ceasing

is ceasing to be the ‘Chinese Samsung’ to be something more similar to ‘the Chinese Apple with a car’

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Xiaomi’s 2025 has been a record in several aspects, but also the certification of something that we had been seeing coming for a long time: the end of the Xiaomi that we knew. And it gives way to a new, much more interesting Xiaomi. Why is it important. For years, Xiaomi was the company that made the margins of Apple and Samsung a war to fight. His promise was, above all, the price. Now, for the first time in its history, the smartphone segment has decreased by 2.8% in revenue while the electric car and AI segment has grown by 224%. The company that built its identity on bargain He has started talking about something else. The panoramic. Total revenue in 2025 exceeded 450 billion yuan (about 57.7 billion euros), 25% more than the previous year and the first time that the company has surpassed the 400 billion barrier. Adjusted net profit reached 39.2 billion yuan (about 4.95 billion euros), an all-time high. But the real headline is in the composition of that revenue: a year ago, the smartphone and IoT device business represented 91% of the total. It has now fallen to 76.8%. Fourteen percentage points in a single year is too abrupt a drop not to assume that we are facing a different scenario. Between the lines. The segment that Xiaomi calls “smart electric vehicle, AI and other new initiatives” has achieved its first year with positive operating profit: 900 million yuan (about 114 million euros). The figure seems modest, but in reality it hides an intentionally opaque financial architecture. That same segment has increased its operating expenses by 87.7% year-on-year, to 24.8 billion yuan. Included are the costs of the car, but also the billion-parameter MiMo language modela robotics program, the development of own chips and the AI ​​agent platform Xiaomi miclaw. That is to say: the profits from the car are financing the company’s AI bet. And in 2026 that balance could be broken: Xiaomi has committed 16,000 million yuan (about 2,020 million euros) only in AI and “embodied intelligence” this year, part of a three-year plan of 60,000 million. The contrast. While the car moves forward, the phone moves backwards. The gross margin of the smartphone segment has fallen from 12.6% in 2024 to 10.9% in 2025, and in the fourth quarter it plummeted to 8.3%. The reason is the memory crisis: the demand for AI data centers has generated a bullish supercycle in DRAM and NAND prices which is swallowing the profitability of any mobile manufacturer. In the end, the same AI boom that Xiaomi is trying to capitalize on is what is eroding its core business. The company that financed its expansion based on tight margins in mobile phones now discovers that those margins are unsustainable precisely because of the trend it wants to lead. For years, the label that best defined Xiaomi was “the Chinese Samsung”: a company with a very wide range of products, presence in all price segments and a business model built on volume. Now the accounts point in another direction. The growing weight of the ecosystem of services on a base of premium hardware, the car as an aspirational extension of the brand and the own AI models integrated into all devices draw something more similar to Apple: a closed ecosystem where the hardware is the gateway and the services are the margin. The CEO of Ford already drew this parallel. With the difference that Xiaomi also makes the car. Apple doesn’t do that. The context. This shift has not come overnight. We have been seeing for years how Xiaomi patiently built its premium jump, first with Leica cameras, then with a SU7 that aimed directly at Tesla and Porsche. What the 2025 results confirm is that this repositioning is no longer a declaration of future intentions: it is the present financial reality of the company. One detail: 60% of buyers of the SU7 They are iPhone users, a sign that Xiaomi is capturing the consumer who pays for ecosystems, not specifications. The big question. Can a single company simultaneously maintain an under-pressure smartphone business, scale an electric car operation with some fiscal uncertainty, and fund an AI program with indefinite to delayed returns? The 754 million monthly active users and the 1,080 million connected IoT devices that Xiaomi has are an argument for optimism, but maintaining three demanding fronts at the same time, with the business that finances them under siege, is the great challenge that Xiaomi has ahead of it for this new stage. In Xataka | Leica is teaching Xiaomi everything it knows: when the student no longer needs the teacher, the agreement will have fulfilled its function Featured image | Xiaomi

The burial of the A-5 is one step closer to ceasing to be a nightmare

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The tunnel works that aim to transform the Paseo de Extremadura into the Paseo Verde del Suroeste in Madrid continue their course, with their last objective achieved: that of connecting the two excavation sections. Little by little, progress gives us a glimpse of the end of a work that is marking the day to day of thousands of neighbors during the last year. And if not tell it to our colleague Javier Pastor, who has been suffering from constant interruptions network as a consequence. Advance. Last Friday, the gap between two tunnel excavation fronts was completed, an operation that consists of connecting two separately drilled galleries to provide continuity to the underground layout. Thanks to this technical procedure, 700 linear meters of the tunnel are linked. According to reported Madrid City Council, to date 1.9 kilometers of the 5.1 planned have been excavated in both directions and 81.7% of the covering slab has been placed. This same process will be repeated in the coming weeks in the rest of the sections until the infrastructure is completed. The deadlines. The delegate of Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility of the Madrid City Council, Borja Carabante, counted to El Mundo that “the tunnel hole will be completed in April.” According to Carabante, from that moment on, paving work, installation of extractors, emergency exits and other technical infrastructure requirements will remain pending. The opening of the subway to traffic is scheduled for the end of 2026, so the initial deadlines are maintained despite the meteorological and logistical complications of the last year. Surface improvements. Just like they count From Diario de Madrid, since last Thursday, traffic entering or leaving the M-30 tunnel along Avenida de Portugal once again circulates in a straight line along 500 meters of the A-5, between kilometer points 3+250 and 3+750. Having completed the work on the covering slabs around the Amusement Park, it has been possible to recover the original layout without the detour. In addition, according to the media, a connecting branch of about 60 meters is being built between Avenida de Portugal and the A-5 to prevent traffic from being diverted onto Calle de Dante. The dark side. A year after construction began, residents are still dealing with significant disruptions. According to collect El País, the problems range from the deafening noise of machinery to water and electricity outages, to the deterioration of air quality due to dust from drilling. The president of the Batán neighborhood association, Arturo Sáez, resume The situation is seen in the middle as a “perfect storm”: the closure of the underpasses in August forced the activation of traffic lights and circular buses, while traffic to the Amusement Park and the Zoo collapses the neighborhood on weekends. Added to this are recurring internet outages due to damage to the fiber optics, the last of which has affected Movistar and O2 customers in areas such as Aluche, Campamento and Pozuelo. The ultimate goal. The work aims to transform the Paseo de Extremadura into the Paseo Verde del Suroeste, a 3.2 kilometer pedestrian axis that will connect neighborhoods in the Latina district (Lucero, Aluche, Las Águilas) with Campamento and Casa de Campo, separated since 1968 by the A5, on which some 80,000 vehicles circulate daily. The idea is that the coverage will reduce surface traffic by 90%, promising to reduce polluting emissions. It will also incorporate a 3.5 kilometer bi-directional cycle path, 33 new pedestrian connections compared to the current 16 and wider sidewalks. The project, with an investment of 408 million euros, seeks to continue the pedestrianized boulevard from Avenida de Portugal to Avenida del Padre Piquer. What remains to be done. The most complex challenge of the summer will be to execute the connection with the Portugal Avenue tunnel, which will force new traffic cuts similar to those of the last summer period. Borja Carabante assured that “the most difficult thing has already happened,” but acknowledged that diverting services such as gas, water, telephone or electricity continues to be a complicated task due to the age of the plans. The work maintains its pace with more than 600 workers and 400 machines operating simultaneously. Cover image | Madrid Diary In Xataka | The deepest tunnel on the planet will join two points separated by 1,000 km: the margin of error is only five centimeters

Quietly, Big Tech are ceasing to be exclusively technological companies to be something else: energy

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Big technology companies not only compete for AI engineers. Now they also do it by energy profiles. And it is no wonder, because without the electricity that powers mammoth data centers necessary for AI tools to remain operational, the AI ​​race slows down. A bottleneck. AI has become the strategic axis of Big Tech, but its biggest bottleneck is no longer the talent around its systems, but access to energy. Data centers training and running larger and larger models consume massive amounts of electricityand guaranteeing that supply has become a business priority. According to account According to CNBC, with data collected by Workforce.ai, the hiring of energy-related profiles grew by 34% year-on-year in 2024. Numbers. As the media reports, a similar jump also occurred last year, with a level of energy profile hiring 30% above that of 2022, just before the explosion of generative AI after the launch of ChatGPT. The main reason is structural, since data centers represented approximately 1.5% of global electricity consumption in 2024, after growing 12% in five years, according to data of the International Energy Agency. Everything indicates that this demand will continue to increase as new AI infrastructure is deployed. What profiles are you looking for?n the Big Tech. According to stands out the middle, Technology companies are looking for much more operational positions: experts in energy purchasing, electricity markets, grid connection and energy strategy. CNBC reports that these positions are directly linked to ensuring real supply, not only to improving the environmental image of companies. Furthermore, not everything is about guaranteeing supply at any cost, but also about ensuring that electricity can be obtained in the most efficient way possible. Who is winning the talent war. Amazon and Microsoft lead in volume of energy signings from 2022, according to point the middle. Amazon has more than 600 additions (including AWS), while Microsoft has more than 570. In the case of the latter, in 2024 signed Carolina Dybeck Happe, former chief financial officer of General Electric, as chief operating officer, a gesture that many interpret as a strategic commitment to integrate energy and management on a large scale. Google, for its part, has accelerated in recent months with more than 300 hires, incorporating profiles from both large energy companies and the academic world. Between the lines. The strategy is not limited to hiring people. Big tech is also buying other companies. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, agreed the acquisition of data center company Intersect for about 4.75 billion dollars. At the same time, they outsource key phases such as the construction of infrastructure, relying on temporary contracts to manage projects, land and works. The clash with the traditional energy sector. The medium too points outthrough data provided by specialized consulting firms, that more and more senior energy infrastructure professionals are considering making the leap into technology, attracted by higher salaries and projects linked to data centers. The problem is that the most in-demand profiles, such as energy strategy or grid connection, were already scarce in the traditional and renewable energy sector. This has led to a tighter and more competitive talent market. Not everything is direct absorption. Some analysts also see opportunities for electricity companies. Travis Miller, energy and utilities analyst at Morningstar, explains to CNBC that the magnitude of the demand makes it unfeasible for Big Tech to do everything on their own. In many cases, they will rely on traditional public service groups to develop infrastructure and operate networks, which can translate into new revenue and employment in the sector. And now what. The border between technology and energy is being diluted in a very interesting way. Meta, Amazon, Google or Microsoft already sign long-term power purchase agreements, even with nuclear projectsand some have requested permits to trade electricity and sell surpluses to the grid. “There are technology companies that are becoming energy companies,” account Daniel Smart, CEO of The Green Recruitment Company, in the middle. Of course, for now, only to feed its own AI. Cover image | Microsoft In Xataka | AI is creating a new paradigm of success: products that everyone uses but have to close due to lack of income

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