data

Is it a good time to buy a Pixel 10 or will the price drop soon? This is what the data tells us

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Given the evolution of the prices of Google Pixel 10we present our assessment on whether or not your purchase is currently appropriate. 🟢 BUY WITHOUT LOOKING BACK google pixel 10 Verdict Excellent moment. It’s only been on the market for six months, but it has been gradually dropping until it reaches its lowest price now. official RRP €899 (Google Store) Target price “on the street” Do not pay more than €649 (amazon) Next release Google Pixel 11 (expected for August 2026) Our recommendation Now is a good time to buy it. On Amazon it is at a very good price (649 euros), but even at PcComponentes you can get it cheaper (619 euros) Regret cost Low. Although when the new Pixel 11 comes out the 10 model will drop in price, it may is not at a price as competitive as the one now offered by PcComponentes. At most you could lose 20 euros, since the Google Pixel 10 is not expected to drop below 600 euros. Why is the traffic light green? They have just passed six months since it was launched the Google Pixel 10 (August 2025) and there is exactly the same time left for Google to launch the new generation. This is a good time for those undecided who are hesitating between waiting for the new Google Pixel 11 or buying the one currently sold. For those who don’t want to wait, the Google Pixel 10 is one of the phones that has received the most offers in recent months (as we have covered in Xataka SelecciĂłn). Now, with a price of 619 eurosit is one of the best prices at which the current one has been able to obtain Google flagship. Expert Buyer’s Advice: Once a few months have passed, do not buy the Pixel in the official Google store, because the price remains at the price the smartphone had at its launch. Better go to other stores that continually launch offers to get it. Price history and change prediction This graph shows a comparison between the price evolution of the previous model, the Google Pixel 9, superimposed with the trend of the current Google Pixel 10. These are our observations: The Google Pixel 10 has experienced a more aggressive price evolution if we compare it with the Pixel 9. The previous model went on sale for 900 euros and until the fourth month it maintained resistance in price. On the other hand, the Pixel 10 has experienced a price drop of 28% in just one semester, going from costing 900 euros to 649 euros. After a stable start, between the second and third month, the Google Pixel 10 dropped 150 euros and is now stabilized at 650 euros. This figure equals the all-time low that the Pixel 9 took almost a year to achieve. It can be said that the price that the Pixel 10 has now achieved is very competitivesince it has experienced a very rapid price drop and is expected to no longer drop further. Maybe it will reach 600 euros, but when the new generation Pixel is going to be released on the market. The best Google Pixel 10 deals now: For those looking for the Google Pixel 10 without waiting any longer, these are the best current options. Do not forget that, after our publication, the offers may expire or the stock may run out. Currently, the terminal is at very competitive pricesplacing it significantly below the 899 euros marked by its official rate in the Google store. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links When is the Google Pixel 11 released? Time flies and, therefore, it is essential to know the details about what will be the successor to the current Google Pixel 10: Rumors about the Google Pixel 11: There are already leaks about the new Google terminal. It is expected to release a chip manufactured by hands other than the current ones: TSMC. Expected release date: If Google’s trend continues (consolidated with the Pixel 9 and 10), everything indicates that the official presentation of the Google Pixel 11 will occur in mid-August 2026, arriving in stores at the end of that same month. When will the Pixel 10 become “obsolete”?: Despite being one of the most supported phones on the market thanks to its seven-year life cycle, it is true that the launch of the Pixel 11 will introduce the new Google Tensor G6. This processor will be more powerful than the current one, making the Pixel 10’s hardware take a backseat. However, if you decide to buy the Pixel 10 now, you will not be purchasing an “old” model, since its performance will continue to be excellent even after the release of the new version. Is the Google Pixel 10 for you now? If you are considering buying the Google Pixel 10 right now, we want to make it easier for you by helping you a little. âś… BUY IT TODAY IF: You need a high-end mobile at a good price: You can currently get it with a discount of close to 30% compared to the official RRP in the Google store. You find an offer in which the mobile costs you 649 euros or less: If you find this price, it is the ideal time to buy it. You come from a Previous pixel and you are looking for the latest model: a perfect option if you feel that yours has become outdated. â›” I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT IF: Do you wantalways have the latest: There are barely six months until the new Google Pixel 11 is launched; If you are looking for novelty, it will be worth the wait. You can andwait a few months: it is very likely that, in a short time, the price will approach the 600 euro barrier (although 619 euros current PcComponentes are already a very good opportunity). You’re going to pay the price it has in the official store (899 euros): something not … Read more

An 86-year-old farmer was offered $15 million to build a data center. He said no

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Get in the situation. You are an 86-year-old farmer who enjoys doing what he does, but from time to time you get the idea that maybe it’s time to retire. One fine day they knock on your door and offer you 15 million dollars which, hey, gives you to plug holes and pay for your hospital in the United States in case of misfortunebut you decide to reject it because accepting would imply the destruction of those lands to which you have dedicated 60 years of your life. Well, that’s what has happened to Mervin Raudabaugh: a farmer who has become a symbol of resistance to AI and data centers. An offer you can refuse. Raudabaugh is a farmer who owns land in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. He has spent his entire life cultivating the 100 hectares of his property, land that his family has been exploiting for generations, and has recently come to the fore after rejecting a proposal which, some, considered irrefutable. 60,000 dollars for every 4,000 m2 of their land, around 15 million dollars in total. The offer came from some developers interested in building a data center for artificial intelligence computing on the farm, but Mervin simply refused. Not on my farm. Mervin doesn’t seem like a guy who is against AI specifically or what it means for the planet. He simply has a much more romantic motive: he doesn’t want to see his land turned into a layer of concrete with huge ships on top. In some interviews, he assured that money does not matter to him and that what he wants is precisely that: for agricultural land to remain agricultural. He has expressed his worry for the future of family farming in a country where, if the soil is not protected, “every square centimeter runs the risk of being urbanized”, with what this implies for the land, the fauna and the rural communities themselves. But it has sold. However, Mervin is not going to retire with empty pockets because he did not accept the 15 million from the builders of data centersbut yes some million of Lancaster Farmland Trust. There is talk of a operation of around two million euros to sell the right to develop their lands to this entity that is dedicated to the conversation of agricultural lands. What Marvin has done is secure the land that he loves so much, since the operation implies that his land will be permanently protected for agricultural use, legally preventing the change of land use. And it doesn’t matter if his heirs wanted to sell or not in the future: now the lands are protected. a symbol. As is normal, Marvin’s rejection has been covered in many national media as a case of rebellion regarding data centers, the resounding “no” to Big Tech already something that is consuming all the conversation in technological news. It is an example by guaranteeing the protection of the soil against the specific compensation in the form of money that these Big Tech companies offer to ensure long-term deterioration of the agricultural fabric and the landscape. And although Marvin’s case is striking both for the amount and for the subsequent movement protecting his farm, is not the only one. In other parts of the world the debate has been ignited about Whether it is worth hosting data centersbut in the United States specifically, a country that is betting enormous amounts of money on the development of AI, we are seeing more and more examples of that resistance against data centers. And in an increasingly warlike environment, curiously it is something that is putting according to both Democrats and Republicans. Images | BlueChipFarmsGoal In Xatka | It’s not that AI makes us stupid: it’s that we are surrendering to it

Spain had a completely saturated electrical grid. And then data centers arrived to blow it up even more

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Imagine a highway on which not a single vehicle can fit anymore. But the problem is not that there is a lack of asphalt, but that the cars do not know how to drive efficiently and keep kilometer-long safety distances. The Spanish electrical grid was exactly that. It had been operating for years at the limit of its administrative capacity, and suddenly, a convoy of trucks of industrial tonnage and voracious appetite has arrived at the access ramp: data centers. These megainfrastructures, pillars of artificial intelligence and the cloud, promise to water the economy of millions, but their brutal need for supply threatened to burst the seams of an already saturated electrical system. To avoid collapse and not let the reindustrialization train escape, the Government has had to react and radically change the technical rules of the game. Cascading capacity collapse. To understand the collapse we have to look at how our way of consuming energy has changed. The energy transition is profoundly reconfiguring the model throughout the national territory. Requests to connect to transportation and distribution networks have skyrocketed. In addition to the electrification of industry and renewable hydrogen, there is now massive consumption associated with data centers for artificial intelligence. The problem broke out when the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) established a “dynamic criterion” to calculate how much access capacity was available in the areas shared by several network nodes. As detailed by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) in his press releaseapplying this criterion means that a single access requested at a node can cause a “cascading effect that drains capacity in the rest of the nodes that share the area”, blocking requests from dozens of kilometers away. Basically, a large data center asks for passage and, automatically, the system administratively blocks neighboring nodes as a precaution, even if physically the cables have plenty of space. Investments in the air and the ghost of the blackout. The consequences of this traffic jam directly affect the real economy and national security. Real estate and industrial paralysis. The situation is so critical that, as we already mentioned in our previous coverage citing the Asprima employers’ associationlast year only 12% of connection requests for new urban developments were granted. There are 350,000 homes at risk simply due to lack of electrical power. The risk of an electrical “zero”. The Official State Gazette warns that the increase in installations that are not able to withstand “tension gaps” poses a very high risk. If there is a disturbance and these generators are massively disconnected, exchange flows are produced that are incompatible with Spain’s limited interconnections with Europe. As the diary recalls The Countrythe objective is to avoid at all costs a repeat of massive blackouts like the one suffered by the Iberian Peninsula on April 28, 2025. It is not enough to put more cables. In areas limited by this dynamic criterion, it is no longer possible to enable new capacity simply by investing money in reinforcing the network with “more copper.” The expert in the sector JoaquĂ­n Coronado sums it up perfectly: the demand must be 100% active; It must provide flexibility and commit to the stability of the system. The Government’s emergency surgery. To unclog this Gordian knot, the Government and regulators have launched a three-way shock plan: The new Royal Decree of MITECO. The Ministry has been brought to public hearing (until March 16) a standard that updates the technical requirements to connect to the network. The master key is that now it is required that the demands “withstand voltage gaps”, do not introduce adverse oscillations and maintain the quality of the wave. By forcing installations not to disconnect in the event of small disturbances, the number of nodes affected in shared areas is reduced. This simple technical measure could bring out 50% more capacity in about 900 knots of connection to the high-voltage network. The “flexible permits” of the CNMC. To put an end to the binary model (either I give you all the capacity or I deny it), the CNMC has proposed four new types of permits, as we already broke down in Xataka. These range from allowing consumption only in certain time slots, to “dynamic” permissions where the operator can remotely disconnect a data center if there is an emergency on the network. The “technical amnesty” for data giants. In parallel, the Ministry of Industry has been urgently removed the “off-peak” requirement. Previously, to receive aid, you had to consume at night, an absurdity for a data center (which operates 24/7) and for today’s Spain, where solar energy has brought down prices at midday. The citizen cost and the fine print. The Government’s maneuver not only responds to a national emergency, but also places Spain as a pioneer on the continent. The country is anticipating the update of the European network codes, deploying a battery of technical specifications simultaneously that is already considered a milestone worldwide, as detailed The Country. In this deployment, the new regulations also settle a historical debt with energy storage: batteries will finally have their own specific regulatory framework, no longer being administratively treated as simple “generation by analogy” facilities. However, this deep digitalization so that the network supports such a complex mode of operation will not come for free, and the bill for modernization will end up looming in the consumer’s pocket. Forecasts for 2026 They already estimate direct increases in citizen receipts, with a 4% increase in tolls and a not inconsiderable 10.5% in electricity system charges. And while citizens assume the technical cost, the data giants – recipients of this regulatory red carpet – prefer to remain cautious in the face of the eternal Spanish bureaucratic obstacle. The technology sector warns that a key piece of the puzzle is missing: If the Government does not expressly include the National Code of Economic Activity (CNAE) corresponding to “Data Processing” in the official list of sectors entitled to receive the million-dollar electro-intensive aid, all … Read more

Data centers in space promise to save the planet. And also ruin the earth’s orbit

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Wikipedia should update its page dedicated to the word “ambition” to include Elon Musk’s photo. The tycoon has announced a megaproject according to which his two companies SpaceX and xAI will work together to launch a constellation of one million satellites that will function as data centers in orbit. The problem is that although the idea It has its advantages, it also has an impact potentially terrible for the future of our planet. Energy efficiency. That is the great advantage of the space data centers that Musk proposes. In space, solar panels can perform optimally without the obstacles posed by Earth’s atmosphere and climate. According to SpaceX, the reduction in the cost of launching its rockets makes space a perfect alternative for AI data centers. The plan. He project that has been presented to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) consists of placing these satellites in sun-synchronous orbits between 500 and 2,000 km high. That would allow the satellites to act as interconnected nodes among themselves and also with the satellites of the Starlink network through optical laser links. The plan, of course, will have to overcome important challenges like refrigeration. Dissipating the heat generated by millions of chips in the vacuum of space is complex, since satellites act as “natural thermoses.” And radiation, what? The problem of cosmic radiation will also have to be solved. Advanced chips are very vulnerable to processing errors caused by energetic particles. It seems that AI processors are surprisingly resistant to this type of problembut the deployment of such chips on a massive scale in space could introduce new conflicts. On-site repair, nothing. In today’s data centers, if a problem arises, a technician can physically travel if necessary to solve it. In space, physical repair is not feasible, which would force a strategy of assuming that those chips that become functionally damaged will be completely lost. SpaceX would have to continuously launch substitutes to compensate for this “mortality” of components, which complicates logistics and costs. There are optimistic perspectives in this regard, and for some the bills do work out. Kessler syndrome. But above all there is a latent concern in the field of space security. Launching a million new satellites into already congested orbits multiplies the probability of chain collisions, validating the theory proposal in Kessler syndrome. A single major collision could generate a cloud of debris that would take decades to clear, further threatening climate monitoring missions or even global communications. There are already ideas to “regulate orbital traffic” by coordinating it, and SpaceX has its own “situational awareness” system, Stargazeto avoid problems, but of course, no system is completely perfect. air pollution. Without forgetting that the atmospheric impact is equally worrying. Some are estimated 25,000 Starship flightsand the re-entry of satellites that end their life cycle or die prematurely would cause metals and particles to be released into the upper atmosphere. According to experts, these chemical residues could damage the ozone layer and cause uncertain climate consequences. You can’t see anything. The astronomers, who They had already protested about Starlinkthey will have an even bigger problem with this new idea. The threat to astronomy is clear, because given the altitude and size of these satellites, it is likely that they form a bright band visible even to the naked eye, making scientific observation difficult and even changing the way we see the sunset. Orbital computing may have advantages, but before launching it we should remember that space—especially the space we see—is a shared and finite resource. In Xataka | Starlink’s dominance in space begins to move: another company already has permission for a constellation of 4,000 satellites

Microsoft has just taken a key step in its technology to preserve data for millennia

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Saving data “forever” is one of those ideas that sounds simple until you look closely at the media we use every day. A file can be perfect today and become unreadable in a few years, or decades, due to degradation of the material or, directly, because the support ends up failing over time. Therefore, when we talk about preserving information for centuries, CDs, DVDs, hard drives or tapes are not a definitive answer. And it is precisely in that gap, that of a support capable of resisting without permanent care, where projects like Microsoft’s try to open a different path. Project Silica. This is where this Microsoft Research project comes into play, aimed at rethinking what it means to archive information in the very long term. Instead of relying on conventional magnetic or optical technologies, the system uses ultrafast lasers to modify internal properties of the glass and store data in the form of three-dimensional voxels, which can then be read using optical techniques assisted by machine learning, as detailed by Microsoft in a study recently published in the journal Nature. It does not seek to compete with SSDs or hard drives in speed, but rather to offer a material base specifically designed for long-lasting conservation. looking back. The Redmond giant has been working on this line for years, and one of its best-known demonstrations came in 2019, when he managed to save the movie ‘Superman’ complete on a glass shard about the size of a coaster. That test confirmed that three-dimensional storage within the material was not just theoretical and that, in addition, the support could withstand heat and water, and even demagnetization tests. What changes now is not the fundamental idea, but the degree of technological development that could bring it closer to real preservation uses. From the laboratory to common glass. The central novelty of the 2026 announcement is not only in the estimated longevity, but in the material used to achieve it. Previous research relied on high-purity fused silica, which was limited in cost and production, while the new study demonstrates the possibility of encoding information in borosilicate glass, a widely available and much cheaper material. According to Microsoft, this advancement directly addresses marketing hurdles related to the storage medium. Now, this does not mean that the technology is ready to be deployed, but it does reduce the distance between scientific experiment and real application. Simpler and faster writing. The work released this week introduces relevant changes in the way data is written and read. The team has introduced so-called phase voxels, which can be formed with a single pulse, and has refined the writing of the birefringent voxels to reduce pulses and speed up the process, including a “pseudo-single-pulse writing” approach. Added to this are parallel writing techniques to record multiple data points simultaneously and a simplified reader that now requires a single camera, with machine learning support for classification and interference mitigation. Detail of writing equipment during data coding with high speed multibeam laser pulses The figures. Technically, the system can reach densities of up to 1.59 gigabits per cubic millimeter, which translates to about 4.84 terabytes in around 300 layers inside a glass chip that is 12 square centimeters square and 2 millimeters thick. That capacity is roughly equivalent to millions of printed books or thousands of 4K movies. Of course, this is a capacity that does not go unnoticed. As we can see, rather than competing in speed, the interest is in how much can be preserved in a small space for extremely long periods. 10,000 years. The estimates come from accelerated aging tests in which etched glass plates are subjected to high temperatures to simulate the passage of time, a common methodology in materials science. The results of tests carried out by the research team suggest that information could remain readable for periods of more than 10,000 years under normal storage conditions, a longevity tremendously greater than that of current electronic media. Even so, these are projections based on experimental models, not direct verification on a historical scale. What’s next. We are facing a surprising technical advance, but the technology continues to depend on expensive equipment and writing speeds well below current commercial solutions, factors that determine its viability outside the laboratory. Added to this are challenges of large-scale production, future compatibility and adoption models in institutions that really need to preserve data for centuries. For now, Microsoft places Project Silica in the field of shared research, open to other actors developing specific applications. Images | Microsoft In Xataka | The first hard drives in history were gigantic. Then a miracle happened: miniaturization

Ransomware has exploded in Spain and the data confirms it

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He ransomware It is one of those attacks that no one wants to suffer. Companies fear it because, if they do not manage to contain it in time, they can be paralyzed for days, weeks or even months, with million-dollar losses as a consequence. It is not foreign to private users either: we will not always be willing, nor able, to pay a ransom, which in many cases means losing our files. However, this threat continues to advance, gaining presence in our environment and forcing us to remain more alert than ever. Spain, among the most affected countries. The team of Thales Cyber ​​Threat Intelligenceone of the largest European defense and cybersecurity groups, places Spain as one of the most attractive targets for actors operating with ransomware. According to their report shared via email, the country recorded 164 attacks in 2025, with 79 in the first half of the year and 85 in the second. The most relevant data comes when putting these figures in context: Spain ranked sixth in the world in the number of attacks during the second half of the year. A trend that points upward. Thales experts also point out that ransomware attacks in Spain grew by 7.6%, an increase that is part of a general increase in cyber activity. Behind them are factors such as geopolitical tensions, the evolution of ransomware tools, the increasingly rapid exploitation of vulnerabilities and the interconnection of threats between critical sectors. All of this creates a scenario with more mature, organized and difficult to contain actors. The global context changes the scale. Although the situation in Spain invites vigilance, the panorama is transformed when it is expanded to an international level. The United States was the most affected country in the second half of 2025, with 3,946 attacks. They were followed by Canada, with 411, and Germany, with 296. The weight of the United States is especially striking: it accounted for 51.23% of the attacks recorded in that period, which shows a very unequal distribution of this criminal activity. A particularly exposed sector. On a global scale, and always according to Thales, the financial sector continues to be among the main objectives. Banks, payment institutions and fintech companies face not only ransomware campaigns, but also persistent threats from advanced cybercriminals, state-sponsored actors and hacktivist groups. In 2025, this sector accumulated 533 ransomware attacks, the highest number among the industries analyzed. The report also identifies the most active groups. Qilin led the activity with 60 attacks, followed by Akirawith 29, and Inc Ransom, with 17. To them were added two operations that emerged in the second half of the year, The Gentlemen, with 13 attacks, and Sinobi, with 10, which managed to place themselves among the five most active groups against the financial sector. Consequences that go beyond the numbers. When a ransomware attack manages to overcome an organization’s defenses, the impact stops being statistical and becomes tangible. At the international level, Jaguar Land Rover was forced to paralyze its factories for more than a month after an incident of this type. In Spain, several town councils have also suffered similar attacks, with service interruptions and operational problems that show to what extent these threats have ceased to be a theoretical risk and have become a very real challenge. Images | Xataka with Gemini | Thales In Xataka | How often should we change ALL our passwords according to three cybersecurity experts

AragĂłn produces so much energy that it no longer knows what to do with it. And that’s great news for data centers

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Aragon has always served as a great battery for the rest of the country, sending gigawatts to the industrial centers of Catalonia or the Basque Country, but now the script has changed. The community now has a “problem” that many would envy: it produces so much energy that it has attracted those who need it most. As if it were a magnet, the technological giants have landed in the Ebro valley to convert the region in what The Country already calls “Spanish Virginia”, in reference to the North American state with the highest concentration of data centers in the world. The x-ray of a bittersweet record. To understand the magnitude of the change, you have to look at the counter. According to the data collected by The Aragon Newspaperthe community once again broke its historical record for electricity production in 2025, reaching 22,365 gigawatt hours (GWh), 2.1% more than the previous year. However, this milestone hides an important small print: the record was not achieved thanks to the wind or the sun, since these fell by 4.8% due to the drought (which sank the hydraulics by 19.1%) and a less windy year. Here comes the bittersweet part, to compensate for the green decline and cover the gap left after the great blackout in April, the gas combined cycles increased their activity by 112.2%. But the data that really confirms the change of era is not how much is produced, but how much is spent. While electricity demand in Spain grew by a modest 2.7%, in Aragon internal consumption shot up by 7.1%, a figure that the provincial media describes as “true structural change” and that it attributes directly to the takeoff of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) complexes in Villanueva de Gállego, El Burgo and Huesca. The rain of millions (and megawatts) This energetic appetite is no coincidence; It is the fuel for an unprecedented investment. As we have explained in Xatakathe autonomous government has given the green light to the expansion of AWS, which contemplates an investment of 15.7 billion euros in a ten-year plan. It is not about building isolated ships, but about creating an “AWS Region” (Europe Spain), a system of eight campuses interconnected by fiber optics that function as a single operational unit protected against failures. But it’s not all servers and algorithms in the cloud. From the Herald have detailed that Amazon will not only save data, but will also build a server recycling factory in Aragon. With an additional investment of 200 million euros, this circular economy plant promises to create up to 1,100 direct jobs, a balloon of labor oxygen that goes beyond highly qualified technical profiles. Jam in the network and flight to Teruel. The Aragonese paradox is that, although there is plenty of energy, there are no “roads” to transport it. The electrical distribution network in the community is at its limit, with an occupancy of 94.3%well above the national average. There is electricity, but there are no free outlets for so much industry. This saturation in the Zaragoza logistics hub has caused an unexpected movement towards “emptied Spain.” As my colleague in XatakaGiven the impossibility of connecting in the capital, AWS has decided to take one of its new centers to La Puebla de HĂ­jar, a town in Teruel with barely 900 inhabitants. The choice is strategic: the N-232 highway acts as the backbone and, there, the electrical grid has the capacity (100 MW guaranteed) to feed the beast. Side B: water and territory. Every revolution has a cost, and in this case it is measured in natural resources. Digital euphoria collides with the physical reality of a dry land. The alarms went off, as reported The Countrywhen Amazon requested to expand its water concession by 48% to cool its servers. The conflict is palpable on the ground, the GaĂ©n irrigation community in Teruel keeps negotiations blockedrefusing to give up water from the Ebro if that compromises the agricultural future of the area. The most critical view brings it Ecologists in Action. Its renewable viewer warns that the deployment is not harmless: there are more than 12,000 hectares of authorized solar plants and thousands of wind turbines in the pipeline. The organization warns that, if all the data center projects in the portfolio are approved, their electrical consumption could reach five times the current demand of the entire community, turning the Aragonese landscape into a continuous industrial estate and drying up its water resources. The new balance. AragĂłn closed the year 2025 at a fascinating crossroads. How to conclude The Aragon Newspaperthe community continues to be surplus, but less and less. Electricity exports have fallen from 56% to 52% in just one year. The region has achieved what seemed impossible: from being a mere service station to becoming the engine of the digital economy. But the question that remains in the air, between million-dollar investment figures and environmental warnings, is whether the electricity grid and water resources will withstand the weight of being Europe’s hard drive. Image | freepik Xataka | AragĂłn is not afraid of AI: it has just approved three more new mega data centers in full commitment to renewables

The Government of Mexico says that the measles crisis is a “global problem.” The data says it is a self-inflicted crisis

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Mexico is going through a very critical moment as far as measles is concerned, since infections they don’t stop increasing in different parts of the country and even with several dozen dead for the infection. And here the question we can ask ourselves is quite obvious: How is it possible that this has happened with a disease that was practically under control? The statements. In the offices of the Ministry of Health of Mexico they have found a rhetorical umbrella for the storm that is falling on them, pointing to the “global context”. According to the official narrative, the rebound in measles that the country is experiencing is simply the local echo of a trend that also you are living in other countriesso it may serve as political consolation not to be the only country to go through this crisis. The problem with this defense is that, when one stops looking at the world map and zooms in on the national data for each country, the excuse falls apart. All this because Mexico is not suffering from measles “like everyone else” but is suffering it with an intensity and lethality that shows structural cracks in its own public health system. Measles is here. To understand the defense of the Mexican Government, we must first grant them the part they are right. Measles, a disease from which many they had forgotten due to their high controlhas had a revival unpleasant in recent years. To give us an idea, the WHO itself registered more than 552,000 cases suspected in 179 countries during 2025, which was accompanied by vaccination coverage that was declining globally while the world looked almost exclusively at COVID-19. In this way, it is a fact that the virus is circulating and, in American countries, the Pan American Health Organization has already warned of a large increase in measles cases between 2024 and 2025 in different regions. The Mexican exception. However, hiding behind the global trend to explain what is happening on Mexican soil is cheating the solitary. The key in this case is in the figures for the month of February, which paint a quite disproportionate scenario compared to its neighbors. To give us an idea, Mexico accumulates more than 9,400 cases confirmed from the end of 2025 to mid-2026. And to put it in context, in all of 2025 America added 14,891 cases, so Mexico is not just another statistic, but is the epicenter of the problem in the hemisphere, concentrating a large part of the infections in North America. His mortality. While in other countries the different outbreaks are being contained, in Mexico the number of deaths is counted in the dozens. Right now in Mexico there are 29 deaths in seven states, and the most worrying data comes from Chihuahua, which accumulates 21 of these deaths, followed by a worrying situation in Mexico City with two deaths and Jalisco, which accounts for 60% of the cases in 2026. The extra problem is that they are not isolated outbreaks, but rather there is active transmission in 32 states and 335 municipalities, so the virus moves with a freedom that suggests that the epidemiological firewalls have failed. The reasons. If the virus is the same for everyone, why does Mexico take the brunt of it? The answer is not abroad, but in the internal management of recent years. The local press here points to a dismantling of the surveillance systems and also to a collapse in the routine vaccination system that has affected children from 1 to 4 years old. Right now the health authorities boast of having administered millions of doses of vaccine against measles, rubella or mumps, but the reality on the street is different. In this case, coverage in rural areas has fallen well below the 95% necessary for herd immunity and high population mobility, anti-vaccine misinformation and a late response that prioritized the political narrative over health containment also play a role. Images | Jezael Melgoza In Xataka | The myth of 37Âş: it is increasingly clear to us that there is no “normal” body temperature

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 Ä°smail 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”

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