agreement

Ford and Geely reach an agreement to manufacture four cars in Valencia

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Ford and Geely have reached an important agreement for the plant that the American company has in Almussafes (Valencia). The facilities have been operating at half throttle for a long time but the agreement with Geely is a lifeline for a team that feared for its future. Here are all the details. an agreement. Geely and Ford have reached “an agreement to establish a joint venture for Europe at Ford’s production center in Valencia.” To move forward, yes, they remember that the next step is “waiting for the corresponding regulatory authorizations.” With this agreement, Geely and Ford should share facilities in the first half of 2027 but the first vehicles will not leave the facilities until 2028. This joint venture will be 34% controlled by Geely and 66% by Ford. What will be manufactured? The press release sent to the media states that the joint venture will bring about “a new generation of low- and zero-emission vehicles destined for European markets.” That is, cars with plug-in hybrid and electric technology will come out of the Valencia plant. It is also specified that “the joint venture is planned to manufacture two multi-energy vehicles from the Ford brand and two electric models from the Geely brand, starting in 2028” but no further details are offered that point to the names of said vehicles or whether deeper integrations are contemplated. The possible scenarios. With the information that is confirmed, there are different possibilities: Ford and Geely share facilities but do not share models. One line brings out the “Ford multi-energy models” and another “the Geely electric ones.” The integration of Ford and Geely is greater because one of the “electrics” of the latter company is an extended range electric, a solution in which a combustion engine is used and that fits within the definition of “electric car” and “multi-energy car.” What does Ford gain? For years, Ford’s production in Europe has been in clear decline and Almussafes has been operating at half throttle for some time. The possibility of closure has been raised on several occasions, but closing a factory involves a lot of money in layoffs, compensation to suppliers, and leaves facilities for which a buyer must be sought. Ford had already confirmed that Valencia will manufacture a new Bronco “European style” (that it will have nothing to do with with the one produced in the United States) and a multi-energy Kuga. Despite this, the factory would be released in part because it has the capacity to put half a million vehicles on the road annually. The American company is going through a bad time in Europe. It already has a agreement with Volkswagen for your mid-size electrics (explorer and Capri) and another with Renault for sister versions of the Renault 5 and the Renault 4. With all that covered, the company did not seem interested in making the necessary investments to produce more cars in Europe. What does Geely earn? The benefits for Geely are numerous. First, it will have an already built plant that requires money to modernize but which is already built. This will allow them to produce in, they say, a year and a half. It is less time than it takes to obtain permits to build a factory, build it from scratch and start producing. The second thing is that it buys European land. And with the European soil, a good part of the tariffs that are currently imposed on their cars are eliminated. Especially if we take into account that Geely will manufacture cars and will not assemble them using parts from China. (like Chery does in Barcelona)a solution that the European Union believes not enough to eliminate tariffs. What does Valencia gain? The opportunity to once again have a factory that increases its production and extends its useful life. When the rumors started Of a possible association of Geely with Ford, the doubt remained as to whether Almussafes was going to be the option chosen in the possible agreement between the companies. And Ford already has a plant capable of manufacturing completely electric models. However, if both companies do not share assembly lines and only share facilities, Valencia is an excellent opportunity for Geely since it will be able to manufacture at lower costs than in Cologne (Germany) where Ford has its electric car plant. This should result in a more attractive price, greater chances of success in the market and a clearer horizon for the future. Photo | Geely and Ford In Xataka | Volkswagen’s turbulence also affects Sagunto: the long-awaited battery factory is delayed

In 2016 Colombia signed a historic peace agreement. Then the area dedicated to cocaine cultivation skyrocketed

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In Colombia the 11-24-2016 It is one of those dates that sneak into history books and that schoolchildren study for generations. Or at least that’s what was expected a decade agowhen (after years of negotiations and a complicated procedure with steps forward and back) the Government and the FARC signed a Peace Agreement which was intended to mark a turning point in the country’s history of drug trafficking and violence. The reality today is that the Colombian coca map may be different from that of 2016, but it has not retreated. Quite the opposite. Taking stock. The second round of the Colombian teams will coincide almost with the tenth anniversary of the agreement signed in 2016 by the FARC-EP and the Government, then headed by Juan Manuel Santos. With that backdrop, this week the British newspaper Financial Times public an extensive analysis in which he examines how the cocaine business, drug trafficking and violence in the country have changed over the last decade. And the result is not exactly good. If it had to be summarized, it could be done like this: more hectares of cultivation, greater yield, more business and less ideology. Change of actors. One of the key ideas that leave bouncing FT is that, far from ending drug trafficking and coca cultivation, the 2016 agreement has only served to change its protagonists. The place that the far-left insurgent organization once occupied FARC It is now distributed to armed groups more motivated by the search for profit. From discourse based on politics we move on to business. Not only that. The logistics chain has become fragmented and specialized, although in the new map they would stand out above all three great actors. One is the National Liberation Army (ELN), left-wing guerrilla organization that expands its influence to Venezuela. Another group is made up of former members of the FARC who are dissatisfied with the 2016 pact and who now act as dissidents. The third protagonist is Gaitanista Armyalso known by its acronym (EGC) or as Clan del Golfo, formed by right-wing paramilitaries. For the director of the Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), María Victoria Llorente, the latter is “the largest criminal organization in Colombia.” What exactly happened? That the State has not achieved occupy the place left by the FARC, which has translated into a huge opportunity for other organizations interested in drug trafficking. Toby Muse, reporter and author of ‘Kilo’, summed it up not long ago in an interview with ABC: “The FARC had control of many of the places where coca was planted. When they lowered their weapons they clearly told the Government: ‘Now this territory is yours. A minimum of law must be introduced and the peasants must be protected. That is the peace process. This territory is now yours’. The Government was unable to take control. Other groups did so and it generated a new cycle of violence.” Click on the image to go to the tweet. The figure: 253,000 hectares. Geoff Dyer and Joe Daniels, the reporters who sign the report of FT, have not limited themselves to collecting testimonies from experts and locals. In their chronicle they also slip some figures that help understand how the coca map in Colombia has changed since 2016. Of all, perhaps the most resounding are the UN estimates on the cultivated area: between 2018 and 2023 there would be increased by around 50% until reaching 253,000 hectares. This growth has also been accompanied by another just as solid in the production of pure cocaine hydrochloride. A questionable balance. Just a few days ago, President Gustavo Petro assured that the Executive expects that the area with coca crops this year will be around 253,358 hectares, which, he insisted, represents a reduction compared to 2025. In any case, it is still higher than what was expected. the UN calculated in 2022 and questions the success of the policies promoted a decade ago by the Executive to encourage farmers to abandon coca plantations. In 2017, for example, the Transnational Institute (TNI) informed of how a “crop substitution plan” to, through economic incentives, eliminate 50,000 hectares of coca in just one year. Only part of the ‘photo’. It is not just that the cultivated area has increased. In its 2024 report, the UN also points out a noticeable increase in the yield of cultivated hectares, a phenomenon that coincides with the decision of the Government of dispense with of aerial fumigation with glyphosate as a tool to eradicate coca plantations. The decision was made a decade ago due to its impact on the environment and the health of the population, but the Petro Government has had no choice but to reverse and recover fumigations with the help of drones. More sophisticated. In general the analysis of Financial Times points out that new generations have ‘professionalized’ coca production in Colombia, betting on new varieties of crops, more efficient agricultural practices and more sophisticated processing. Even the laboratories have been improved. The British media reports that, taking advantage of their control of the territory, some groups have even gotten into other businesses, such as illegal gold mining. Beyond Colombia. That coca production increases by Colombian forests It has effects beyond the country or even South America. In your ‘World Drug Report 2025’the United Nations recalled that in 2023 the production, seizures and consumption of white powder had reached “new highs”, confirming itself as “the fastest growing illicit drug.” According to their calculations, production shot up almost 34% between 2022 and 2023 and consumption went from 17 million users in 2013 to nearly 25 million in 2023. hunted caches before reaching its destination, but so does production, something that has even been felt in the quote of the bales. The reflection in Europe. In the global chain they are on one side the big producers (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia) and on the other the main consumer markets. In the latter, important changes can also be seen, something that it is clear in … Read more

Chile wants a tunnel under the Strait of Magellan to link Tierra del Fuego with the continent. The project exists, the agreement with Argentina does not

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Today, if a person wants to cross from Chile or Argentina to the island of Tierra del Fuego, they depend on ferries and barges. Normally, about 600 vehicles and around 2,000 people They cross the island every day. The extreme southern region of Patagonia is also a complicated area in meteorological terms, which leads to the suspension of maritime transport services every now and then. Hence, it makes all the sense in the world that they are considering building an underwater tunnel that connects both regions. The idea is to build an underpass of about 3.7 kilometers in the First Angostura, thus replacing ferry transportation. The project has existed on paper for a long timebut now it has just gained some political momentum. What exactly is proposed. The project would consist of an underwater road tunnel that connects Punta Delgada, in the continental zone, with Bahía Azul, on the Big Island of Tierra del Fuego. This section, known as First Angostura, is the point where the Strait of Magellan narrows to the maximum, making it the most technically reasonable place to attempt a work of these characteristics. Why is it resurfacing now? The project has been included since June 2025 in the Extreme Zones Development Plan 2025–2035 of the Magallanes Region. The governor of Magallanes, Jorge Flies, has been the main person responsible for restore some visibility to the initiative in recent weeks, according to some media reports. What the technicians say. Francisco Hernández, academic at the University of the Andes, counted to the Uruguayan edition of El País that the work is technically possible, but warns that it should not be seen “as a simple work.” The media also points out more difficulties than the length of the route, including the detailed study of the geology of the seabed, the water pressure, the currents or the seismic behavior of an area located very close to the mountain range. Depending on the results of these analyses, the project could be executed with a TBM-type tunnel boring machine or using conventional rock excavation techniques. According to account According to La Nación, Norwegian engineers have already reviewed the proposal in a preliminary phase and concluded that the conditions could be favorable. cHow much does it cost and who pays. The estimates oscillate between 500 and 1.5 billion dollars. As it is a binational project, Chile and Argentina would have to agree on the distribution of the investment, the management model and long-term maintenance guarantees. The media also points out that viability does not depend only on engineering, but on there being a firm agreement between both countries on who pays, under what conditions and with what operating scheme. What point is it really at? For the moment, the tunnel is nothing more than a proposal included in Chile’s planning. There is no official confirmation of the start of works, no definitive agreement between the two countries, nor guaranteed financing. The next step would be to complete the geotechnical and geophysical studies that allow the design, costs and security, evacuation and emergency systems to be refined. Until then, we will have to wait to find out if the project finally comes to fruition. Cover image | Vincent Etter and Ricardo Gomez Angel In Xataka | With 3,500 tons and 15 meters in diameter, China already has the largest tunnel boring machine in the world for high-speed trains

We sensed that the peace agreement had been expensive for the US. What we did not imagine is the crazy amount that is going to be paid to Iran

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Exactly 10 years ago, the image of an airplane downloading 400 million of dollars in cash in Iran became one of the most controversial symbols of Barack Obama’s foreign policy. In fact, Trump spent years using that episode as proof that Washington had “paid” for peace. Ten years later, history repeats itself… but with many more zeros. The peace bill. The truth is that it was sensed from the first moment that the cease-fire between the United States and Iran was not exactly going to come free for Washington. What no one imagined was the magnitude of the price: up to 300,000 million of dollars in the form of a reconstruction and investment fund to relaunch the Iranian economy. The figure is so enormous that it completely transforms the narrative of the war. What began as a campaign of maximum pressure and bombings on nuclear facilities has ended up mutating into something much more uncomfortable for the White House: an agreement where the supposedly punished person can leave with a historic financial injection if it complies. Kharg Island From punishing to financing. The paradox could not be more brutal for Donald Trump. For years he built a good part of his speech attacking the Barack Obama nuclear pactdenouncing that he had filled Tehran with “pallets of money.” Now his administration is promoting something that potentially multiplies that concession on another scale. The argument is that the money will not come directly from the US Government, but from Western and Asian companies that would enter Iran if sanctions are lifted. But the geopolitical effect is the same: Iran’s economic survival becomes guaranteed by a deal that Washington desperately needed to close. Hormuz, the key. It we were counting yesterday. The real trigger for the turn was not nuclear, but economic. When Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, it left more than a fifth of the world’s oil and gas trade up in the air. The market held out for a few days, but the pressure began to be unbearable. More than 500 ships were trapped, maritime traffic plummeted and the world’s largest shipping companies began to warn that reopening the route would not be immediate. Everything changed there. The war ceased to be a regional issue and became a direct threat to the global economy and, above all, to the pockets of the American consumer. Washington chose oil. That’s where the interests of Washington and Israel diverged. While Benjamin Netanyahu wanted keep pressing To further weaken the Iranian regime and even force a change in regional balance, Trump saw the domestic political cost of prolonging the energy crisis. With elections approaching and the price of oil as a threat, the priority stopped being to subdue Iran and became reopening Hormuz as soon as possible. In practice, this meant accepting a much more limited agreementfocused on navigation, ceasefire and future nuclear negotiations. Israel doesn’t see it. I was counting this morning the wall street journal that in Jerusalem the reading is almost opposite. The fear is not just that Iran will receive billions, but that it will do so without immediately handing over all of its enriched uranium or completely giving up rebuilding its nuclear program. For many Israeli strategists, this means that Tehran gains oxygentime and resources to rearm. Furthermore, they see profound damage to American credibility: after months of military and economic pressure, the end result looks more like a purchased pause than a strategic victory. A peace that strengthens some. The agreement, therefore, leaves an uncomfortable and quite surreal image: the United States bombed, pressured and isolated Iran to end up offering the conditions for its reconstruction. The Iranian regime comes out beaten, yes, but alive, with the Strait as a negotiating weapon and with the possibility of receiving an avalanche of foreign investment. Of course, Trump could possibly sell it as stability and containment nuclear. But seen from the outside, the feeling is very different: peace has not only cost Washington dearly, but it may end up financing the very actor it tried to corner and overthrow. Image | US Navy, Google Earth In Xataka | We have been fearing the Apocalypse for 100 days due to the closure of Hormuz. The blow is going to be given to us by a heat wave in China In Xataka | Ukraine turned drones into hunters. A helicopter shot down in Hormuz has transformed them into a Spielberg film

Spain’s “no” to the F-35 has led to a curious agreement. The US is going to send you its Harriers like Ikea: in pieces to assemble

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In 1982, during the Falklands War, the British had to modify and move several Harriers were hurriedly shipped to the South Atlantic. Some arrived at the area of ​​operations transported on adapted merchant ships and were prepared for combat during deployment, an example of the extent to which this aircraft has always been associated with logistical solutions. unconventional. An emergency solution. The Spanish Navy faces a countdown that has been conditioning its future for years. Maintaining aviation on board the Juan Carlos I is considered an essential strategic capability, but the problem is that the Harriers that make it possible are reaching the limit. end of useful life and the natural relief, the F-35B, continues out of plans of government procurement. Faced with this situation, Defense has opted for a formula as pragmatic as it is unique: prolonging the life of current aircraft until 2032 through a massive reserve of spare parts coming from the last American Harriers that are being retired from service. Harrier Av 8b The Harriers arrive, but not to fly. The operation has something of a logistical paradox. Spain is going to receive five AV-8B Harrier complete from the United States, but none of them are destined to join the flight line. Its mission will be much less visible and perhaps more important: to become a gigantic reserve of components. Although initially it was studied to take advantage of the transatlantic voyage of the Juan Carlos I to transport them, finally the devices will be dismantled at origin and sent to Spain andn separate packages. They will arrive practically as a kit of parts to assemble from the famous Swedish furniture store, although in this case ready to be cannibalized in Rota and keep the fighters of the 9th Squadron operational for the next few years. While others advance, Spain stretches the calendar. The decision reflects the particular situation in which the Navy has been left. USA will officially retire its Harriers this year and Italy plans to do the same before the end of the decade, both replacing them with the F-35B, the only real heir to the short takeoff and vertical landing capabilities of the veteran British-American aircraft. Spain, on the other hand, is preparing to become the last relevant operator of the model. The refusal to buy The F-35 has forced additional time to be sought for a fleet that should have begun its transition to a more modern successor years ago. The Spanish industry gains prominence. This scenario is also driving an unusual industrial effort. The Navy and Airbus have extended contracts maintenance of the Harriers and significantly increased the work hours dedicated to inspections, repairs and recovery of components. The objective is not only to maintain the current aircraft, but to develop in Spain a technical capacity capable of sustain a fleet increasingly scarce in the world. The fewer operators left, the greater the importance of having knowledge, tools and own spare parts to continue maintaining the devices in flying condition. The price of postponing the decision. All this effort has a very specific objective: to prevent Spain from losing its ability to operate aircraft combat from the sea before having an alternative. However, it also shows the provisional nature of the solution. The American Harriers that will cross the Atlantic will not do so to reinforce the Spanish embarked air force, but to feed the specimens that are already in service. If you like, it is a quite revealing image of the current moment: while other allies replace their old planes with a new generationSpain tries to gain a few more years by assembling the Marines’ latest Harriers and transforming them into a floating parts warehouse. In a way, the negative to buy the F-35 has led to an agreement as peculiar as it is symbolic: receiving the fighters retired from the United States disassembled… ready to assemble, disassemble and reuse as the survival of the fleet demands. Image | RawPixel, Michael Pereckas In Xataka | The US opted for the quality of the F-35 rather than quantity. China opted for the opposite and it is already a problem In Xataka | Europe has asked its military experts how to become independent from the US for the next war. The answer is déjà vu: the F-35

Just Eat knows that we Spaniards are hooked on Delivery. This is how they have closed an agreement so that you can order on WhatsApp

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Spain it is delivery countryand Just Eat knows it. We are one of the European markets where food delivery has grown the most in the last decade. So much so, Just Eat has decided to make Spain one of the only two countries—along with the Netherlands—where it will debut in Europe something that no delivery platform had done before: allowing you to order food directly from WhatsApp. The alliance. Just Eat has become the first platform in Europe to enable an integrated ordering experience through WhatsApp in which the entire search and selection process occurs within the chat itself. The Just Eat app only comes into play for the last step: secure payment. WhatsApp is not going to replace the service app, but rather it is going to become one of the main entry channels. “With the launch of the first ordering system via WhatsApp in Europe, at Just Eat we are not just including a new channel: we are redefining the concept of convenience. This innovation is a key element in our evolution, going from being a menu-based transactional application to becoming a true intelligent assistant powered by AI, capable of understanding user intent in real time.” Mert Öztekin, CTO of Just Eat How it will work. Using a QR code or link, we will enter WhatsApp, we will start a conversation with the AI agent from Just Eat, and we can complete practically the entire experience from the messaging app. Unlike the existing WhatsApp chat options, aimed at customer assistance channels, the company ensures that its AI will be able to understand natural language, to talk with us about what we want to eat, what restaurants there are, what they have on the menu and their prices. The promise is clear: this is not a support chatbot or anything similar to what we have used so far. The buts. The proposal is striking, but it is inevitable to ask some questions. The first is a simple “why”. Explaining to an AI agent what you want for dinner when Just Eat has a highly optimized app in which you can order food in five or six touches of the screen, a priori, does not seem more comfortable. The second is that Goal is Goaland every WhatsApp conversation goes through its servers. That Just Eat has the necessary data for our order is logical, but all this information Now passing through Meta may not be so attractive. When. Just Eat has not given a final date for this service, although it assures that it will begin its trial in 2026. They will start in Spain and the Netherlands and, if it is a success, expand to more countries in the European Union. In Xataka | The delivery war is no longer about bringing pizzas home, it is about delivering in 10 minutes: ‘Q-commerce’

Stellantis and Dongfeng have just signed an agreement to produce Jeeps and Peugeots in China, and then bring them from China

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Stellantis and Dongfeng have signed an agreement of production valued at more than 8 billion yuan (approximately 1 billion euros) to manufacture four new vehicles in China under the Jeep and Peugeot brands. This initiative will be channeled through Dongfeng Peugeot Citroën Automobile (DPCA), the joint venture that both companies have had for more than three decades. Penetrating China. This agreement is Stellantis’ clearest commitment to adapt to the new reality of the sector. And instead of competing head-on with Chinese manufacturers, the group chooses to rely on its technology and production capacity. The Financial Times point that Chinese buyers have turned their backs on foreign brands, whose market share fell to approximately 30% last year, compared to 64% in 2020. In such an environment, growing alone is almost impossible, so Stellantis has used the classic “if you can’t beat the enemy, join him.” A strategic agreement. The four vehicles will be new energy vehicles (NEV), a category that includes pure electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and models with a combustion engine acting as a battery generator. The two Peugeots will be based on the design language that the brand presented at this year’s Beijing Motor Show with the Concept 6 and Concept 8, according to account the CnEVPost media. The two Jeeps will have an off-road profile. According to share According to the Financial Times, production will be destined for both the Chinese market and export, in the latter case for destinations such as Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The two companies have also agreed to explore broader cooperation outside China. In addition, as the media reports, Stellantis is simultaneously studying transferring capacity from its Rennes plant, in France, to Dongfeng. Jeep’s return to China. The agreement represents the return of the brand’s local production in the country. Jeep abandoned manufacturing there in 2022, when the joint venture was dissolved that Fiat Chrysler (precursor of Stellantis) maintained with GAC. Since then, Stellantis had been importing the vehicles, a formula that was already much less competitive due to price. Between the lines. Dongfeng assumes most of the disbursement, while Stellantis contributes around 130 million euros. There are already clues as to who has the productive and technological capacity, and who provides the brand value. The agreement also benefits from the industrial policies of Hubei province and the city of Wuhan (where the joint venture has its plant), something that has generated criticism in Europe and the United States by interpreting that Western manufacturers are taking advantage of Chinese state subsidies. For Dongfeng, the pact comes at a delicate time. And the manufacturer has fallen behind other large companies such as BYD or Leapmotor, and now the state firm needs both income and international projection. Dongfeng President Qing Yang account that the agreement will be “beneficial for both parties.” Movements. Stellantis has been accelerating its alliances with Chinese partners for weeks. Only last week it announced that it was deepening its collaboration with Leapmotor, in which it has 21% of the capital. The brand will hand over the Villaverde plant, in Madrid, and will expand lines in Zaragoza. That makes Stellantis the first major Western manufacturer to offer European production capacity to a Chinese brand, according to stand out from the Wall Street Journal. Antonio Filosa, CEO of Stellantis, who foresees present its new long-term strategy on May 21has repeated on several occasions that alliances will be a central pillar of the group’s future, a group that we remember closed 2025 with net losses of 22.3 billion euros. And now what. The big question is whether the models leaving Wuhan will have enough Jeep and Peugeot DNA to appeal to the global buyer, or whether they will in practice be Chinese vehicles with a European logo. With Dongfeng taking on most of the funding and technology development, the answer points more towards the latter. We will have to wait to find out how the play ends up turning out. In Xataka | Google gives Android Auto its biggest update yet: new interface, YouTube, Maps redesign, and lots of AI

Meta has signed an agreement to search for it in space

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Back in 1941, Isaac Asimov already played with an idea that for decades sounded more like literature than infrastructure: capture solar energy in space and send her back to Earth. It was not a minor occurrence. Basically, it posed a question that today no longer belongs only to science fiction: what do we do when the energy available down here is not enough to sustain what we want to build. More than eighty years later, that question has found a new protagonist: artificial intelligence. What we have seen in recent years is a race to build AI infrastructure at enormous speed. More models, more servers, more data centers and, as a direct consequence, more need for stable electricity. Meta places the problem there: current clean sources help, but have obvious limitations when looking for continuous supply. Solar doesn’t produce at night, the wind doesn’t always blow, and the grid needs storage to turn that intermittent energy into a more reliable basis for its operations. The energy that AI is pushing beyond Earth The Meta movement arrives in the form of two agreements who attack the problem from different sides. The first is with Overview Energy, a startup with which Meta has reserved until 1 GW capacity of orbital solar power to support the company’s data center operations. The second is with Noon Energy, with whom Meta has reserved up to 1 GW/100 GWh of very long duration storage capacity. The idea is not to replace one technology with another, but to combine generation and storage to get closer to a more continuous supply. Overview Energy’s proposal is based on a premise that is simple to tell, although difficult to execute. Its satellites would be in geostationary orbit above the Earth’s equator, where sunlight is constant. From there they would capture energy and send it to existing solar installations on Earth as low-intensity near-infrared light. According to Meta, these plants would convert the beam into electricity and inject it into the grid just as they do today with direct sunlight, also during the hours in which they now remain inactive. Capture of a video about the project shared by Meta It’s a good idea to put things in perspective. The company itself places this technology in an early phase: Overview plans a orbital demonstration in 2028when your system should try to send power wirelessly from space to a solar plant on Earth for the first time. If successful, commercial delivery to the US grid could begin, at the earliest, in 2030. In between, the most difficult part remains: proving that the system works, that it scales, and that it can do so in an economic sense. Noon Energy Energy Storage System The second alliance looks at a less striking, but equally important problem: what happens when clean energy has already been generated and needs to be conserved for longer. Noon Energy works with reversible solid oxide fuel cells and carbon-based storage to offer more than 100 hours of storage, well above what Meta says lithium-ion batteries can offer today. These two alliances fit into a much broader energy strategy. Meta assures that it has already contracted more than 30 GW of clean and renewable energyand places these agreements alongside its next-generation geothermal projects with Sage Geosystems and XGS Energy, in addition to 7.7 GW of nuclear energy linked to Vistra, TerraPower, Oklo and Constellation Energy. What remains is a fairly clear snapshot of the moment: AI is not only pushing technology companies to buy more chips, it is also forcing them to look for electricity in increasingly unconventional places. Images | Xataka with Grok In Xataka | Kimi Code is eight times cheaper than Claude Code and does 75% of your work. The question is whether it is enough

now the 1,000 million agreement has vanished

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OpenAI has announced the closure of Soraits app for generating short videos with AI that it launched six months ago, immersed in tremendous expectation. The most immediate consequence, beyond the fact that countless doubts have been put on the table about the current role of OpenAI in the generative AI business: Disney has canceled the 1 billion license agreement of dollars that he announced in December. Kaputt. Just one day after they received notice at Disney that OpenAI was canceling the video tool, the generative AI company confirmed it publicly with a message on X: “We say goodbye to Sora“. According to anonymous internal sources who They spoke to Reutersthe announcement was experienced at Disney as a “big rug pull” that no one had anticipated. The pact between the two companies, which had not yet completed its formal closure, is thus buried. What it consisted of. Disney would have become, under the deal, Sora’s first major content partner. The agreement contemplated that users could generate videos with more than 200 characters from the Disney, Marvel, Pixar and ‘Star Wars’ franchises from simple text instructions. Some of those videos would appear on Disney+. As part of the pact, Disney had agreed to license iconic characters such as Mickey Mouse and Darth Vader to OpenAI for use in Sora, and to participate with $1 billion in the company. The economy. An important detail is that, for what was known, The transaction was structured entirely in stock options, not cash. That is to say, the notable amount of money that Disney was going to give up had not reached OpenAI at any time. According to the official statementthe deal consisted of “a $1 billion investment in OpenAI and options to acquire additional participation,” suggesting an even more complex structure, and the details of which were never made public. In any case, the agreement was subject to the negotiation of definitive contracts, corporate approvals and customary closing conditions that were not completed before the announcement of Sora’s closure. In Disney statements after the newsthe company will continue to look for new ways to reach its fans through AI. Sora’s life. Sora was launched as a standalone app in September 2025 and was OpenAI’s second standalone app after ChatGPT. Reached one million downloads in less than five days since its launch. However, Sora’s total accumulated revenue over its entire life as a product was around $2.1 million, while the estimated cost of its operation was around $15 million per day in computing infrastructure. Downloads, which had peaked at 3.3 million in November, had fallen to 1.1 million in February. And now what. The closure occurs at a key moment for OpenAI, which has been in a process of visible strategic redefinition for weeks: the company is reorienting towards high productivity use caseswhere Anthropic has built a solid business with his Claude. Because of this, Sora was not the only casualty of OpenAI’s organizational chart, which also discontinued its instant purchase feature and announced that will concentrate efforts in your web browser, ChatGPT and Codex. The simultaneous withdrawal of several products makes it clear that this is not a one-time adjustment but rather a deeper reorganization. Header | CetusCetus In Xataka | Anthropic has become the Apple of our era and OpenAI our Microsoft: a story of love and hate

OpenAI says its agreement with the Pentagon is completely secure. His way of convincing us: “Trust us”

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Don’t worry about anything, really. Trust us. Who says it is OpenAI, a company led by Sam Altman that has earned the reputation of saying one thing on one hand and doing another on the other. There are whole books written on that premise, and it is inevitable not to remember it now that this gigantic startup has signed a disturbing agreement. soap opera. OpenAI reached an agreement with the Department of Defense to integrate its AI models into government agencies, replacing Anthropic. They did so by indicating that they would impose requirements on the use of these models and would have red lines similar to those defended in Anthropic: no mass espionage, no development of autonomous weapons. That decision has cost Anthropic the contract with the DoDbut also has been tagged as a “risk to the supply chain.” Trust us. There are two problems here. The first, that OpenAI has never shown the contract that makes it clear that there are red lines to the use of GPT by the military. And the second and most serious, that according to OpenAI we do not need it because we only need to trust them. Altman himself tried to dispel doubts explaining that they had added amendments to the agreement to ensure that those red lines were not crossed. The wall of opacity. Despite promises of transparency, OpenAI refuses to publish the contract. The firm’s head of national security, Katrina Muligan, he came to affirm in that it does not feel “obliged” to share the legal language of the agreement. This has raised suspicions about what has really been signed behind the scenes. Holes everywhere. Brad Carson, who served as secretary of the US Army under Obama, indicated at The Intercept how Sam Altman’s legal language in his posts on X is suspect. The CEO of OpenAI mention for example that “the AI ​​system will not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of US citizens.” That “intentionally” is, according to experts like Carson, a kind of blank check to allow data on American citizens to be captured while spying on foreigners “by accident” but systematically. As Carson explains, They are trying to confuse you with complicated legal terms that ordinary people think mean something completely different. But lawyers know what it means. And lawyers know that this is no protection. The human factor. The integration of OpenAI’s AI into DoD systems now falls under the direct supervision of Secretary of Defense Pet Hegseth and President Trump. This represents an ethical dilemma: the security of the system depends on the political will of figures who have traditionally had no problem eliminating restrictions on mass surveillance systems. Quo vadis, OpenAI. The 180º turn it’s clear for OpenAI. While in its beginnings the startup was defined With the message of creating AI systems “for the benefit of humanity” and prohibiting the military use of its technology, this agreement demonstrates that such premises no longer seem to exist. another bad sign. This way of acting by OpenAI has caused it to be openly criticized on networks, but there have also been internal problems. This is demonstrated by the fact that its director of robotics, Caitlin Kalinowski, has decided to resign from office over concerns about the company’s military negotiations. And an obvious question. The dispute between the Department of Defense and the Pentagon centered precisely on the fact that they did not want Anthropic to establish red lines. OpenAI claims to have established basically the same ones, so how is it possible that the DoD allows OpenAI to establish them when it has not allowed Anthropic to do so? It doesn’t seem to make any sense. What a mess. We are living a real soap opera with three protagonists. The US Department of Defense (DoD) – now renamed the Department of War –, the company Anthropic and its rival, OpenAI. The DoD, which used Anthropic’s AI for military operations, He demanded to be able to use it without restrictionsbut Dario Amodei, CEO of the startup, he flatly refused. That was the moment Sam Altman took advantage of to become the new ally of the DoDsomething that has been seen by many as opportunistic and morally reprehensible. Image | Xataka with Freepik In Xataka | The war between Anthropic and the Pentagon points to something terrifying: a new “Oppenheimer Moment”

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