In Vigo the hoteliers have decided that it is enough to occupy tables to just have a coffee. Solution: minimum consumption

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Friday afternoon. Spring time, you can almost smell summer. The bars in the terrace area of ​​your city are full, but you and your friends are lucky: suddenly you see a free table on the other side of the square. You rush to occupy it, but when the waiter arrives to take your order, it turns out that of the six of you in the group, only three are going to have something. “I’m sorry,” he responds, putting the notebook in his pocket. “You don’t reach the minimum”. The above is an invented scene, but it is becoming easier to find it in bars in Spain. Especially as the rents and the cost of goods makes it difficult for them to reach the coveted threshold of profitability. “Minimum and mandatory” consumption. The news advances it Vigo Lighthouse: Fed up with groups of customers who ‘colonize’ tables for hours and hours and only order a couple of soft drinks, Van Gogh, one of the most popular cafes in Vigo, has decided to require its customers to have a “mandatory minimum consumption.” The rule leaves little room for interpretation. It is announced with a sign hanging on the door of the premises. Their goal is also quite clear: improve the profitability of the business and avoid tourists who just want to use the bathrooms. “Everyone has to consume”. “The intention is that if six kids come to a table, not just two of them order something, but all of them. We had to take these measures because we are talking about an issue of profitability. Everyone who enters the establishment has to consume it,” explains the manager of the cafeteria, Jordi Casado, told the Galician newspaper. It is the waiters themselves who enforce the rule, as well as another one that the establishment applies: only two baby strollers are allowed inside. “Sometimes people are not aware that space costs money. A child in a stroller does not consume and takes the place of a person who would,” they point out from the premises, who also remember that cars can hinder the passage. Van Gogh is not the only business in the industry that applies minimum consumption regulations in Vigo. Lighthouse mentions another cafeteria in Calvario that also imposes certain conditions on days when there are media matches, such as those played by Celta, Madrid or Barça. Those in charge allow table reservations, but only for those who are going to dinner. “And those who come on their own, obviously, cannot spend two hours alone with a coffee, it is not profitable,” warns the person in charge of the bar. Does it only happen in Vigo? No. A quick look at the newspaper archive shows that, although it is not a majority practice, requiring a minimum consumption is beginning to become normal in the sector. In certain tourist spots (such as Barcelona or Ibiza) it dates back years backin some cases with high rates. Just a few months ago the newspaper The Gazette counted how an establishment in the center of Salamanca had adopted a similar rule, requiring its customers to consume at least one drink and a tapa per person at times of greatest demand (basically on Friday and Saturday nights). Click on the image to go to the tweet. A table, 10 euros. “Many people sat on the terrace for two hours with a water or a wine. In the end the bill was five or six euros. Meanwhile, there were lines of people waiting to sit down,” explained the owner of the local charro. “With those numbers it is impossible to keep a bar afloat.” in autumn ABC echoed another case similar: a bar that requires its clientele to spend at least five euros on League matches. Again it is not a unique case. Not long ago the ‘I’m a Waiter’ account sparked controversy by share a poster in which a bar announces its rates to compensate for “the high costs of broadcasting matches”: if you want a chair you have to pay ten euros. If we talk about a table for four it stays at €30, or €45 if it is for six. Pulling imagination. Minimum consumption is just one of the strategies with which hoteliers try to protect their profitability. Others go through adjust the price of the drinks depending on the time the customer occupies the tables (the more minutes, the more expensive the coffee is) or even veto who They go to bars alone, without companions. It is also not strange that in Spanish restaurants reservations are already made with an arrival and departure time. Bead Earrings. The objective is always the same: improve profitability in businesses that are still carrying the hangover of COVID and that in recent years have been marked by the increase in rentthe complications to find qualified labor and the increase in the cost of goods such as the coffee either cocoa. Added to this panorama is the crisis of some of the most successful ‘products’ in the sector, such as the cane either the menu of the dayand the growing competition from other markets. Today, for example, Mercadona already represents a rival to take into account for the bars. Image | Toa Heftiba (Unsplash) In Xataka | The bars promised them happily by filling their terraces with beer merchandising. Now they fear million-dollar losses

Asia is hoarding all the world’s LNG due to Hormuz panic

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In global energy markets, alarm bells do not always ring loudly; Sometimes all you have to do is watch where the boats are sailing. Right now, the canary in the mine of the looming crisis is the frenzy of Asian liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyers. As the conflict in the Middle East escalates, Asia’s major powers are preparing for supply disruptions that could last months. The prolonged paralysis at the world’s largest export plant is stifling global supply and skyrocketing prices. As Dai Jiaquan explainschief economist at the CNPC Economics and Technology Research Institute, companies should prepare “contingency plans” for a two- to four-month disruption. Far from expecting a quick resolution to the attacks between the United States, Israel and Iran, Asia is sweeping up all available gas. The Qatar blackout and the buying fever. The origin of this panic has exact coordinates: the Strait of Hormuz. The trigger was an attack with Iranian drones that hit the strategic facilities of Ras Laffan and Mesaieed, forcing the state company QatarEnergy to cease production. The impact is massive: Qatar supplies 20% of the world’s LNG and, without Hormuz, there is no alternative route. According to the consulting firm AMEthis stoppage removes 1.5 million tons of gas from the global market every week. Added to this is an unprecedented logistical blockade with some 150 ships paralyzed in the area. Faced with this abyss, purchases have skyrocketed. According to BloombergTaiwan has already fully secured its supply for March and April, and is now actively purchasing to cover the month of May. Bangladesh managed to secure shipments for April and is already evaluating purchases from May onwards. For their part, Thailand and South Korea seek to ensure immediate deliveries, while in India, the company Gail India Ltd. barely managed to reserve a shipment in March after several failed attempts. Europe vs. Asia. What is coming is a direct trade war: Europe and Asia fighting for the same gas. According to Financial Timesthe contest is a chilling reminder of the crisis of 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. To this battle, Europe arrives with its defenses low: its gas storages are barely 30% because companies did not fill them due to high future prices, a phenomenon known as backwardation. Furthermore, Spain, despite having regasification plants, cannot act as a total lifeline for the continent due to its lack of interconnections through the Pyrenees. Historically, Asia consumes more gas in summer due to air conditioners, creating a desperate urgency that is already reflected in prices. As explained BloombergLNG spot prices in Asia are around $18 per million British thermal units (MMBtu). This represents an 80% increase in price compared to pre-conflict levels, despite having fallen from a recent peak of $25. The Asian benchmark JKM index doubled to $24.80. In Europe, the reaction was one of panic: the TTF benchmark index jumped sharply from below 40 euros to almost 47.5 euros, marking an increase of 55% in recent days. In fact, it is projected that a 90-day closure in Hormuz would raise the TTF to €92/MWh. And this is where the alarms go off for the real economy, As the report explains Kpler, The profitability threshold for intensive European industry (chemicals, fertilizers or ceramics) is usually between €50 and €60/MWh. If prices stagnate there, we could see a new wave of factory closures and a resurgence of inflation. Change of course at sea. According to monitoring data collected by Bloombergat least nine shipments bound for Europe have been redirected to Asia since the fighting began. Atlantic ships like the Clean Mistraloriginally destined for Spain, or the BW Brusselswhich was going to France, have redirected their compasses towards the Pacific in the face of lucrative Asian offers. This maritime chaos is not exclusive to gas. In the oil sector, about 30 giant supertankers They crowd off the Saudi coast of Yanbu in the Red Sea to collect crude oil transported by land, in a desperate attempt to avoid the Iranian blockade. Vulnerabilities and “buffers”. Not all countries face this crisis with the same weapons. According to an analysis of A.M.E.Taiwan is the most exposed and vulnerable player: Qatar and the United Arab Emirates provided it with 35% of its imports in 2025, and after the closure of its nuclear park, it has almost no options to use other fuels. South Asia is also on the line. The report of Kpler highlights that Qatar and the Emirates account for 99% of Pakistan’s LNG imports, 72% of Bangladesh’s and 53% of India’s. However, powers such as China and Japan breathe a little easier. According to Vortexa analyst Ken Lee cited by oil priceBeijing and Tokyo’s exposure to Qatari LNG is just 6% and 5% of their gas mix, respectively. Furthermore, Japan has a good reserve inventory and the restart of its nuclear plants gives it a strategic “cushion.” Asia as a global buffer. In the end, the market will rebalance, but the pain will be uneven. Faced with the impossibility of paying stratospheric prices, very price-sensitive countries such as Pakistan or Bangladesh will have to resort to demand destruction, industrial cuts or return to burning coal. According to AMEJapan and South Korea will seek to replace between 70% and 90% of Qatar’s lost volumes in the spot market, while China, confident in its inventories, will only seek to cover 50%. As pointed out KplerSouth Asia and its industry will operate as the “buffer” (shock absorb) of this crisis. By cutting their own consumption due to not being able to pay, they will leave gas available for the Asian and European giants, but at the cost of maintaining relentless upward pressure that will make the entire world’s energy bill more expensive in the coming months. Image | Photo by Chris Pagan on Unsplash Xataka | The $200 per barrel scenario: when geography suffocates the world economy

use them in a place where they are allowed

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like the waters They are very upset about AI chipsTikTok’s parent company has come up with a strategy to circumvent US export restrictions for NVIDIA chips: instead of importing the chips, it uses them where they are allowed. And that place is Malaysia. chip war. From 2022, US export regulations They prohibit NVIDIA from selling their accelerators of most advanced artificial intelligence directly to China. This puts the large Chinese technology companies at a disadvantage, as they see how their American rivals (Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, etc.) have unrestricted access to the most advanced computing power they obtain from NVIDIA. ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, does not want to be left behind in the global AI race and has found a legal, albeit controversial, path forward. What exactly happened. According to account According to the Wall Street Journal, ByteDance is working with a Southeast Asia-based company called Aolani Cloud to deploy a cluster of about 500 computing systems in Malaysia. NVIDIA Blackwellwhich is equivalent to approximately 36,000 chips B200. The estimated cost of the entire infrastructure exceeds $2.5 billion. Just like account In the middle, the servers are assembled by Aivres, a company specialized in building hardware with NVIDIA chips. Aolani, created at the end of 2023 under a holding structure in the Cayman Islands and with capital from Singapore venture capital firms, had already been renting servers from ByteDance with H100 chips in Malaysia since February. The legal key to the matter. ByteDance is not buying the chips or servers: it rents them. Aolani is the one who physically owns and operates them in Malaysia, a country that does not fall under US export restrictions. Under current rules, what is regulated is the destination of the hardware, not who uses it in the cloud. “By design, export rules allow clouds to be built and operated outside restricted countries,” counted an NVIDIA spokesperson told the WSJ. It also added that all customers who use NVIDIA chips undergo internal compliance reviews before receiving their products. On the other hand, the medium points out That ByteDance is not on any list of restricted companies from the US Department of Commerce, so the fact that they are using this hardware does not trigger any alerts at the moment. Qgeopolitical tension. Just because all this is legal does not mean it is politically convenient. Aolani recognized in an internal presentation to investors that it is working with a US law firm to ensure its regulatory compliance, and that it is already considering future regulatory changes that “would likely be prospective, not retroactive.” A phrase that, read in a political key, leaves some real uncertainty about whether Washington may end up limiting this type of business structures in the future. Last month, from Reuters they shared that the US would be willing to allow ByteDance to buy H200 chips from NVIDIA, although the semiconductor manufacturer would not have yet accepted the proposed conditions. Bytedance and its ambition in AI. ByteDance already operates five of the world’s 50 most popular consumer AI apps by monthly active users, according to data by Andreessen Horowitz. They have their chatbot Dolathe platform to generate video with AI Dreamina and Gauthan educational assistant. In terms of video generation, Bytedance went extremely viral with Seedanceits engine for generating videos with AI that has left half the planet crazy for its realism and precision when constructing pieces of text in video clips. The company has research teams in Singapore, San Jose and Seattle, and seeks to fill more than a hundred AI vacancies in the US. “Our goal is to reach the highest peak,” said its CEO, Liang Rubo. Cover image | Collabstr and NVIDIA In Xataka | At Amazon they have realized something: their developers spend more time fixing AI bugs than anything else

The Tagus reservoirs have reached their maximum level. The response of the authorities has been to empty them immediately

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1,639.67 hm3 of water. That is what the Entrepeñas and Buendía reservoirs store today at the head of the Tagus. This means that they have reached 65.11% of their capacity (compared to 48.52% last year) and, more importantly, that have reached level 1the maximum possible step. Finally, some good news! After years of hardship, the river has reached its “dream level.” Then, we are going to empty it. As? This same week, the Tajo-Segura Transfer Exploitation Commission is going to propose sending 180 hm3 of water to the Segura basin. It will be done in stages over three months. And the truth is that it was something totally predictable: the growth of reserves in the headwaters of the river has reached milestones that we have not seen since the late 90s. In application of the transfer rules that were set in 2013the irrigators of Segura request that the necessary procedures be activated so that they can give them the water that is theirs. What happens is that the political mess is enormous. What is happening with the water of the Tagus? Basically, by virtue of the Tagus Hydrological Plan, approved in 2023the transfer rules had to be updated to adapt them to the current reality. It has been tried; late, but it has been tried. What happens is that the process (due to the enormous political costs it entails) has been stalled for months and months. Right now, he is stopped waiting for pending resolutions in the Supreme Court. This has generated a very complicated situation: the plan that was going to be approved included a progressive reduction of transfers up to 40% in the next five years. The stated intention was recover the Tagus River and look for management formats that do not focus on specific moments (“emptying the pantry just when we have finished filling it”), but on more global measures that do not compromise the management of the basins in the medium term. But since it is not approved, the law is clear: Segura can claim its water and the Exploitation Commission will proceed to send it. The central issue is whether all this is a mirage or not. It is not lost on anyone that this January has not been a normal month (it has been the rainiest in the last 25 years) and, for this reason, each of the parties wants to use ‘this gift from heaven‘ for their own interests: some to regenerate the Tagus (and ensure the economic activity linked to it) and the others to keep the Segura agroindustry alive. That is, we have to choose at the worst possible moment: with the elections just around the corner. Image | Maria LVRZ In Xataka | The water from the Tagus is going to stay in Castilla-La Mancha. So Alicante and Murcia already have a plan B: set up desalination plants

Anker Prime Docking Station 14 in 1, analysis features price specifications

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My work desk is, I admit, a battlefield of cables. I have two 27-inch Dell monitors at 1440p, a Huawei MateBook X Pro 2021 with Windows 11, a MacBook Air M4 what I use when I travel and a Mac Mini M4 which is my work team. Additionally, I use a Razer Huntsman keyboard (which by some quirk of fate occupies two USB ports) and a webcam. When NASA needs a cable, they look for it under my table. From time to time, my desk also receives a visit from a camera whose SD card I need to empty quite frequently, and none of my computers have a built-in card reader. More cables and connections. To make matters worse, because of a mess of connectors (only one of the monitors can connect to a Thunderbolt port) when I want to connect the MacBook Air M4 or the Huawei laptop to the monitors I can only take advantage of one of the two. Luckily, since the Mac Mini does have an HDMI port, it is the only one where I can use both screens. In short, a mess of cables, connections and adapters to connect any of my three devices. I had been looking for a solution for this mess of connections for a while and Anker Prime Docking Station 14 in 1 came to my table promising to solve exactly that problem. Connectors for all tastes If I’m honest, the first thing that my old mind thought when I had it in my hand was its resemblance to one of those alarm clock radios from the 90s. However, the first thing you notice when you take it out of the box is the weight: almost 900 grams. That already leaves us some clues that we are not dealing with one of those adapters that people (especially Macbook users) carry in their backpack. This is a serious desk piece, with metal construction and a very premium feel that not only fulfills an aesthetic function, it also helps dissipate some of the heat. The little control wheel on the side of the device is striking. It looks like the crown of a watch and, in a way, takes the idea of ​​controlling some smartwatches to move around the hub interface and access options by pressing it. And then there is the front screen that, although it does not occupy the entire front as one would expect, offers very useful information about the charging power it is supplying, information about the resolution, the type of monitor connector or, simply, the time. I must say, that It’s more useful than it seems at first and I no longer look at the time on the computer bar, but I have surprised myself on more than one occasion looking at the time on the Docking Station. The disposition of the 14 connection ports It is very well thought out. On the back are two HDMIs with 4K support at 60 Hz and a DisplayPort with 8k support at 60 Hz. So, in practice, it allows up to three screens to be connected to the setup. Anker Prime Docking Station (DL7400), 14 DisplayLink Triple Display Ports, 140W max., Smart Display and Fan, up to 8K, for macOS and Windows, Requires updated DisplayLink Driver The price could vary. We earn commission from these links It also has a 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port, two USB A for data with a transfer rate of 5 Gbps and a third USB A for connecting the keyboard or mouse. In my case, I have used the three ports to connect the Razer keyboard (which uses the two ports) and the webcam. The USB C output port is also located here, which is the one you connect to the computer and offers a charging capacity of up to 140W, so you can take advantage of the fast charging options on gaming laptops or 96W Macbook Pros. Such charging power generates heat in the internal components of the device, so, in addition to the aluminum coating on the exterior, has an internal fan which cannot be heard in the slightest even in a quiet environment. On the front it includes an SD card reader, a microSD slot and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. I have used the latter less because I use Bluetooth headphones and all computers have this very accessible connection. But I find it equally useful because it is very accessible, and to use it you just have to change the audio source to Anker in the computer options. That design logic is exactly what I needed. Have all the connection cables to the monitors, network cable, keyboard and webcam behind, and on the front, have quick access to the charging ports for your mobile phone or upload photos from the camera without having to look for cables or accessories. Connect everything with a single cable However, what undoubtedly seems like a triumph to me is that all the devices are ready to use just by connecting a cable. However, before reaching the magical moment of connection, you have to do your homework: install the DisplayLink driver on each computer that we are going to use with the base. It is not a direct plug and play connection. The software is essential for the monitors to receive the video signal. On Windows the process is quick and frictionless: install the driver software and go. In MacOS, in addition to installing the software, you have to grant screen recording permissions, something that may be striking the first time the notice appears, but it has a technical explanation and we will get to it. Thanks to this software, the brightness and contrast adjustment of the monitors can be controlled from the system taskbar (similar to how Apple monitors appear), without having to navigate through menus or access the monitors’ adjustment buttons. It is a minor detail but it adds up on a day-to-day basis. Once the entire software part was installed, I connected … Read more

When does it start and how to make the best use of its coupons of up to 70 euros

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There are not even 3 days left until AliExpress celebrates its anniversarywhich is undoubtedly one of their best promos of the year. As usual, we will be able to take advantage of a few days to get many powerful offers in technology, where there will be everything: from mobile phones to consoles, including tablets, watches, TVs and more. We are going to take advantage of this article to explain everything about this promo and how to get the most out of it to save as much as possible. AliExpress anniversary dates and how to make the best use of it The first thing we have to take into account are the dates of this promo. It will begin, as usual, at dawn. Specifically, next Monday, March 16 at 00:00 hours. From there, we will have until March 25 at 11:59 p.m. to take advantage of all the offers, although the usual thing will happen here: neither the best deals nor the discount coupons will arrive until then. And be careful, because this time we have up to 70 euros. As we say, These coupons will not be active until next Mondaybut we leave them here so that you have them at hand: Discount minimum purchase coupon 1 coupon 2 coupon 3 3 euros 15 euros XATAKAES03 PURCHASES03 WEBEDIAES03 5 euros 30 euros XATAKAES05 PURCHASES05 WEBEDIAES05 7 euros 49 euros XATAKAES07 PURCHASES07 WEBEDIAES07 11 euros 79 euros XATAKAES11 PURCHASES11 WEBEDIAES11 20 euros 139 euros XATAKAES20 PURCHASES20 WEBEDIAES20 30 euros 209 euros XATAKAES30 PURCHASES30 WEBEDIAES30 45 euros 319 euros XATAKAES45 PURCHASEES45 WEBEDIAES45 60 euros 429 euros XATAKAES60 PURCHASES60 WEBEDIAES60 70 euros 509 euros XATAKAES70 PURCHASES70 WEBEDIAES70 All of these coupons only have two restrictions: we cannot use them with virtual products and they cannot be accumulated either. Removing that, we can use it with whatever we want if we reach the minimum purchase, even with mobile phoneswhich historically were not compatible with this type of discount coupons. Now it’s time to prepare for the promo. Here it is advisable to be as well prepared as possible to go for the offers. The most basic thing that we always recommend is that, if you have never bought on AliExpress, you create the account before the promo starts to avoid wasting time on it. And the second thing is to put in the cart everything that interests you or is looking for. Because? Because this way we can quickly access the discount coupons so as not to run out of the offer. Five devices that I wouldn’t lose sight of on AliExpress’s anniversary The offers are not active yet, but there are a series of devices that tend to be the stars of this type of AliExpress promotions. We leave them below so that you can control them and the cart if you want. nintendo switch 2 As usual, one of the star devices of this new AliExpress anniversary will be nintendo switch 2. This new console already has hardware powerful enough to move games at 4K when we connect it to a TV with its dock, all without giving up its portability. Its catalog of exclusive video games is looking better and better, thanks above all to the recently released ‘Pokémon Pokopia‘. If we use the coupon ‘XATAKAES60‘, its price will remain at 369.77 euros. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links LITTLE F8 Ultra We also usually find Xiaomi devices at a very good price in AliExpress promotions. If we are looking for a new mobile phone and we want a powerful option, it is worth having control of the LITTLE F8 Ultra. It is a mobile phone that comes with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and 12 GB of RAM, so it has what it takes to offer a fluid experience with heavy apps and with many of them open. In addition, it has a 6,500 mAh battery, a very complete camera system and spectacular sound thanks to the collaboration with Bose. Right now it is about 640.24 eurosalthough right now it indicates that it will drop to 564.72 euros. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Xiaomi TV A 32 Are you looking for a cheap TV to put in the bedroom or kitchen? One of the ones that is great for that is this 32-inch Xiaomi TV A, which usually flies at AliExpress events. Its price, which right now is 131.13 euroswill drop to 121.69 euros according to the AliExpress page. It has a Google operating system, so you can download all the most common applications such as Netflix or Disney+. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 Pro As a mobile alternative for tighter budgets, we have the Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 Pro 5G, a mobile phone that has every chance of being one of the best sellers of 2026. It is a mobile phone with a large 6.83-inch screen and a Dimensity 7400 Ultra chip along with 8 GB of RAM, more than enough for applications like WhatsApp or social networks. Its battery is 6,500 mAh, so it will offer autonomy for more than a full day without problem. Now mark 261.32 eurosalthough it will drop a little more starting Monday. Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 Pro 5G The price could vary. We earn commission from these links PlayStation 5 We close with another console, in this case PlayStation 5. The Sony console drops in price during some moments of the year, although not as much as right now: with the coupon XATAKAES60will stay in 420.94 euros. It is the version that comes with a disc reader, which is a plus. Otherwise, a console with an impressive catalog of games, where there are exclusive gems like ‘Ghost of Yotei’. PlayStation 5 Slim with reader The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of … Read more

Meta spent a fortune on AI talent and data centers. Nine months later the result is: zero models

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Mark Zuckerberg wanted to be the Florentino Pérez of AI. last summer began to sign galacticos in this segment and getting talent by letting go stacks of millions of dollars. He more popularOf course, it was the AI wunderkind Alexandr Wangwho became leader of its “Superintelligence” division. The funny thing is that the months go by and go by and in Meta they don’t seem to have absolutely anything to show. And that is very worrying. Delays. Despite having invested billions of dollars in that restructuring of the company to bet (practically) everything on AI, three internal sources confirm that Meta finds it very difficult to meet the planned deadlines. The race for generative AI waits for no one, and at the company headquarters nerves are on edge because the roadmap is not being met. Avocado, where are you? The new foundational AI model that Meta has been working on for months has been internally named Avocado, but at the moment it is not measuring up, something that reminds us what happened to Llama 4. Internal tests reveal that although it manages to surpass the aforementioned Llama 4 and the old Gemini 2.5, it falls short of Gemini 3.0 (and of course, the recent Gemini 3.1). Patience. Coming out with a model that is clearly worse than its rivals does not make sense, so Meta has decided to wait and delay the launch of its model. Avocado is expected to hit the market in May at the earliest. And meanwhile, Gemini. The situation is so critical that according to these sources, the leaders of the AI ​​division are considering something unthinkable: paying a license to Google to be able to use Gemini in their own products, something that for example will Apple do Siri. That would be a clear sign that for now this own model is not capable enough to power the AI ​​functions of WhatsApp, Instagram and Threads. Money does not equal speed. The company has spent billions of dollars on AI researchers, and has committed to invest 600,000 million dollars in building AI data centers. In January, Meta projected a capex of $135 billion dedicated almost entirely to these projectsalmost double the $72 billion it spent last year. Despite these investments, the company is currently missing from an area in which its competitors continue to advance. Internal tension. According to these sources, Meta is becoming a tinderbox. The “TBD Lab” (for “To Be Determined”), the unit led by Wang, is working under maximum pressure on models named after fruits (Avocado, Mango, Watermelon), but has clashed with old-school Meta managers like Chris Cox and Andrew Bossworth. The company is trying to integrate those models with Meta’s advertising business, which is what supports everything, but Wang doesn’t seem to handle that part of the business very well. Goodbye to open models. Meta stood out at the beginning of this AI race as the company whose open models —not Open Source— were above the rest. Llama became the norm in this area, but in this new stage that philosophy seems to change and China is the one that now leads that segment. Thus, there is talk that both Zuckerberg and Wang lean toward closed models, such as those of OpenAI (GPT) or Google (Gemini). This allows you to have full control over the code, a competitive advantage that Meta does not seem to want to give up. Few fruits of this tree. Despite the extraordinary deployment of resources, the current balance is poor. Meta’s only tangible product of those investments is Vibes, an application similar to Sora that has not managed to fully gel. Meanwhile, those initial talent signings have turned into abandonments: the trickle of AI researchers who leave the company to join others (or found their own projects) is increasing. In Xataka | Meta has been buying chips from NVIDIA and AMD for years. Now it also makes its own so as not to fall short

41 methane gas turbines

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Recently we said that xAI had the largest data center with the highest computing capacity in the world. It occupies about 13 football fields and has already reached one gigawatt of power, the first in the world to achieve that computing capacity. All this has an enormous energy cost, but Elon Musk can rest assured because he has just been approved for the installation of 41 methane gas combustion turbines, to the dismay of neighbors and environmental defenders. What has happened? Elon Musk has obtained permits to install 41 methane gas turbines to power Colossus 2, its new mega data center located very close to the Tennessee-Mississippi border. The news comes amid strong opposition from both the community and activists, who denounce that air and noise pollution in the area will increase since the turbines that were already operating are going to be doubled. They say on NBC that during the public hearing, none of the speakers spoke in favor of the project, but it ended up being approved anyway. Two years of controversy. It all started in 2024 with the construction of Colossus in Memphis, Tennessee. Months later, xAI received permission to connect to the electrical grid with a maximum power of 150 megawatts, but it was not enough. In the summer of last year, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) revealed that there were at least 26 gas turbines operating without the necessary permits. In the end they ended up giving him permission to install 15 turbines permanently. Activist organizations such as NAACP have filed lawsuits against xAI for violating the clean air law. The map of xAI facilities spread across the Tennessee-Mississippi border. Source: Google Maps. Preparation: Xataka With one foot in each state. The decision to install 41 additional turbines has been made by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), which is where the turbines will be located, but Colossus 1 and 2 are in Tennessee, as can be seen on the map above these lines. That the data centers are in one state and most of the turbines in another is no coincidence. Although the clean air law It is the same for both, in practice Mississippi is being much more lax when it comes to applying it, as has been demonstrated with this decision. Although there is a border in between, we are talking about the same metropolitan area, so the effects on air quality harm both sides of the border equally. To put it more into context, between Colossus 2 and the facility where the turbines operate there is less than 2km of distance that can be traveled in less than 7 minutes by car. How much this pollutes. Memphis is one of the states with the worst air quality in the US, so much so that It is known as “the capital of asthma”. They recently counted on Electrek which, according to xAI’s own request, we are talking about 6 million tons of greenhouse gases and 1,300 tons of harmful atmospheric pollutants (nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide among others) each year. And they also point out a striking detail: while all this is happening, Tesla boasts that in 2024 it avoided the emission of 32 million tons of CO2. The level of cynicism is also through the roof. Image | xAI In Xataka | We have been talking for years about how AI consumes a lot of water. Everything comes from a book that was invented

If Ukraine promoted the use of drones, Iran has triggered the Terminator algorithm. And that was already a problem in science fiction

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In the gulf war 1991, the international coalition took more than a month to launch some 100,000 airstrikes after weeks of planning. Three decades later, the ability to process military information has changed radically: satellites, sensors and drones generate amounts of data that no human team could analyze alone. In this new technological environment, the true battlefield is no longer just the air or the land, but the speed at which information is interpreted. From the drone to the algorithm. Recent wars had already anticipated a profound transformation of modern combat, but the conflict with Iran seems to have crossed a different technological frontier. If the war in ukraine popularized the massive use of drones as a dominant tool from the battlefield, the campaign against Iran has introduced a logical even more radical: integration artificial intelligence at the very heart of military decisions. In fact, the initial attacks showed an intensity difficult to imagine just a few years ago, with hundreds of targets hit in a matter of hours and thousands in a few days. That speed was not only the result of greater firepower, but also of the use of capable systems of analyzing enormous volumes of data and transforming that information into almost instantaneous attack plans. Understanding the “kill chain”. I remembered this morning the financial times that traditional war, the so-called chain of destruction (from identifying a target to launching the attack) was a long and bureaucratic process. Intelligence officers analyzed information, wrote reports, commanders evaluated options and finally the coup was authorized. A process that could take hours or even days. The incorporation of AI is reducing that cycle drastically. We are talking about platforms that integrate data from satellites, drones, sensors and intercepted communications that are capable of generating lists of targets, prioritizing them and suggesting the appropriate weapon in a matter of seconds. The result is extreme and disturbing compression of the kill chain: What once required prolonged deliberation now becomes an almost instantaneous sequence. The digital brain of the battlefield. Behind this acceleration are data analysis systems that act as a true operational “brain.” These platforms combine geospatial intelligence, machine learning and advanced language models to interpret information and propose military actions. Its most disruptive capacity is that it no longer only summarizes data, but can reason step by stepevaluate alternatives and generate tactical recommendations. This allows military commanders to process volumes of information that are impossible to handle manually and multiply the number of operational decisions made in the same period of time. In practice, algorithms are allowing select and execute objectives at a scale and speed that were previously unthinkable. Bomb faster than thought. The result of this transformation is a war that begins to move at a rapid speed. higher than human pace. Artificial intelligence can now analyze information, detect patterns and propose attacks faster than a team of analysts could even formulate the right questions. Some experts describe This phenomenon as a form of “compressed decision,” in which planning is reduced to such short windows of time that human managers can barely review what the machine has already processed. In this context, another disturbing idea: that destruction can precede the human reflection process itself, that is, first comes the recommendation generated by the algorithm and then the formal approval of the person who must execute it. And there, there is no doubt, we can have a problem of colossal dimensions. The human dilemma in algorithmic warfare. Because this technological acceleration is generating a growing debate about the real role of humans in military decision-making. Although the armed forces they insist As final control remains in the hands of people, the time available to evaluate system recommendations is increasingly reduced. Some analysts fear that this will lead to a form of “cognitive download”one in which military leaders end up automatically trusting the decisions generated by algorithms. Other countries like China itself observe this evolution with concern and warn of the risk that automated systems end up directly influencing life or death decisions on the battlefield, associating the scenario with the closest thing to the “Terminator algorithm” due to the unequivocal way in which all paths approach James Cameron’s fantastic proposal. A new accelerated war. If you will also, what is emerging is not just a new military technology, but rather a new time of the war. AI makes it possible to process information on a massive scale, identify targets more quickly, and execute attacks with unprecedented simultaneity. This means that military campaigns can develop at a pace that overflows the models traditional planning. From this perspective, war no longer advances solely at the pace of logistics or firepower, but at the pace of algorithms capable of interpreting the battlefield in real time. And in this unprecedented scenario, strategic advantage could increasingly depend on who is able to think (or calculate) faster than the adversary. Although neither of them be human. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine In Xataka | China has just found a hole in the US’s quietest weapon: an algorithm has hacked its B-2s in Iran In Xataka | The great paradox of war: the US ignored Ukraine’s pleas to Russia and now needs it in Iran

Faced with the fear of a barrel of oil at $200, the US has made an unprecedented decision: remove sanctions on Russia

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After almost two weeks, the Iran war already has a great (and unexpected) beneficiary: the Kremlin. days after giving carte blanche to India to buy million barrels of Russian crude without fear of sanctions, yesterday Washington was one step further by lifting (partially) the sanctions imposed on the Russian oil industry after the invasion of Ukraine. With this, he hopes to alleviate the effects of the Iran war on the energy market and prevent Tehran’s threat from becoming a reality: that the barrel of Brent shoots to $200an all-time high. The question is… What will it mean for the war in Ukraine? What has happened? That the US has decided to pause the sanctions that penalize the purchase of Russian oil, a measure adopted four years ago and which seeks asphyxiate the Kremlin’s ability to finance its troops in Ukraine. The White House just published an order in which it gives the green light to the purchase of crude oil and oil products from Russia. Of course, with small print. The suspension of sanctions is temporary. It will only affect merchandise previously loaded on ships and (a priori) will be limited to one month: from March 12 to April 11. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Why do you do it? The task of announcing the measure has been the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bressent, who a few hours ago insisted in the White House’s efforts to “promote stability” in the global energy market and above all “keep prices low” while the Iran war lasts. “To expand global supply reach, Treasury grants temporary authorization for countries to purchase Russian oil stranded at sea,” explains the high office. “This measure, which is limited in scope and short-term, applies only to oil that is already in transit.” In the same messageBressent insists that the rise in crude oil prices this week, coinciding with the escalation of tension in the Persian Gulf, is “temporary” and claims that “in the long term it will greatly benefit” the US economy. In recent days, Trump himself has tried to downplay the fluctuations in the Brent barrel. Recently he even stated that, being “the largest oil producer”, the US makes “a lot of money” when crude oil rises. Does context matter? A lot. In fact, the decision of the Treasury Department cannot be understood without taking into account several factors. The first, the escalation in the value of oil to which Bressent himself refers. The stock charts show that the cost of a barrel of Brent has skyrocketed in recent days: from marking just under 70 dollars in mid-February, it has gone above 90, with peaks that exceeded the barrier of the 100. Those fluctuations already affect to those who need to fill the car tank and threaten to go beyond transportation, infecting the shopping basket. What will happen now? The problem is not just how much oil has risen over the last two weeks. There is (very much) concern that the barrel of Brent will continue to become more expensive and, if so, by how much. The Iranian regime already has shown its ability to condition oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic maritime passage that channels 20% of international oil, and Tehran seems willing to use ‘black gold’ as a weapon of war. On Wednesday the regime of the ayatollahs threatened to the US (and the West) with a scenario in which the Brent barrel doubles its value and shoots up to $200, shattering the all-time high of 2008, when it reached $174.5. How will it affect Russia? That’s the other big question. The order just published by the US Treasury will allow Russia to market oil for a month without its customers risking sanctions, generating a flow of cash for the Kremlin. Bressent questions in any case the scope of that injection of funds. “It will not bring significant financial benefits to the Russian government, which derives most of its energy revenue from taxes levied at the point of extraction,” defend the secretary. Is it an exceptional measure? The truth is that it is not the first ‘balloon of oxygen’ that Trump has granted to the Russian oil industry since he began his military operation in Iran. It’s been a week now temporarily relaxed its sanctions policy so that India can buy Russian oil. The measure was approved with conditions very similar to those that Washington now extends to the rest of the countries: a 30-day suspension limited to crude oil already loaded on ships. It is not the only card that the White House has tried to reduce market tension. Another, adopted hand in hand of the International Energy Agency, has been to release millions of barrels of reserves. How much will it benefit Moscow? The great unknown. The measure approved by the US is temporary and has a limited scope, but it will probably allow the Kremlin to sell its oil without having to apply significant discounts to offset the possible sanctions that its buyers faced. Recently Financial Times I calculated that Russia is already winning up to 150 million of dollars in extra income every day through the sale of oil, a plus directly related to the conflict in Iran, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the turbulence in the Gulf and the growing interest of India and China. But will it help the Kremlin? The situation of the Russian coffers is not particularly buoyant. Its public deficit accumulated during the first two months of the year almost reaches the objective set for the entire year and there are those who question that the extra injection it will receive over the next month thanks to oil will increase its room for maneuver in Ukraine. The reason: hydrocarbons represent only a part of the income (relevant, but not decisive) on which the Kremlin depends, which after four years of war has seen how the country’s military industry is conditioning its economy. Images | … Read more

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