centers

Electric car battery makers are retooling to make batteries… for AI data centers

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In the United States there are a slowdown in the electric vehicle industry, which has caused more and more manufacturers in the sector to convert their business. According to account Financial Times, ten North American factories that produced batteries for electric cars are allocating a good part of their production to energy storage systems for AI data centers. It is the latest industry to readjust around artificial intelligence. The change of course. The media shares data from the consulting firm CRU, which states that these ten plants have canceled enough capacity to produce batteries for 2 million electric vehicles. Of these, seven will focus primarily on the energy storage systems (ESS) market. Among the names involved are Ford, which is converting a factory in Kentucky, and Stellantis along with its partner Samsung SDI, which are converting production lines at its Indiana plant. General Motors is also considering producing its own energy storage batteries, according to declared its head of batteries, Kurt Kelty, to the Financial Times. Why data centers need batteries. Data centers that process AI models require uninterrupted power supply to protect against blackouts or voltage fluctuations. With the construction boom of these centers in the United States, storage batteries have become a critical component of infrastructure. This opens up an alternative revenue stream for automotive companies struggling with electric vehicles. The Tesla example. It is worth taking a look at the numbers of Elon Musk’s company, since in addition to producing vehicles it also manufactures energy storage systems such as Megapack and Powerwall. In this sense, its battery business is turning out to be tremendously profitable, since the company reported income for energy and storage of $12.8 billion in its last quarter, a growth of 27% year-on-year. In 2021, that figure barely reached 2.8 billion. Meanwhile, its revenue from electric vehicle sales has fallen 9% to $64 billion. Political context difficult. Just like account FT, Since the Trump administration eliminated tax incentives for electric vehicle buyers put in place during the Biden era and lowered emissions standards, the electric vehicle market in the United States has seen a slowdown. This has led BloombergNEF to revise its forecast downwards: from expecting electric vehicles to represent 48% of total car sales in 2030, they now project only 27%. Electric vehicles currently account for about 8% of new car sales in the United States. The aid that is maintained. As well as mention In the middle, although these subsidies have been eliminated, the administration retains generous incentives for battery manufacturers: a production credit of $35 per kilowatt-hour and a 30% tax credit for investments in energy storage. In addition, tariffs on Chinese storage batteries are around 60%, allowing manufacturers to produce in the United States at prices close to parity with Asian imports. Between the lines. It is also worth highlighting important nuances. CRU’s Sam Adham counted to FT that battery manufacturers will not necessarily pass on what they save on costs to their customers (they may increase their margins, for what). In addition, according to the FT, the Korean companies that lead the production of storage batteries in the United States have less experience with the lithium iron phosphate technology used by these systems, compared to their Chinese rivals. It is not a total reconversion, for now. Wood Mackenzie’s data suggest that electric vehicles will continue to absorb a greater proportion of battery installations than energy storage until the end of 2030. “If there is a rebound in demand for electric vehicles, companies that have switched to storage systems could be left behind,” said Milan Thakore, an analyst at the consultancy. More sectors than They pivot towards AI. From the Semafor newsletter, also they mention another very interesting sector that is beginning to convert its business towards AI: cryptocurrency miners. And according to Morgan Stanley, facilities dedicated to cryptocurrency mining are seeing a more profitable business in the creation of data centers for AI. The economics of cryptocurrency mining have gotten worse and worse since the reward is lower, and converting these facilities into infrastructure for artificial intelligence is much more profitable. According to the calculations Morgan Stanley, transforming all bitcoin mining facilities in the United States could reduce the electrical capacity deficit for data centers by between 10 and 15 gigawatts. Cover image | CHUTTERSNAP and İsmail Enes Ayhan In Xataka | If AI is the “weapon” of the future, the US is already investing 25% of all world military spending in it

This year more will be invested in data centers than what the US spent to reach the Moon

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We are witnessing live a technological race that is no longer measured only in announcements or demonstrations, but in tangible investments that grow at a speed that is difficult to ignore. In the United States, and also in other regions, large companies are allocating increasing amounts of money to build and expand the infrastructure that supports the current deployment of artificial intelligence services and the expansion of computing capacity that these companies pursue. Some speak of excessive enthusiasm and even a possible bubblebut the money already invested is part of the economic reality of the sector, while the projected figures point to an even larger scale. The question, therefore, is not whether the bet exists, but how big it really is. The numbers. If the first step is to assume that the investment exists, the second is to quantify it precisely. Data collected by The Wall Street Journal They suggest that Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet (Google) could concentrate a joint expenditure of up to $670 billion in 2026 aimed at artificial intelligence infrastructure. We are talking about capital outlays associated with data centers, hardware and capacity expansion, not just “brick”. When a single annuity reaches that order of magnitude, the conversation shifts from expectations to measurable economic consequences. Dollars are not compared. What the analysis proposes is not a direct equivalence between amounts spent in different times, but rather a way of measuring the economic weight of each effort in its own historical context. Instead of adjusting old figures to current prices for inflation, the article uses the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) as a common reference for separate projects over time. That shift in focus shifts the conversation from absolute money to relative magnitude within the U.S. economy. And it is precisely there where the investment associated with artificial intelligence acquires a historical dimension that is difficult to ignore. The investments. Among the great economic milestones that are often used as historical references in the United States, there are episodes as different as the Louisiana Purchase, the railroad expansion of the 19th century or the construction of the interstate highway system, all of them with different relative weights within the economy of their time. Using that same metric, this effort has been estimated around the following magnitudes: Louisiana Purchase: 3% of GDP Railway expansion: 2% of GDP Interstate highways: 0.4% of GDP Apollo Program: 0.2% of GDP As we can see, the planned investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure is around 2.1% of GDP. It’s not the same, but. Historical parallelism functions as a scaling tool, not as institutional equivalence. The large projects with which the current moment is compared were, in many cases, public initiatives financed directly or indirectly by the federal State, while investment in AI infrastructure corresponds mainly to corporate spending. That distinction is important, however, from a strictly economic perspective, the relative size of the effort remains comparable. The State does not pay the main bill. That the bulk of investment is private does not mean that the public sector remains on the sidelines. It’s no secret that the U.S. government influences the pace and shape of deployment through regulatory decisions, permitting, energy planning, and federal land use for new data center infrastructure. This set of levers is not a substitute for corporate capital, and at the same time it fits with a broader strategy aimed at preserving American leadership in the global race for AI. Historical comparison. This ends up pointing out something deeper than a simple number: it indicates the type of priority that a society decides to give to certain technologies at a specific time. When investment in AI infrastructure reaches a relative weight comparable to that of major American economic milestones, reading transcends the technology sector and enters the strategic realm. Images | POT | freepik In Xataka | Daniela Amodei, co-founder of Anthropic: “studying humanities will be more important than ever”

Spain wants to become a “bunker” for data centers with a very clear attraction: cheap energy

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Spain finds itself facing a historic opportunity. In the offices of big technology companies—from Amazon (AWS) until Microsoft or Google—the map of the Iberian Peninsula shines with its own light. The geographical location and the deployment of fiber optics have made the country the ideal candidate to be the great “cloud” of southern Europe. However, there is a toll: these data centers (DPCs) consume electricity at an industrial pace. Only the Community of Madrid investments are played worth 23.4 billion euros linked to these projects, while regions like Aragon see how the demand from these centers threatens to absorb half of all the energy they occurs in the community. But until now, Spain had a barrier to entry: an electrical regulation designed for steel foundries, not for servers. In order not to miss the investment train, the Government has decided to make a move and change the rules of the game. A change of rules in the BOE. The Ministry of Industry and Tourism has activated the legislative machinery. The goal is to allow data centers can access to the Statute of Electrointensive Consumers, a category that until now was reserved for large heavy industry and that allows receiving million-dollar compensation on the electricity bill. In fact, the first step is now official. Through a resolution of the Secretary of State for Industry published last January, the Government has eliminated with a stroke of a pen and as a matter of urgency the main technical obstacle for the 2026 campaign: the “off-peak” requirement. The previous regulations required companies to consume at least 46% of their electricity during the cheapest hours (generally at night) to receive aid. This, which works for a factory that can put on night shifts, is impossible for a data center that operates 24/7. The new resolution considers this requirement fulfilled for all applicants this year, a “technical amnesty” designed to facilitate the entry of new actors. However, it is not an isolated patch. In parallel, the Ministry has submitted to public consultation a Royal Decree Project to reform the Statute in a structural way. The text, whose hearing process has already included the sector’s allegations, explicitly recognizes that the current regulations have been ‘misaligned’ and need to be adapted to strengthen the competitiveness of companies in the face of high energy prices. The end of the tyranny of the night. To understand the importance of this measure, you have to look at the sky. The old rule required consumption at night because, historically, that was when electricity was cheap. But the explosion of solar energy in Spain has changed the paradigm: now, the cheapest hours tend to occur at midday, when the sun shines brightly, generating what experts call the “duck curve” in prices. Maintaining the obligation to consume at night was not only a bureaucratic barrier for data centers, but also economic and ecological nonsense in the Spain of 2026. By eliminating this requirement, the Government not only helps technology companies, but also adapts the law to the reality of an electrical system dominated by renewables. Less bureaucracy and more compensation. The Government’s plan to seduce data centers does not consist of paying for their electricity directly, but rather of shielding them from indirect costs. The reform proposes two courses of action: money and simplification. Compensation of hidden charges: The new Statute will allow subsidizing costs that increase the bill but are not energy consumption, such as contributions to the National Energy Efficiency Fund (FNEE). According to industry sourcesthis charge is around 2 euros per megawatt hour and has a tendency to rise. Alleviating this burden is vital for technology companies’ numbers to turn out green. Administrative facilities: The entrance exam has been relaxed. Along with the elimination of off-peak hours, the BOE has set a new technical ratio (ratio between consumption and added value) of 0.61 kWh/€ by 2026. In addition, cumbersome requirements are eliminated, such as the requirement for very specific long-term renewal contracts, which generated a disproportionate administrative burden. The missing piece of the puzzle. Despite the red carpet rolled out by the Ministry, the sector remains cautious. From SpainDC, the association that brings together data centers in Spain, they value the elimination of the off-peak hour requirement as a “relevant advance”, but they warn that the party has only just begun and they still do not have the official invitation in hand. The problem is bureaucratic, but lethal: the CNAE (National Code of Economic Activity). To be an electro-intensive consumer, your activity must appear on a closed list of eligible sectors. If the Government reforms the technical requirements but does not expressly include the “Data Processing” code (6311) in that list, the reform will be a dead letter for them. “For data centers, the inclusion of the CNAE is a premise. Without it, certification is still not within our reach,” employers warn the Energy Newspaper. Added to this is the underground tension due to the capacity of the network: it is not enough for energy to be cheap, there must be “plugs” available. The Electrical Network It is saturated in key pointsand the sector demands urgent investments so that the promised megawatts actually reach the servers. A seduction in the testing phase. Spain has sent a clear message to international markets: it wants to be Europe’s great data warehouse and is willing to modify its sacred industry laws to achieve it. The BOE resolution for 2026 It is the test of faitha temporary safe passage to prevent the flight of investments. However, the ultimate success of the strategy depends on the fine print that is written in the coming months. If the structural reform of the Royal Decree ends up including data centers in the official list of beneficiary sectors, Spain will have completed its transformation: from a country of sun and sand, to a country of sun and data. Image | freepik Xataka | Meta is spending millions and millions of dollars convincing us of one thing: that data … Read more

Data centers are so important that Meta has spent millions on advertising to change our perception of them

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Meta has spent 6.4 million dollars on an advertising campaign between November and December of last year to convince the American public of the benefits of its data centers, according to the New York Times. The ads, aired in eight state capitals and Washington, DC, featured idealized images of American towns revitalized by these facilities. exists an increasingly significant social rejection on the installation of data centers dedicated to AI, especially due to the impact they have on the excessive consumption of basic resources like light and water. And of course, first we have to convince that they are key so that Meta and the rest of the big technology companies can continue with their operations. The Goal campaign. According to the media, the ads featured emotional stories about Altoona (Iowa) and Los Lunas (New Mexico), two locations where Meta operates data centers. With guitar music and shots of farms and football fields, the videos promised jobs and prosperity. “We are bringing jobs here, for ourselves and for our next generation,” the voiceover said. According to Michael Beach, CEO of Cross Screen Media, Meta “could have purchased these ads with the goal of influencing political decisions and reaching legislators.” Ryan Daniels, spokesperson for Meta, limited himself to say to the NYT that the company pays the full costs of the energy used by its data centers, without commenting on the advertising campaign. Meta is not alone. Just like account NYT, Amazon is funding a similar campaign in Virginia through Virginia Connects, a nonprofit created by the Data Center Coalition. From the Financial Times they point In addition, other operators such as Digital Realty, QTS and NTT Data are also acting more intensely to defend the construction of new facilities. Endurance. In the United States, social rejection has caused the cancellation of multimillion-dollar projects in Oregon, Arizona, Missouri, Indiana and Virginia. Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen explained He told the NYT that the issue has become “a priority on Capitol Hill” when his voters began to complain en masse about electricity bills. Just like share The media, this month, Van Hollen presented a law to regulate the energy consumption of data centers. Even President Donald Trump spoke out on the matter: “The big tech companies that build them must pay their own way,” wrote a few weeks ago on Truth Social. electricity bill. Data centers have become critical infrastructures for the development of artificial intelligence, but there is increasing social tension over their installation. In October, Bloomberg counted that in the last five years the wholesale price of electricity in areas near large concentrations of data centers in the United States had increased by up to 267%. In Baltimore, residents paid $17 per megawatt-hour in 2020; In 2025 that figure reaches $38. On the other hand, the medium demonstrated In their research, 70% of the points where electricity price increases were recorded were less than 80 kilometers from data centers with significant activity. From Bloomberg they estimate that the energy demand of these facilities in the United States will double by 2035, becoming the largest increase since the 1960s. The situation in Spain. Our country is also experiencing a boom in the construction of data centers. The Community of Madrid, paradoxically the region with the greatest energy deficit in Spainconcentrates a good part of these projects and is expected to reach a power of 1.7 gigawatts in 2030. The consulting firm CBRE pointed out in a report that “there is no investor, operator or large technology company that does not have in its strategic plans to establish its data center project in the Iberian market.” Madrid, together with Barcelona, ​​already competes with cities such as Milan, Zurich or Berlin, although still far from the leading European group in terms of power capacity formed by Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin. What awaits us. According to Bloomberg, the forecasts they point because data centers will consume more than 4% of the world’s electricity in 2035. If these facilities were a country, they would be fourth in energy consumption, only behind China, the United States and India. Meanwhile, big technology companies are already exploring solutions such as modular nuclear reactors (SMR) to power your facilities, or send data centers to space. Cover image | Mark ZuckerbergGoal In Xataka | “The assemblies are not going to be done by AI”: we talk to the kids who have become carpenters, truck drivers and tinkerers

who puts the most data centers into orbit

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He map of world data centers It shows that there is no decentralized internet and that they are proliferating like mushrooms. In fact, planet Earth has fallen short and big tech companies already have their eyes set on the sky to plant a data center in space due to issues such as energy demand, environmental impact and, why not say it, to avoid regulation. The “panacea” of space. Faced with the threat of energy consumption similar to that of Japan in 2030according to data from the International Energy Agency or the brutal density of Data center Alley in Loudonin northern Virginia, with nearly 250 operational facilities, space envisions the possibilities of having satellites equipped with solar panels that capture energy directly from the sun, thermal dissipation in space and the absence of terrain limitations. There’s less left. For it to be viable, it takes at least a decade, as esteem University of Central Florida research professor and former NASA member Phil Metzger. However, it is one thing for the bills to work out economically and another for technologically having to wait so long. According to Josep Jornetprofessor of computer and electrical engineering at Northeastern University and satellite researcher, in just a couple of years we will begin to see evidence. And he is clear: space is the next frontier to conquer: “There was a gold rush in the West. Now there is a space race and everyone wants to place their technology in space.” Money galore. The Catalan scientist is clear that companies have incentives to move quickly and invest to get ahead to dominate the AI ​​race in general and space in particular: “Everyone wants to say they have the first platform to reach this milestone (…)So companies are spending money like there is no tomorrow.” However, Google, SpaceX and Blue Origin they are already working in developing technologies for this purpose and they are not the only ones: SpaceX. At the end of the year the Wall Street Journal uncovered Elon Musk’s company’s plan to realize data centers in space. Its CEO explained in a tweet how he would do it: “It will be enough to scale the Starlink V3 satellites, which have high-speed laser links.” More specifically, they are working on modifying and improving their rockets to make them capable of hosting computing loads for AI. Blue Origin. The American media also put on the table Jeff Bezos’ project, which at the time revealed at the Italian Tech Week that it’s a matter of time before we see “giant training clusters” of AI in orbit in the next 10 to 20 years. The company has a team dedicated to developing the technology required for centers in space. Google. Last November the Mountain View company speak of their experimental project Project Suncatcher: in 2027 and with the collaboration of Planet Labs they will launch two test satellites with their own AI processing chips. Others. There are other smaller corporations working in this area. The most notable is StarCloud, a startup backed by NVIDIA that a few weeks ago launched a satellite with an NVDIA H100. This GPU is used to run a version GemmaGoogle’s open language model. You need energy (and knowing how to use it). Although the foundations have already been laid, the road is not exactly downhill. Jornet details that one of the big obstacles will be having enough energy for these orbital data centers to function: “The Sun can be a great source of energy, but to properly harness it, orbiting data centers would need huge solar panels kilometers long or a constellation of smaller panels that could number in the tens of thousands.” Life in space is hard. There are more melons to open, such as how AI chips will withstand harmful space radiation, as well as heat dissipation and cooling. On Earth thousands of liters of water are used. In space there is no such option and although temperatures are low, there is no air to cool the chips naturally. The bill to the Earth. Even ignoring the environmental impact in space, it also leaves its mark on Earth. At least, in the short term: rocket launches not only consume fossil fuels, but also damage ecosystems and animals in the environment, as happens at Cape Canaveralwhich now hosts about 80 launches a year. In Xataka | The real reason why Musk, Bezos and Pichai want to build data centers in space: bypass regulation In Xataka | The problem with data centers is not that they are running out of water or energy: it is that they are running out of copper Cover | Pixabay

The US electrical grid does not support so many data centers so they have had an idea: disconnect them to avoid blackouts

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One third of all data centers in the world They are in the US and that is putting a huge burden on the electrical grid. One of the consequences that consumers are noticing is the price increases on the invoice, But electricity operators already foresee another problem: blackouts. What is happening. They tell it in WSJ. The US power grid is beginning to become strained, with grid operators expecting blackouts during periods of high demand. The solution they propose to avoid this is to make data centers disconnect from the network and use their own energy reserves temporarily. The technology companies have not been amused and talk about “discriminatory measures.” Why is it important. In 2023, data centers already consumed 4% of all the country’s electricity and the forecasts are that by 2028 that percentage will increase to 12%. The electrical grid is not prepared to support so much demand and, although it is already expanding, the pace of construction of new data centers is faster. Network operators face a difficult dilemma: powering data centers while maintaining supply to consumers. ‘Kill switch’. PJM Interconnection It is the organization that oversees the energy market in the Midwest, where they have already suffered from the problem of price increases. The concern that blackouts will occur is on the table and PJM has proposed that technology companies create their own energy sources or accept that their supply will be cut off if the network becomes too saturated. They are not the only ones who have raised something like this. With demand expected to double by 2035, Texas passed a law last year that contemplates a ‘kill switch’ that allows large consumers, such as data centers, to be disconnected at times when the network is under “extreme stress.” What the technologies say. As we said, the companies that own these data centers have not been very happy with the proposal. The Data Center Coalitionof which companies such as Google, Microsoft and AWS are part, have stated that the proposal is discriminatory since data centers need a reliable and stable network. They also warn that depending on their own energy reserves could have a negative environmental impact, by forcing them to use solutions such as diesel generators. Waiting times. There is an intermediate scenario in which technology companies can obtain benefits if they accept these conditions. As the electrical infrastructure does not support so much demand, data centers have to wait several years to be connected to the network, normally between 3 and 5 years, although there have been cases up to 8 years. Southwest Power Pool, the grid operator in Texas, has offered data centers a deal: give them access to the grid sooner in exchange for agreeing to be disconnected during times of high demand. According to a recent study Funded by Google, data centers that have more flexible connections (i.e., those that build their own power sources and accept temporary disconnections) typically connect to the grid several years faster than those that do not. Bring your own energy. Despite the reluctance towards that off button, generating your own energy is the most realistic solution and the one towards which the industry seems to be moving. Google recently bought an electrical company in order to obtain its own energy. Others big tech Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle or xAI are also exploring create your own energy solutions such as natural gas and solar panels. Image | Google In Xataka | Drastically reducing data center consumption is crucial for AI. And China has had an idea: submerge them in the sea

a third of the world’s data centers are in a single country

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Currently there are more than 11,000 data centers operating worldwidewhich is said soon. Seeing the huge investment by technology companies, The figure is going to grow exponentially in the coming years. Now, thanks to the interactive map of Data Center Map We know where they are. An overwhelming majority of them are in the northern hemisphere, with one country accounting for almost a third of the total. United States rules USA To no one’s surprise, the country with the largest number of data centers is the United States. Considering that the major cloud infrastructure companies are American, this is also not surprising. In total they have 4,303 data centers spread throughout the territory, but not on a regular basis: there are regions in which the concentration is brutal. In the state of Virginia alone there are a whopping 668 data centers, which is more than Germany, the second country on the list with 494 centers. The weather too We already know that data centers consume a lot of energy and much of it goes into cooling their components. The hotter it is outside, the more it will cost to cool it and therefore the more energy is consumed, as well as water. According to the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers, The ideal temperature for a data center is between 18 and 27 degrees Celsius. Location has a notable impact on electricity and water expenses, which is why technology companies usually choose places with lower temperatures to set up their infrastructure. The south also wants its piece of the pie Indonesia It is striking that, despite the temperature recommendation, there are many data centers in countries where heat is a problem. Rest of World has done an extensive analysis about this phenomenon and estimates that at least 600 facilities are operating in areas outside the optimal range. In fact, following the list of countries with the highest number of data centers, we see that Indonesia is in third place with 184 facilities, followed by Brazil with 196. Both have a average temperature of more than 26 degrees, which means that for much of the year temperatures exceed that threshold. Singapore A striking case is that of Singapore, where the average temperature is more than 28 degrees. It has 78 data centers, a low figure compared to those we have mentioned, but they are concentrated in a very small area, which makes it one of the countries with a higher data center density. Other countries where demand for data centers is increasing are IndiaVietnam and the Philippines, all of them with quite hot climates. The heat challenge Why build in such hot areas? For many countries, data being within their own borders is more important than optimal operating temperature. The risk that arises is that, with the temperatures increasing year after yearwhat is now a manageable situation can become a difficult problem to solve, especially in areas such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East. They say in Rest of World that precisely in Singapore there is an initiative in which more than 20 technology companies and universities participate with one objective: to develop a refrigeration system Specific for humid and hot climates. The most common cooling system is air, but in these areas it is most effective to use a hybrid cooling system that uses air when possible and water when it is hotter. In some areas with extreme temperatures such as the United Arab Emirates, they are even considering build them underground. In China they are testing an even more radical solution: build a data center under the sea. Image | ChatGPT, with data from Data Center Map In Xataka | Aragón is not afraid of AI: it has just approved three more new mega data centers in full commitment to renewables

Energy companies are switching from oil to MW. The new mine is the support for data centers

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Gluttonous artificial intelligence and its demanding data centers are reshaping the decarbonization plans. When the world had begun a journey towards renewableswith countries like Chinaand Europeans betting big, and even some US states getting on the traindata centers arrived with needs that were almost impossible to satisfy. At the end of December 2024 we already have that data center consumption had skyrocketedpushing big technology companies to bet so much on renewable as, above all, for immediate access energy such as gas and even coal. Some were even aiming for nuclear to be able to operate. Shortly after, in January 2025, a Reuters report noted that European energy companies, which had embarked on a path of commitment to renewables, were doubling down on oil and gas. Giants like BP and Shell slowed down their investments in clean energy to return to fossil fuel projects. But it’s not all about where data centers extract energy from, but rather who provides them infrastructure. And that, and not so much oil or gas, may be the next energy mine. The new oil mine In an article of Financial Times It is suggested that the fleeting growth of data centers is generating a market that energy companies do not want to miss. As demand for traditional drilling weakens (although it is something that goes by “neighborhoods”), energy sector groups such as Baker Hughes, Halliburton or SLB are taking advantage to pivot to the data center sector. Not building them, not just supplying energy: supporting logistics. Taking advantage of their knowledge of the energy sector, these large companies would be providing equipment such as turbines and power generation systems to those who own data centers, but they also provide generators, batteries, dissipation systems and all the necessary framework to maintain correct energy efficiency. They would also oversee the team. It is, in short, what they already know how to do, but applied to a new sector such as data centers. Because these three examples are not typical oil companies, but technology providers for other companies to extract gas or oil. All three provide services to companies with oil fields, but also supply technology such as gas turbines, compressors or systems. LNG and they were inside sectors such as new energywith carbon capture and storage systems. All of this resonates with the idea that ‘Big Tech’ had when they began to build huge data centers, until they saw that increasingly demanding equipment needed more immediate and stable sources of energy. Data centers = El Dorado It is estimated that US electricity demand will increase by 90 GW -a real nonsense- from now to 2030 only to power the data centers. Traditional electrical grids may not support this load, and it is at that point that these companies that provide energy services They seem like a key entity. Pivoting toward artificial intelligence infrastructure is “key to the evolution of oil and gas,” said Lorenzo Simonelli, CEO of Baker Hughes. And it makes sense when we see that the number of US oil rigs contracted 7% year-over-year in 2025, margins have contracted and demand for drilling services is in interdict. On a business level, it is a masterstroke. Hypothetically speaking, when the new oil crisis arrives and the fall of the market for both crude oil and gas, companies that have pivoted to data centers, going from being service providers for energy companies to being service providers for ‘Big Tech‘, they will not have to take a turn in their strategy because they will already be where the money will be. Because that’s another question: whether the new MW gold for AI will be a lasting business or a passing fever. Image | freepik and Harpagornis In Xataka | The problem with renewables is what to do when there is excess energy. China believes it has the answer with a unique turbine

China decided to privatize its daycare centers in the 1980s. Unknowingly, it was creating its enormous birth crisis.

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Not long ago, China had an excess birth problem. For more than three decades, the one child policy stopped the rapid growth of the population, but now its problem is just the opposite. The demographic crisis has turned around and Chinese population is plummeting. The government has launched plans to encourage births and its latest idea is to improve critical infrastructure. Target: daycare centers. They tell it in South China Morning PostChina is reviewing what will be the first law regulating the child care services sector. The measures will focus on children under three years of age, with the aim of building a society “fertility-friendly”. Among its key measures are improving the quality of the service, ensuring that professionals have the necessary qualifications for the position and expanding the offer of more affordable childcare, which will reduce the cost of parenting. Who takes care of the children. China is encouraging couples to have children through different measures and daycare centers were one of the key aspects to improve. Since the 80s, The state stopped offering public daycares, shifting the burden of care to families. Society adapted in the most predictable way: that the grandparents were the ones to take care of the children (something that it doesn’t always turn out well) or that the woman reduced her hours to take care of the care. A question of money. The lack of regulation has caused the supply of affordable daycare centers to be scarce and with insufficiently qualified professionals. Quality daycare was a luxury available to a few, while for less well-off families it is a last resort. The new law seeks to promote the creation of new state centers at more affordable prices. and trust. The scandals over cases of abuse in Chinese daycares are well known inside and outside their borders, and have also been given cases of abuse by babysitters. If, in addition to the fact that it is an expensive service, we add the problem of lack of trust, it is not surprising that care in the early years ends up being a deterrent factor for many families. In 2021, only 5.5% of Chinese children under three years old were in daycarea figure that contrasts with the 88% of schooling from 3 to 6 years old. Other measures. Since the end of the one-child policy in 2015, the government has implemented several plans to correct the declining birth rate curve. Along with births, marriages also declined, so it was proposed teach marriage and love classes and even be a kind of matchmaker for help young people find a partner. His last measure is one of the most striking: put a special tax on condoms. Image | note thanun in Unsplash In Xataka | If the question is how to reactivate birth rates, China believes it has the answer: finance painless births

The exorbitant deployment of data centers for AI has a new problem: salt caverns

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In the collective imagination, artificial intelligence is an ethereal cloud of algorithms. The reality is much more complex and what we know for sure is that an energy eater that needs to “eat” constantly. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, has summarized with unusual crudeness: “The problem is no longer that it is missing Nvidia chips, but that there are not enough plugs.” And so that these plugs have power 24 hours a day with the 99.999% reliability that the sector demands, Big Tech has ended up looking where no one expected: thousands of meters below the ground, towards the salt caverns. When the bits hit the underground. The AI ​​race has entered a “slow start” phase in the construction of these underground caverns, which could hinder the rollout of data centers. According to Fortunethe reason is mathematical since these digital infrastructures do not tolerate interruptions and require extreme reliability. To guarantee this constant flow, natural gas has become the indispensable backup. However, as they explain, it is not enough to produce gas; you have to save it. Industry projections indicate that only about half of the storage that will be needed to meet future demand has been planned. Without these artificial caves dug thousands of meters below the surface, hyperscalers (Google, Amazon, Meta) are left at the mercy of gas pipelines, vulnerable to corrosion, landslides or extreme weather events. But why salt caverns? The technical answer lies in flexibility. As detailed by experts in Fortunethere are two ways to store gas: in depleted oil fields or in salt caverns. The former are cheaper, but structurally slow. The gas is injected in summer and extracted in winter, following a classic seasonal cycle. AI, on the other hand, does not understand seasons. Their demand peaks are constant, sudden and difficult to predict. The salt caverns, created by injecting water to leach the mineral, act as a high-pressure lung: they allow gas to be injected and extracted with a much higher frequency, adapting to the volatility of the electrical grid that powers the servers. The “supercycle 2.0”. Given this scenario, companies like Enbridge they have taken the lead. Greg Ebel, CEO of the company, has confirmed that they are expanding their facilities in Egan (Louisiana) and Moss Bluff (Texas). “This demand dramatically changes the economics of supply,” he said. But it is not enough. Jack Weixel East Daley Analytics analystwarns that double the capacity currently planned is needed. Projects such as the Freeport Energy Storage Hub (FRESH), in Houston, They seek to connect up to 17 gas pipelines to a new salt dome by 2028, but construction times—often exceeding four years—clash with the urgency of AI. For his part, Jim Goetz, CEO of Trinity Gas Storage, defines it as the “storage supercycle 2.0”. His company has just reached the final investment decision (FID) to expand its capacity in East Texas, seeking to support critical infrastructures such as Stargate, the titanic $500 billion project from OpenAI and Microsoft. The shadow of a doubt. The underlying question is not only whether the salt caverns work—they work—but what type of energy system they are consolidating. Natural gas is fast, flexible and reliable, but it also introduces new dependencies and risks. According to analystsgas infrastructure on the Gulf Coast is especially vulnerable to extreme weather events. A direct hurricane over Texas or Louisiana can disrupt production, exports and transportation at the same time. In that scenario, even with gas available in other regionsthe lack of nearby storage can leave data centers without electrical backup. Added to this is the question of price. The sustained increase in demand to fuel data centers, LNG exports and reindustrialization is already pushing up gas and electricity bills. Without enough storage capacity, that volatility is amplified. As the sector points out, storage acts as a buffer; when it is missing, the peaks transferred directly to the consumer. Furthermore, the criticism is more structural since AI is pushing to prolong dependence on fossil fuels just when governments and companies were committed to reducing it. Look beyond the gas. Aware of this physical limit, large technology companies are no longer looking only at salt caverns and gas pipelines. They look for any firm source of electricity that does not depend exclusively on the traditional energy market. An example is Fervo Energy, a geothermal startup that has just closed one of the largest financing rounds in the sector, with Google as an investor and client. His commitment to advanced geothermal —constant electricity 24 hours a day—reflects the extent to which AI is redrawing the energy map. This is not an immediate or universal solution, but it is a clear signal: the problem is no longer technological, but energy-based. A problem only in the United States? The United States is the epicenter, but not the only scenario. The clash between AI and energy is global, although responses vary. In Europe, the rise of AI is leading to rethinking the closure of gas and coal plants. Some electricity companies are negotiating to convert old plants into data centers, taking advantage of their access to the network, water and already depreciated infrastructure. The logic is the same: firm, immediate and available energy. China, for its part, has chosen another path. Beijing not only promotes underwater data centers either large energy clusters in interior provinces, but directly subsidizes the electricity that powers its AI. The objective is to reduce the “fuel” of digital models and compensate for the lower energy efficiency of national chips compared to those from Nvidia. The return to the underground. In all cases, the pattern repeats itself. Renewables are growing, but not fast enough or with the stability necessary to sustain the demand for AI in the short term. Gas – with salt caverns, temporary turbines or recycled plants – becomes the inevitable crutch. In our race to create an intelligence that lives on the plane of ideas, we have ended up returning to mining, drilling, and the depths of the Earth. The future … Read more

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