranium flowing again into Y-12, the United States is not just abandoning aging infrastructure. It is sending a clear message to the world: after twenty years of lethargy, the US nuclear sector has taken a leap towards a future where technological efficiency, the safety of its workers and the reliability of its arsenal are once again the spearhead of its defense policy. Image | HeUraniumC Xataka | While the West does not decide on nuclear, China already has a reactor 100 times more efficient than traditional ones

those of Amancio Ortega, Rafael del Pino and Juan Roig

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Unlike what happens in the United States, fortunes of millionaires in Spain They have been simmering for decades. They grow slowly, but without stopping. In Spain, only three surnames concentrate wealth that far exceeds 166.25 billion euros and, year after year, it reinforces its position in global rankings. Names like Amancio Ortega, Rafael del Pino or Juan Roig They appear in the headlines every day, but they are only the visible head of some family clans that They have made their fortune grow for generations. According to pointed Forbes At the end of 2025, the 100 largest fortunes in Spain together amounted to 292.1 billion euros. This represents some 16.6 billion euros more than the previous year. Of that total, almost 57% is in the hands of three families of millionaires represented by Amancio Ortega, Rafael del Pino and Juan Roig. The Ortegas: the clan that monopolizes the podium Amancio Ortega is the greatest fortune in Spain and the only Spaniard who competes on a sustained basis with the richest people on the planet. The Forbes millionaires listcurrently places him in 13th place in the world, with an estimated fortune of 120.55 billion euros (130.2 billion dollars at the current exchange rate). Adding the assets of his daughter Sandra Ortega Mera, the second largest fortune in Spain with about 12,144 million euros according to Forbeshe Ortega family clan exceeds 132,550 million euros. The origin of this wealth has two main pillars. The first is the 59.05% of Inditex that it controls through Pontegadea Inversiones and Partler Participaciones, which in 2026 will report a record dividend of 3,234 million euros. For her part, Sandra Ortega controls 5.053% of the shares of the company that her father founded. The second great pillar of the family fortune is Pontegadea, the real estate and investment holding company founded by Amancio Ortega to reinvest the dividends from Inditex, in real estate securities distributed throughout the world, managing a valued real estate asset at 122,000 million euros. The Del Pino family and Ferrovial The second position in the ranking of the richest families in Spain corresponds to the Del Pino Calvo-Sotelo clan, with a joint assets estimated at 18,250 million euros. Rafael del Pino, president of Ferrovial, increased his personal fortune up to 8,000 million euros in 2025, while his sister María del Pino adds another 5.5 billion of euros to the family total. The younger brothers, Joaquín and Leopoldo del Pino, contribute an additional 2,150 and 2,600 million euros. The source of this wealth is the 20.45% stake that Rafael del Pino controls in Ferrovial through his Dutch company Rijn Capital, an infrastructure company listed simultaneously in Madrid, Amsterdam and the New York Nasdaq, whose market capitalization exceeds 39.5 billion euros. Ferrovial closed 2025 with revenues of 9,627 million euros, 8.6% more than the previous year, and a net profit of 888 million euros. The Roigs and the power of Mercadona The third position in the ranking of the richest families in Spain is occupied by the Roig clan, with one of the most striking increases of the year. The joint fortune of the family of the founder of Mercadona amounts to 14,440 million euros in 2025. The main amount comes from Juan Roig’s personal wealth, which went from 5.78 billion euros in 2024 to 7.9 billion euros in 2025, an increase of 36.7% in a single year. According to ForbesIn 2026, Roig’s fortune is estimated at around 9.29 billion euros. His wife, Hortensia Herrero, has a personal assets estimated at around 5,150 million euros. Juan Roig and his wife Hortensia Herrero control almost 71% of Mercadona, while his brother Fernando Roig owns another 9% of the company’s capital. Valencian supermarket chainwhich is equivalent to 2,390 million euros Mercadona is the main supermarket chain in Spain, and closed in 2025 generating a net profit of 1,729 million euros and a turnover of 41,900 million euros. This increase in income has caused the personal assets of its founders to also grow. In Xataka | There is a 50-ton “nuclear reactor” in a bunker in Fuenlabrada: it has been donated by Amancio Ortega Image | Wikimedia Commons, , GTRES, Ferrovial

China has been patiently preparing for a major global energy crisis for years. And now it reaps its fruits

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The Third Gulf War is here and the global oil market looks into the abyss. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has unleashed an unprecedented logistical panic and has catapulted the barrel of Brent well above $100. The panic is palpable throughout the Asian continent: The Philippines cuts working hours, Singapore sends its office workers to telework and Thailand intervenes in diesel prices in desperation. Just a few thousand kilometers away, China observes the global chaos with an almost insulting coldness. The Asian giant has not been saved by providence, but by millimetric planning. Just as centuries ago it built a vast stone infrastructure to stop nomadic invasions, Beijing has been building an invisible Great Wall for more than a decade to isolate itself from fossil volatility. The seed of this resistance must be found five years ago. In 2021, during a visit to an oil field, President Xi Jinping ruled that China should keep the “energy rice bowl” firmly in its own hands. According to The Economisttransferring this traditional metaphor (historically used to appeal to food sovereignty) to energy, made clear a state obsession: the country was going to prepare tirelessly for the worst possible scenario. Is patience a good bet? There are several popular proverbs and sayings that say that whoever waits, victory will be sweeter. In the case of China it is a pure and simple pragmatic and geostrategic application. As we analyze in Xatakathis shielding is the direct result of the strategy “Made in China 2025” designed a decade ago. The Chinese government understood that dependence on foreign oil and gas was its greatest military and economic vulnerability. Mass electrification was not an environmental whim, but a matter of national survival. Today, China generates more than a quarter of its electricity with sun and wind, rewriting the world order and dividing the board between the old “petrostates” and the new “electrostates.” But while that transition is complete, Beijing has not neglected the fossil economy. The Chinese model puts raw resilience before the efficiency of Western markets, As a column points out Five Days. The best example is what happened last year. While global markets debated an alleged oil oversupply, China took advantage of the low prices to spend $10 billion buying heavily sanctioned oil from Russia, Venezuela and Iran; a crude oil that, in reality, I did not need immediately. The result of this silent hoarding is that today China has massive Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR), estimated between 900 and 1.4 billion barrels. This mattress is enough to cover between 96 and 140 days of your internal demand without caring for a single drop from the outside. The shield in action This long-term preparation has allowed China to deploy an arsenal of almost immediate containment measures since the conflict in the Gulf broke out: Closing energy borders: The first lightning order from the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission was to demand from their state giants of refining (PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC) to immediately suspend gasoline and diesel exports to protect the supply of the domestic market. The “shadow fleet”: Despite the war and the blockade, oil continues to flow to China. Iran is exporting a daily average of 2.1 million barrels using a fleet of old oil tankers without tracking systems that operate outside the US financial system. Land alternatives: To completely avoid the vulnerable Strait of Hormuz, the Asian power is squeezing to the maximum the land pipelines that connect it directly with Russia and Kazakhstan. Renewable bestiality: This is your shield more impenetrable: The price of solar panels and electric cars does not rise when there is a war in the Persian Gulf. In July 2024, China reached its goal of 1,200 GW of wind and solar capacity, achieving it six years ahead of schedule. In addition, new energy vehicles have already exceeded 60% of total car sales in the country by the end of 2025. Megainfrastructures and market reform: To manage the intermittency of renewables, increased their storage capacity by batteries 75% in 2025. Furthermore, the political response does not stop, as detailed ChinaDailyhave announced that the National Energy Administration will launch urgent reforms ahead of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) to create a “unified national energy market” capable of managing the volatility of having so much green energy on the grid. The dominance of uranium: Faced with the need to fuel its 58 operational nuclear reactors and the 27 under construction, Beijing has budgeted about $16 billion for resource storage in 2026. This includes the exploitation of gigantic deposits in the Ordos Desert and the pioneering extraction of uranium from seawater. The small print However, China’s energy “rice bowl” still has cracks. To keep the system afloat, the country remains dependent on an immense, dirty safety net: the coal. In 2024, this mineral supplied 56% of its energy primary and, currently, they have more than 300 plants under construction. As emphasized a report of ChinaPower Projectdespite the pollution, the vast and abundant supply of coal offers Chinese policymakers a true final “safety net” against disruptions from other sources. But the real battle for survival is not only fought in the oil wells, but in the semiconductor laboratories. Although the country manufactured an astronomical 484 billion chips in 2024, still no access to the UVE lithography machines of the European company ASML. However, the Asian giant is finding cracks in the Western blockade. China already has two companies, SMIC and Huali Microelectronics, capable of producing advanced 7-nanometer chips using engineering techniques ‘multiple patterning’ using machines from previous generations. It is a more expensive and less efficient process, but it shows that sanctions only accelerate their quest for sovereignty. The next bottleneck to overcome is chemical. The country depends almost entirely on Japan (specifically from JSR Corporation) to obtain the hyper-specialized photoresist liquids needed in chip lithography. The new Chinese five-year plan has already set a five-year deadline to also break this Japanese monopoly. And while China weaves this net of absolute … Read more

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