centers

will invest 30,000 million euros in data centers for AI

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Europe cannot lose the train of the artificial intelligence (AI). You can’t afford it. This technology already has a very deep impact on the economy, scientific and technological capacity, and the military development of a country, and currently USA and China lead with forcefulness In this area. So far Europe seemed to settle for the wake of the two great powers they are disputing world supremacybut its strategy is about to change. And is that according to CNBC The European Union plans to invest 10,000 million euros in the construction of thirteen data centers for AI, as well as 20,000 million euros in a network of “Gigavatio Class” facilities. These latest data centers are the largest and most ambitious, and their denomination indicates that by their size they consume a lot of electricity. In fact, a gigavatio is equivalent to one billion watts, and a small city can consume this amount of energy. At the moment sixteen European countries have been interested in receiving these facilities, and, According to CNBCthe first of these large data centers will reside in Munich (Germany). Each Gigavatio class installation will cost between 3,000 and 5,000 million euros, and will bring together no less than 100,000 avant -garde gpu for AI (they will be possibly chips NVIDIA H100). All this paints very well, but raises a doubt that we cannot ignore: it is not clear how the countries involved in this plan will resolve the supply of electricity to These demanding facilities. It will cost Europe a lot to follow the rhythm of the US and China The US government led by Donald Trump is determined to lead in the field of the cost of what costs. And in principle this initiative, baptized by the new administration as ‘Stargate project’will cost 500,000 million dollars. This money will leave the coffers of the Japanese investment group SoftBank; of those of OpenAI, the creators of Chatgpt; of those of Oracle, and, finally, it will also be provided by the investment firm Emiraratí MGX. These companies will support the construction during the next four years of an advanced network of data centers that will house the high performance computing infrastructure necessary to sustain US leadership in the AI field. The spearhead of these facilities It is already being built in Texas (USA), in a town called Abilene. And it is colossal. In fact, this first data center of the ‘Stargate’ project will bring together, According to OpenAimore than two million chips for ia. The ‘Stargate’ infrastructure should be fully ready before President Trump’s current mandate expires When the US government announced to Bombo y S pay this plan left a great question open: how did he plan to solve the supply of electricity required by the new facilities? Large data centers for AI consume a lot of electricity, which has caused Some technology have opted for investing in nuclear centrals to guarantee the supply of electricity that these facilities require. At the moment this question is not completely resolved. And it is not because the ‘Stargate’ infrastructure should be completely ready before President Trump’s current mandate expires, and a new nuclear power plant can hardly come into operation in four years. Even so, Openai and Oracle They have officialized that have reached an agreement to build the necessary infrastructure to Deliver additional 4.5 GW to your data centers. Interestingly, SoftBank does not participate in the financing of this expansion, although, as I mentioned a few lines above, it does in the ‘Stargate’ project. Anyway, in this equation there is another unknown that also has a lot to say: China. “We hope that China significantly increase its investments in AI and semiconductors in response to the US domain in AI,” CBM consultancy analysts foresee. It makes sense. These two great powers are being disputed world supremacy, so it is understandable that each significant step that give one of the two Receive a more or less overwhelming answer from the other. We can be sure that 2025 will be a year even more agitated than 2024 in the geopolitical and technological fields, so we will be attentive to the steps that US and China will surely give. And Europe. Also Europe. Image | Christina Morillo More information | CNBC In Xataka | Huawei attacks Nvidia positions in China: he wants to have dominant hardware in inference processes in AI

The most bestial data centers on the planet, gathered in this graphic

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The development of AI has promoted a New ‘Armamentistic’ career globally. It is not sought to dominate another territory, but to get the more computing power, the better. The main technology companies are deploying centers from Data around the world With a goal in mind: train the artificial intelligence. There are data centers that are authentic burged, and in this graph we can see the most powerful data clusters in the world with an outstanding protagonist: Elon Musk. Cluster. Before entering numbers, a nuance. When we talk about calculation power, we can talk about a computer cluster or a supercomputer. The latter is a system Extremely powerful which can be built with processors specially designed to reach extreme calculation powers or, most commonly common, from thousands of high performance servers. They are used for scientific simulations and tasks that require a huge calculation process, and its cost is brutal. On the other hand, We have the “affordable” version of a supercomputer: the computer cluster. It is a series of interconnected work stations that work in parallel solving problems. It is similar to a supercomputer, but the advantage is that It is a more flexible system Because, as you need more teams, you can expand the cluster. In addition, the components are more standard, which also allows the cost to be lower. But well, it is a concept that has blurred in recent years. The 100,000 club. That said, let’s go back to the graph elaborated by Visual Capitalist With the data of EPOCH AI. In it, we can see the most powerful clusters currently, but with some trap: they are both planned and operational. X, Elon Musk’s company, lit the XAI Colossus Memphis Phase 1 last year, a huge data center with 100,000 NVIDIA H100 GPU With the aim of training ‘Grok’, his AI model. It was something that He even surprised Jensen HuangCEO of Nvidia. It is a computing monster with an enormous calculation power, but the figure is expected to increase up to 200,000 GPU. We will see later the energy consequences of this. Following Musk’s company, we have Meta by stating that they have a cluster “greater than 100,000 GPU H100“For her model ‘calls 4’. Then there are those who maintain something else the mystery. For example, Microsoft with its cluster For Azure, Copilot and the OpenAi AI estimated they have 100,000 GPU between H100 and H200, Two worlds. Out of that 100,000 club we have Oracle With its 65,536 NVIDIA H200, another Musk company -you with the Cortex Phase 1 and its 50,000 GPU, and the United States Department of Energy with The Captainhe Most powerful supercomputer in the world. Officers or estimated, what is clear with this graph is that there is a country that has taken the calculation of AI seriously: United States. They are the ones that seem to push stronger with their data centers in the United States (of the 10 clusters, the first nine are in the US and the last in China) and are not only building inside their borders: Also outside. An example is the finish plan for Build data centers in Spain or the one who has practically Manhattan’s size. European expansion. In the graph, we can see two European clusters. On the one hand, The Jupiter from the Jülich Supercomputing Center in Germany with its confirmed GPUs. On the other hand, the Nexgen In Norway, with about 16,300 GPUs. Europe has undertaken several financing initiatives with the objective of Promote your competitiveness Thanks to programs such as Genai4eu and its budget of 700 million euros between 2024 and 2026. The objective is to build large data centers and, for the call of 2025, 76 proposals were presented in 16 different countries. Now, that development of the European AI must be aligned with Ai actthe agreement in force since February of this 2025 that ensures transparency and an ethical AI. Number vs. efficiency in China. Who has put the batteries in AI, beyond US companies, is China. Following one Road map very different from the westernChina is focusing on having (supposedly) less GPU working, operating with greater efficiency, much lower costs than those of American companies and with equivalent results. Deepseek or the most recent Kimi They are two samples of it. Nvidia rubs her hands. And of all this battle for AI, there is a clear winner: Nvidia. As much as it may be, and beyond who has more or less GPU to do the job, the clear winner is Nvidia. In China it is not so clear due to the commercial veto, but the main world data centers use Nvidia’s architecture with their GRAPHS H100 Y H200. And that if we talk about “normal” cards for AI, since they have the B200 with four times the performance of H100. In fact, the company seems so focused on that AI career that would have neglected what led by AMD for years: Your players cards. Those are servers of Lenovo data centers. Companies seek to reduce the footprint reusing hot water after dissipation to, for example, fill pools or showers. Image | Xataka The planet, not so much. And the consequence of that expansion of the AI is that data centers not only need huge energy amounts To function, also water to dissipate the heat of the equipment. There is an important absent in the graph, Google, which also operates its data centers for AI and that, together with others as goal or Microsoftneeds nuclear centrals to feed its facilities. Consumption is so exaggerated that renewables are insufficient during demand peaks, Using fossil fuels like coal or gas ( esteem That, the 200,000 Colossus GPU consume 300 MW, enough to feed 300,000 homes) and, as we said, the Water use has become discussion material in the candidate territories to house new data centers. So much dissipation needs China to already Building at the bottom of the ocean. In Xataka | China wants to become AI world engine. … Read more

Madrid has already set the card brake on the classrooms. The scissors will not cut all centers by educational equally

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The Community of Madrid just put date to an idea that had been around for some time: Limit the use of screens among the little ones. From the 2025/26 course, children in children and primary schools of public and concerted centers will not be able to work with digital devices individually. The official objective is to protect them from excessive or inappropriate use, something that, they say, will benefit more than half a million children. What changes in Infant and Primary? In practice, this means that in childhood and primary school it ends to have each one its tablet or its laptop. According to the Community of Madrid, teachers will not be able to send duties that require screen outside school and, within the classroom, only shared use and always with a pedagogical purpose will be allowed. This use will be very measured: in the first cycle of children (up to 3 years) there will be no contact with screens, in the second cycle (3 to 6 years) it will be limited to an hour weekly, in 1st and 2nd primary school also at one hour, in 3rd and 4th at an hour and a half and up to two hours per week in the last two courses. The exception of high school. ESO plays with other rules. Instead of a veto, the Community of Madrid leaves the decision in the hands of each institute. They will be the ones who mark whether or not they are used tablets, laptops or mobiles in class, adapting the rules to the reality of their students, their maturity and the way in which the subjects impart. Private schools: the great nuance. Not all schools are in the same bag. As Madrid’s Diario stands outthis regulation is only imposed on centers with public funds. The private ones are left out, although they are encouraged to apply their own criteria to regulate the use of technology in the classrooms. Exceptions and special cases. The regulations leave some open doors. For example, students with special needs can use tablets or computers without limits if recommended by a psychopedagogical report. In addition, the decree allows devices to be used in those options or programs that are not understood without technology, such as some digital or robotics projects. Progressive Supervision and Adaptation. It will not be a change overnight. The educational inspection will be responsible for controlling that the decree is applied correctly, but also to help the centers so that the change is as traumatic as possible. In addition, schools with projects where each student has their own device will have an extra year, until 2026/27, to adapt and reduce the use of screens. Open context and debate. Not everyone sees this change with the same eyes. The more than 400 allegations received that the debate is still open: are we protecting children or limiting their contact with tools that will be key in their future? The Madrid community is committed to the first reading, but the pulse between traditional education and digitalization is far from resolving. Images | Freepik (1, 2) In Xataka | The icing on the cake to the works of Madrid: the city has become a gymkana of reforms, cuts and discomfort

They already use a mixture created by algorithms for their data centers

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Goal has used a concrete mixture designed by algorithms in one of its data centers. According to the companythis formula promises to be more sustainable, faster to apply and has been developed with open source tools. With this approach, not only is it sought move towards zero emissions: Also accelerate the construction of infrastructure that grow to time, As the data center that is raising under provisional structures demonstrates. Invisible concrete weight. Few materials are as omnipresent as concrete. It is used on roads, bridges, homes … and also in data centers where a good part of our digital life is housed. The problem is that manufacturing its components, especially cement, generates a huge amount of CO2. The World Economic Forum indicates that It represents about 8% of global emissions. Goal has proposed to reduce that footprint without compromising the resistance or work speed. And that’s where his new model enters. An AI that does not create chatbots, but mixtures. To develop this system, goal was allied with Amrize – One of the world’s largest cement manufacturers – and with the Urban-Champaign University of Illinois. Together they have created an AI model that proposes concrete compositions. The model is based on Bayesian optimization And it is built with Botorch and AX, two open source tools developed by the goal itself. A slab test in the Rosemount Data Center The challenge was not minor: each mixture involves combining different types of cement, aggregates, water, additives and supplementary materials such as scum or flying ashes. The exact proportion, its origin or even the time of the year can alter the result. Traditionally, they explain, validate a new formula has been for weeks. With AI, this process accelerates because the system learns from the previous data, proposes new promising combinations and refines its predictions after each test. Implementation of the concrete formulation generated by AI in the data center From the laboratory to the field. One of the first large -scale validations was made in the data center that Meta builds in Rosemount, Minnesota. There, the contractor Mortensen applied the new mixture in one of the building’s support slabs. The objective was not only to check its resistance, but also its workability and the final finish: these slabs must be perfectly smooth and durable. The result, according to the firm, exceeded all technical standards. The formula designed by AI not only met the demands of resistance and cure, but also behaved well into work: it was poured without problems and offered an adequate surface. After two iterations, and with minimal human adjustments, the model had generated a recipe that improved the usual industrial formulas in speed, resistance and potential for emission reduction. An open model. The system developed by goal is not a commercial product or a closed tool. The company has published the code, data and technical approach in An open github repository called SustainableConcrete. The idea is not to keep the formula, but share the method: a way of applying artificial intelligence to concrete design that can adapt to other works, suppliers or materials. Touch wait to know if we will see more initiatives like this. This could facilitate the adoption of alternative mixtures in a variety of constructions. As we have seen, goal has not invented a new material. What he has done is to use AI to find new concrete formulas. Images | Xataka with Gemini 2.5 Flash | Mark Zuckerberg | Goal (1, 2) In Xataka | Nvidia says that China has the best open source AI in the world. These praises have a very clear intention

China has the ability to stop the construction of new AI data centers. It is a nightmare for the US

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During the last two years The Chinese government has fought The US sanctions and its allies resorting to a strategy that has proven to be very effective. China controls the production and processing of several critical minerals For semiconductor industries, renewable energies or electric car, among other sectors, which has led to the administration led by Xi Jinping to regulate its export in a very strict way. In early December 2024 He chose to prohibit The export of some critical minerals to the US, among which were three essential metals for the chips industry: Gallium, Germanio and Antimony. Shortly after the Chinese government added two more critical metals to its list of export restrictions: Scandio and Disposio. However, there is a much less exotic chemical element than those I just mentioned the one that is barely talking. China also controls it and is using it to put the US against the strings. Bismuth is a fundamental metal for the global technology industry Although it is not monopolizing as many headlines in international media as rare earths, bismuth (BI) is an essential chemical element not only for the integrated circuit industry, but for the entire global technology sector. It is a whitish, crystalline and relatively fragile metal that acquires a pinkaceous tone when coming into contact with the air. It shares some physicochemical properties with lead and tin, but it has a distinctive characteristic that has helped it be erected as the essential metal that is: it is much less toxic than other heavy metals, such as lead. However, this is not at all its only quality. In addition, it is the most diamagnetic metal, so when introducing it into a magnetic field it is repelled very weakly. On the other hand, its electrical resistance is high and its thermal conductivity is very low. Interestingly, the only metal that has even smaller thermal conductivity is mercury. And its melting point is relatively low (about 271.3 ° C), while Its boiling point touches the 2,000 ° C. Finally, the bismuth has another very unusual property among the metals that are worth not overlooking: when it solidifies it expands. The bismuth is an essential metal thanks to its intervention in welds and the tuning of thermoelectric materials If we had to stay with only two characteristics of all that we just reviewed the chosen ones would be their low toxicity index and their ability to expand when solidified. In fact, these properties largely justify their use in industries that have a strategic role for many countries, such as chips, consumer electronics, renewable energy or electric car. Although it participates in a wide range of applications, the bismuth is an essential metal thanks to its intervention in the welds and the tuning of thermoelectric materials. For many decades the metal usually used in welds was lead, but it has an important problem: it is very toxic. Gradually this metal has been displaced by the alloys of bismuth and tin, which are much less toxic, and, in addition, They have a very low melting point. In fact, these alloys have a leading role in the manufacture of flexible substrates, printed circuit plates and all kinds of electronic components. On the other hand, thermoelectric materials allow generating electricity taking advantage of temperature and vice versa differences, so they are very important in the development of efficient cooling systems. China is currently the largest world producer in bismuth. In fact, control between 80 and 84% of the supply of this metal, so the global distribution chain is in your hands. Only in 2024 this Asian country produced 13,000 metric tons of this chemical element, while outside the borders of China, only 3,000 more tons were refined. This essentially absolute control has led to the Chinese government to drastically restrict Bismuth export with the purpose of responding to the sanctions of their rivals. In the US, some technology companies are already against the ropes because their bismuth reserves are running out. And it is not precisely unimportant companies. Google, Amazon and Nvidia are three of the US companies that Chinese bismuth urgently need In order to sustain the construction of your new data centers for applications of artificial intelligence (AI), so They have asked the US government that he reaches an agreement with his Chinese counterpart. Otherwise the development of AI in the country led by Donald Trump will be compromised. In this area, as we have just seen, China has the pan well grabbed by the handle. More information | China / Business Inside In Xataka | The two most important chip companies in China have a problem: the 5 Nm have been choked

Spain promised them very happy as the power of the data centers. Did not have the heat waves

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On July 19, 2002, at 06:33 PST, Google and Oracle Data Centers in London They stopped working. The reason was not a human or electrical failure. The only thing that happened is that 40 ° C were exceeded in the British capital, and the cooling systems of that data center could not support those temperatures. The result: falls of multiple services for hours. It was a dangerous advance (and we are talking about London, which is not especially hot) for data centers, especially considering what comes to us. Climate change also threatens data centers. The only good news of this summer’s extreme heat is that It will be carried compared to the one in the coming years. The theme, which is worrisome to humans, has a surprise derivative: these extreme temperatures are going to be a colossal challenge for data centers. We do not stop seeing record temperatures one summer after another, and that will test the cooling systems of those centers. Hello, cooling. There are no definitive data on the temperature at which data centers must work, and while certain experts They recommend that work in a range of 18 to 27 ºC, others They hold that the range must be even cooler, between 17 and 21 ºC. And of course, that is only achieved with powerful air and liquid cooling systems. Heat comes out. If it is more hot, it is necessary to refrigerate more, and that imposes greater electrical consumption and therefore, a greater electricity bill. Of not controlling those temperatures the efficiency of the components is decreasing. As in mobile. It is exactly the same thing that happens in our mobiles and computers when they overheat: if the cooling systems fail to bother those temperatures, The ‘throttling’ is normally produced: The components “go round” to consume less and dissipate less heat. And the water, too. In many data centers liquid cooling also plays a fundamental role, and in the face of heat waves, water consumption also rises. That is especially worrying now that Big Tech have announced that they will invest tens of billions of dollars in new data centers for AI. Liquid cooling to power. In those facilities dedicated to AI a huge amount of chips accumulates in small spaces, which makes liquid cooling solutions much more appropriate. And the same thing happens again: before extreme temperatures, it is up to “climb the cooling systems to deal with possible overheating. Evaporative cooling. Of course, engineers who develop these types of projects go to solutions to try to avoid problems, especially when data centers are in areas where summers are especially extreme. There come techniques coom the Direct evaporative coolingin which the refrigerated and humidified air is directly entered the data center. There are other techniques such as water cooling towers and of course an intelligent management of air flow management is optimal. Be careful where you look up your data center. That makes it more and more important to choose the ideal location for new data centers. In Spain Aragon is becoming In an absolutely protagonist region. There are several projects in which Big Tech will put (theoretically) in progress data centers in this autonomous community, although the risk of extreme temperatures there is not so high as would be further south of the peninsula. But with increasingly high temperatures in summer, what can be done? Ice cream clusters. The option in some cases is simply to choose locations in which the weather is much cooler … or even icy. Facebook has already built several Data centers in Lulea (Sweden) In 2013, but in Spain we have an even more striking case: the Social Security CPD He moved from Madrid to Soria for the simple reason that it is colder there. That, among other things, allowed to save The 150,000 euros that would have cost the cooling of these systems in Madrid during the summer. Image | Goal In Xataka | We have calculated how much money the Big Tech are being spent on data centers. The numbers are dizzy

IA consumes so much energy that the United States is building data centers directly in natural gas wells

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What makes a startup dedicated to building data centers get 11.6 billion dollars in financing. In the case of Crusoe Energy Systems, it all started with an idea as disturbing as profitable: build data centers with natural gas wells. Crusoe Energy’s idea Journalist Emily Chang de Bloomberg visited a few weeks ago The city of Abilene, in Texas, where Crusoe is building the monstrous Stargate data centers, The 500.00 billion project OpenAi, SoftBank and Oracle to develop general artificial intelligence. Stargate arrived at Crusoe Energy thanks to the demonstrated efficiency of the startup in the construction of specialized data centers in AI. Chase Lochmiller, the CEO of Crusoe, explained to Chang how the company was born: “When an oil company opens an oil well, one of the associated by -products is natural gas. And when they do not have access to an pipeline, all this associated gas simply burns in situ. So we had an idea: instead of trying to take that gas to a market where you can sell, we could create a market for gas. We could build mobile and modular data centers, take them direct data”. Crusoe was born in the best possible place to materialize this idea: the country of fracking. But maybe not at the best time to do it. Initially, they chose to build GPUS farms to undermine Bitcoin. When the cryptocurrency market collapsed, they ended up pivoting artificial intelligence. Like crypto mining, AI data centers are not based on CPUS but depend on the parallel processing capacity of thousands of GPUS, mainly Nvidia specialized chips. These new data centers consume much more energy than traditional data centers, so Crusoe started from a key advantage: their direct access to fossil fuels that obtained at the price of bargain. A booming business Oil giants are not oblivious to this trend. Exxonmobil is developing Off-Grid gas plants specifically for data centers with carbon capture technology to reduce emissions. Chevron, meanwhile, It has been associated With Engine No. 1 and Ge Vernova to mount similar facilities. The first will open in 2026, also in Texas. The figures are eloquent: the demand for natural gas for data centers will be increased by 47 GW from here to 2030. Currently, natural gas already feeds about 40% of the loading of data centers in the United States and is expected to continue being the main source of supply up to at least 2030. It is not the preferred energy source, but There are not enough renewable to feed artificial intelligence and Not all data centers They can be connected to a nuclear power plant, another common occurrence in the United States. As for Crusoe, thanks to the initial push of natural gas that were going to burn oil companies they developed their own technologies, such as a closed cooling system that does not need to renew The water evaporating the serversor own gas turbines, such as 360 MWs that are installing in the Stargate project as a backup energy source. Stargate data centers will feed mainly solar panels and wind turbines, which abound in Abilene for the confluence of wind and sunny hours. It is one of the reasons why data centers are being built in this Texas area, in addition to the tax exemptions that local governments are willing to yield in exchange for employment generation. It remains to be seen how many employees have everything built. Image | W.Carter (CCO) In Xataka | Microsoft will reopen a nuclear power plant that has been closed since 2019. It needs it for its artificial intelligence

Saudi Arabia wants to become a new power in data centers. Nothing is clear that I can do it

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Donald Trump has made a unique tour of several countries in the Middle East, and among the agreements that are considered surprising: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar want to invest billions of dollars in the construction of data centers for ia. The question is whether they will do so. Chips for strategic alliances. The Biden administration had largely limited the number of advanced chips from which these countries could access, but Trump’s mandate is changing things. As they point out in The New York Times, AI chips seem now to be a useful argument to strengthen relations with countries with this Trump newspaper “has deep financial ties and business. “Qatar already plans donate a Boeing 747-8 which could end up being used as the new Air Force One. Saudi Arabia on the one hand. Nvidia and AMD have reached an agreement to sell their professional GPUS to Humain. This newly created company – it belongs to the country’s public investment fund – It has the objective to create a large data center in Saudi Arabia. The agreement with AMD raises An investment of 10,000 million dollars in infrastructure in the next five years. Humain will supervise the development of these data centers, while AMD will provide chips and software. Arab Emirates attached to the other. As indicated In Bloombergthe Trump administration is considering reaching an agreement that would allow United Arab Emirates to import a million Nvidia chips. Eau could thus buy 500,000 of those chips per year until 2027. A fifth would be reserved for the G42 firm of Abu Dhabi. Saudi data centers. Nvidia, meanwhile, will sell 18,000 Your GB300 chips To Saudi Arabia. This was announced by Jensen Huang on Tuesday, which will contribute clearly to the Humain projects, which propose with data centers with a joint “1.9 GW” power “in 2030. Those 18,000 chips will apparently be part of the” hundreds of thousands “of which the Saudi project will be nourished. Possible “resale” to China? The United States restricted the sale of advanced chips from AI to China in 2022, and there are those who fear that countries in the Middle East end up serving as intermediaries so that the chips that the US allows you to sell there ends where they should not. G42 theoretically cut ties with Huawei to reach an agreement of 1.5 billion dollars with Microsoft, but the suspicions about the situation persist. Saudi Arabia and its megaprojects. As points The analyst Ed Zitron, countries of the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia have been talking about all kinds of megaprojects for years, but one thing is their promises and another realities. It occurs with the Jeddah Tower, MUKAABhis Pharaonic airport And of course The Line and his futuristic city, Neom. All these projects still have a long way to go, and this new Saudi ambition, although more “contained” in terms of dimensions, is equally complex for a country without experience in this area. There is energy … Countries like Saudi Arabia have abundant energy resources and in fact there are A strong investment in solar energy. Its application to provide power to those data centers, yes, it is not so easy, as they are discovering In the United States. … but no (much) water. The problem is that these data centers dissipate a lot of heat and the desert environment is not exactly the idea for this type of facilities. Extraordinary cooling solutions are needed and the country has scarce water resources. Desalination plants are A pillar of its strategic plan, and innovations may also go into play in the field of refrigeration such as closed circuit systems or Direct liquid cooling. Image | Neom In Xataka | New York Bitcoin miners are buying old power plants. New Yorkers are not happy

Spain wants to be the paradise of the data centers. The blackout has complicated that ambition

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Spain aspired to be The great HUB of data centers in Europetaking advantage of our surplus electrical capacity and the abundant physical space that we have available outside the large metropolitan areas. But The recent national blackout has exposed the structural vulnerabilities that could make this ambition derail, as analyzed The confidential. Why is it important. The data centers could attract up to 49,000 million euros in investments, representing a new form of industrialization for a country that has seen its traditional productive fabric diminish. In figures: The contradiction. The Spanish model has A difficult tension to solve that the blackout has put on the table: On the one hand, the commitment to renewable, necessary but variable. On the other hand, the nuclear abandonment plan, precisely those that give stability to the network. Yes, but. The data centers exceeded the blackout, as well as hospitals or radio stations, thanks to their support generators. However, the risk is in the perception of international investors. Seeing that a national blackout is a real possibility in Spain because it has already happened is something that can make them question their reliability about the Spanish system from something as basic as the energy supply. The competition. France, neighboring country, is the most notable rival: it is developing A data gigafactoría backed by the State and financed by United Arab Emiratesfed by a network where 70% comes from nuclear energy. Spain recovered from the blackout in a few hours – with some hard consequences along the way -, but perhaps it costs him more to recover from the problem of perception generated by such an event. The one who questions If you can guarantee basic stability that this industry demands … or if investors will prefer destinations with greater energy certainty. Outstanding image | Claudio Schwarz in Unspash In Xataka | “11 signs that you have ADHD and you don’t know it”: more and more people are self -diagnosis of mental health problems

consumes much more electricity than data centers

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In 2022 in the air conditioning it represented 7% of world consumption of electricity. And its pressure on electrical infrastructure does not stop increasing year after year. On the other hand, data centers will be responsible for 10% of the increase in energy demand until 2030. Air conditioning will contribute a much greater percentage. These estimates formalized them in November 2024 International Energy Agency (IEA) and clearly reflect that the energy consumption of air conditioning devices is more worrying than that of data centers. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) that we are living has triggered the proliferation of these facilities in the US, China, Japan, Singapore, India, Germany, Netherlands or Ireland, among other nations, but, in theory, the forecast of the IEA has taken it into account. And also that air conditioning devices have to respect an increasingly strict regulation in energy matters. However, as Casey Crownhart points out, a journalist specialized in the behavior of the weather of MIT Technology Reviewhe global warming Play against us. Refrigeration is the authentic monster of global energy demand In 2016 there were just under 2,000 million air conditioning devices throughout the planet. However, in 2050 the IEE estimates that there will be about 6,000 million of these devices. This strong growth is the consequence of the constant increase in the number of cooling degrees per day derived from global warming. In 2024 the cooling degrees per day were 6% higher than in 2023, and nothing less than 20% higher than the average of the first two decades of this century. The countries that invest more energy in the air conditioning devices are precisely the three most populated on the planet: India, China and the US The countries that invest more energy in the air conditioning devices are precisely the three most populated on the planet: India, China and the US. However, the impact of this energy demand is global. Besides, not only does it matter How much electricity consume air conditioning devices; It is also very relevant When this energy demand occurs. In fact, in the US these devices represent up to 70% of consumption in those time slots in which it is more hot. This behavior submits the electricity to enormous stress, although this voltage oscillates as the hottest hours give way to the freshest moments of the day. Whatever it is is evident that It is very important to innovate in the field of cooling technologies. The presumable proliferation of air conditioning devices over the next few years will require that each of them consume less energy. Even if it’s just a bit. A minimum improvement in a huge park park can make a big difference. The good news is that Innovations are coming in the technology of cooling devices that invite us to look to the future with reasonable optimism. Desiccant cooling systems use special materials that absorb moisture to cool spaces in a more efficient way. And heat exchangers containing not only air conditioning devices, but also refrigerators or heat pumps, are increasingly efficient. It seems that this is the way. Let us trust technological development to help us solve this enormous challenge. Image | Sergei a More information | MIT Technology Review In Xataka | Samsung throws the handbrake: delays the construction of its US avant -garde factories and South Korea

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