depend

There are alternatives if you don’t want to depend on Google Drive or other US clouds. Internxt is one of them and it only costs 16 euros per year

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Having cloud storage is ideal for giving your cell phone or laptop a break. You upload your photos, your videos or your files there and you always have them at hand. Most people tend to go directly to the most popular clouds like Google Drive or iCloud, services that have nothing wrong, but there is something in common: They are owned by US companies. There is a trend that increasingly attracts more people than Try to depend as little as possible on services from this country. If you are one of those people or this is something you have been thinking about for some time, then you might be interested in betting on a European cloud service like Internxt Drive: if you use the code ‘XATAKA‘ you have 1 TB of storage per 16 euros per year. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A cloud of Spanish origin that includes VPN and antivirus Internxt is a company of Spanish origin and is ideal if, as we said above, you are looking for a cloud service that is not from the large US tech companies. The cheapest option costs 16 euros per year and includes 1 TB as we said a little above, but includes VPN and antivirusmaking it a very complete package at a very attractive price. What can we highlight about this cloud? Internxt uses what is known as ‘Zero-Nowledge’ or ‘Zero Knowledge’. This means that their servers store your photos or files, but they cannot access these files in any way. In fact, Because they don’t store, they don’t even save your password. You will not lack privacy. Then there is the issue of end-to-end encryption. This company encrypts your files before uploading them to the cloud. This way, even if someone intercepts your data while you are sending it to the cloud, they will not be able to access it. In fact, its service is already prepared to even combat against quantum computers when these arrive in a few years. If you are concerned about the whole issue of privacy, it is also worth noting that Internxt is open and transparent sourceso anyone can access it through GitHub. What does this mean? That its entire architecture is transparent, so it cannot hide any type of function or secret way so that your data ends up in the hands of third parties. Premium Plan: 3 TB of storage, VPN, antivirus and cleaner per 31 euros per year (or 377 euros for life) Ultimate Plan: 5 TB of storage, VPN, antivirus, cleaner and meet per 47 euros per year (or 507 euros for life) Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Internxt In Xataka | Google Drive alternatives: the best cloud storage services for your files In Xataka | Best VPNs 2025: guide with the 17 best services to protect your online privacy

A third of the planet’s ships depend on a single Norwegian company. And they have chosen Alicante for their global expansion

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In the world of shipping, there is a silent giant whose technology is responsible for ensuring that a third of the world’s fleet is not lost at ocean or collided in port. This is Kongsberg, the Norwegian conglomerate controlled mostly by its State, which has turned the province of Alicante into an indispensable piece of its global chess board. Today, more than 30,000 ships they are capable of plowing the seas thanks to systems that are managed, maintained and repaired from offices located between La Vila Joiosa and the NOBO business center in the capital of Alicante. A strategic divorce to conquer the stock market. The news that has shaken the foundations of the industry this year is the segregation of the matrix. According to the company itselfKongsberg Gruppen ASA has decided to split into two independent entities to gain agility: on the one hand, the Defense and “Discovery” division (fishing and research); and on the other, Kongsberg Maritime, the jewel in the crown dedicated to navigation systems, which will begin trading separately on the Oslo Stock Exchange on April 23, 2026. This financial independence is backed by solid figures on Spanish soil. According to the newspaper The Informationthe Spanish subsidiary invoiced a total of 31.7 million euros in 2024, with a profit of more than five million. It is not surprising that Lisa Edvardsen Haugan, future CEO of the new independent company, claim that they are “unitarily positioned for value creation in the global maritime sector.” Why Alicante and not Vigo or Algeciras? The story of how a Nordic power ended up installing its nerve center in the province of Alicante has a component that is as human as it is strategic. In 1995, the company was looking for a headquarters in Spain. Although ports like Vigo or Barcelona seemed logical options, the executive in charge of the expansion opted for the coast of Alicante. The reason was the existence of a historical and consolidated colony of Norwegians in municipalities such as La Vila Joiosa or Altea. However, what began as a small delegation for the fishing sector—under the name Simrad Spain— has mutated into something much more ambitious. After the purchase of the maritime division of Rolls-Royce, the structure became too small. Today, the move of Kongsberg Maritime to the NOBO business center in the capital of Alicante responds to a need to attract talent. Miguel Ángel González, general director in Spain, points out that this change seeks to increase the attractiveness of the firm to retain engineers and software developers, in addition to reducing emissions due to staff travel by 30%. The brain of the autonomous boat. Alicante is not a simple administrative office; It is one of the only three resource hubs that the group has on the planet, along with Poland and Norway itself, capable of serving ships around the world thanks to its strategic position between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. As explained by the company itselfnaval autonomy is not new — they have been developing Dynamic Positioning Systems (DPS) for 40 years that allow a ship to remain stationary at an exact point in the ocean without using anchors — but now the technology has reached a “critical mass.” Yara Birkeland: The world now look in amazement to the world’s first fully electric, autonomous and zero-emission container ship, developed by Kongsberg together with YARA. Reach Remote: This is a series of unmanned surface vessels (USV) that are controlled from a remote center. According to senior designer Erik Leendersthis allows a single captain to control several ships at once from dry land. The “Jewel in the Crown”: The DPS system is what allows that Sasemar (Maritime Rescue) oil platforms or rescue ships operate with extreme safety on the high seas. The horizon. The future of navigation involves electric motors that generate your own energy with the rotation of the propellers. To manage this complex flow of data, the firm Kognifai has launchedan Artificial Intelligence platform that optimizes ship operations. Although the technology is ready, the company’s technical report warns that the biggest current challenge is not engineering, but legislation. As the firm warnswe are in “uncharted territory” and the IMO still needs to define the rules for these ships without humans. What was born in 1995 as a fishing office in La Vila has become in 2026 the command post from which Norway and Alicante dictate the rules of the future of global trade by sea. Image | Kongsberg Xataka | The ships of the oil “ghost fleet” turn off their GPS to avoid being detected. Malaysia is going to hunt them with drones

Germany does not want to depend on Elon Musk for war. So the largest weapons factory in Europe wants a “military Starlink”

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For decades, European security has rested on critical infrastructure controlled from the United States. But with the war back on the continent and space communications becoming a decisive military assetGermany is beginning to assume that it cannot afford depend on Elon Musk nor from Washington for something as basic as talking and fighting in case of conflict. A “military Starlink”. Rheinmetall and OHB are in preliminary talks to present a joint offer to create a satellite communications network in low orbit for the Bundeswehr, a system that in Berlin already is openly described as a “Starlink for the German army”. The initiative aims to capture part of the ambitious German plan for invest 35,000 million euros in military space technology, with the aim of providing a secure, sovereign infrastructure specifically designed for military use, reducing dependence on US services such as Starlink, owned by SpaceX. Technological sovereignty. The background of the project will be one of the great themes of this 2026, and it is both strategic and political, since the war in Ukraine has shown to what extent satellite communications in low orbit can be decisive when terrestrial networks are destroyed or degraded. Although Starlink (and its military version Starshield) became in a key asset for kyiv, many European countries distrust to base critical capabilities on a foreign private provider, which has accelerated plans to build national or European networks under state control. The weight of Germany. With this program, Germany aims to become the third largest investor world in space technology, only behind the United States and China, according to the consulting firm Novaspace. German military authorities have already defined the technical specifications and are preparing the tender, prioritizing coverage of NATO’s eastern flank, where Berlin deploys a permanent brigade of 5,000 soldiers in Lithuania as part of its defensive reinforcement. From armored to space. Traditionally associated with tanks, artillery and ammunitionRheinmetall is rapidly expanding its presence into new domains in the heat of German rearmament. At the end of last year it obtained its first major space contract, up to 2,000 million eurosto develop together with Iceye a constellation of radar satellites capable of operating at night and in bad weatherwhich puts it in a solid position to now aspire to a military communications system in low orbit. HBO and opportunity. For HBOthird largest European satellite manufacturer and navigation system supplier Galileothe project represents a key opportunity to strengthen its military business. The company faces the possible creation of a European space giant as a result of the merger of the divisions from Airbus, Thales and Leonardoan operation that its CEO considers potentially anti-competitive and that could leave OHB at a disadvantage if it does not expand its scale and capabilities. Boiling market. The simple announcement of the talks has OHB price skyrocketedreflecting the extent to which the sector perceives German military space spending as a catalyst for opportunity. That said, the project is still in an early phase, with no official comments from the companies or the Ministry of Defense, and is part of a growing competition for multi-million dollar contracts that will define who controls future critical military communications infrastructure in Europe. Image | Support Forces of Ukraine Command In Xataka | Germany is experiencing a new “industrial miracle” that it already experienced 90 years ago: that of weapons In Xataka | Europe’s largest arms factory faces an unexpected problem: earning an indecent amount of money

Technology salaries in Spain do not depend on the skills of the employee. They depend on the type of company

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The technological salaries in Spain They no longer depend so much on how good you are at programming, but on the type of company you work for. The same senior profile can earn from figures typical of a small traditional SME to salaries that compete with the best engineers at Google or Meta, just for changing the type of company. At least that theory is what emerges from a salary analysis carried out by the technological employment platform Manfred, based on the observations of a former Uber engineer: in technology there is not one type of salary, but there are three, and it depends on the type of company in which you work. The “trimodal” model of technological salaries. The “trimodal” concept explains that the technology salary distribution It does not form a uniform continuous line that brings together the entire sector, but rather three distinct groups with little overlap between them. Depending on what type of company you are working for, this is how good your salary will be. The analysis is based on the observations of Gergely Orosz, former head of engineering at Uber, who analyzed on his blog the distribution of technological salaries in Europe and highlights that these groups arise from how each company decides to compare itself with the competition when setting compensation. If an SME only needs to compete against other SMEs, their salaries will be lower than those of large corporations that want to compete among themselves. Manfred has adapted that model to the reality of salaries in Spain and shows that a senior engineer can earn from 35,000 euros to 130,000 euros gross annually depending on his company group, even carrying out a job with similar responsibilities. This division makes individual talent matter less than the company’s salary strategy, creating huge gaps for equivalent profiles. Trimodal distribution of salaries in Spain. Source: Manfred Group 1: local companies with technology as support. The companies in the first group see technology as an internal service, similar to an IT department and, at a salary level, they are only compared with close competitors in your sector. In Spain, Manfred describes them as consultancies and large non-digital corporations, with basic selection processes and very hierarchical structures. This first group presents the greatest labor concentration of all of them, but offers the lowest salary rangeplacing 40,000 euros at its most common average. Given that their market is local, their salary structures are within the usual margins in Spain. In this group, the work is predictable, with a good balance between work and personal life, but without significant variable incentives, beyond a possible 10% of the base salary linked to the company’s performance. Group 2: “Scaleups” and technology companies. The second group brings together companies that compete with the entire local and some international technological fabric, raising their salary offers to attract talent or capture it among your competitors. This group includes technological startups that have already surpassed their maturity and are now seeking both national and international growth, with tougher and greater hiring processes. emphasis on autonomy. The salaries of these companies no longer only compete for the best talent at a local level, but also expand it to a European level, which is why they usually offer salaries above 60,000 euros and offer bonuses of up to 20% of the base salary in cash and shares to more experienced engineers, although not always on a general basis. That is, their remuneration is slightly above the average in Spain. Group 3: giants competing on a global scale. Companies in the third group measure themselves with the international market, attracting talent from anywhere in the world. We are talking about jobs in large technology companies such as Amazon, Uber, Google or Meta, as well as large financial entities that are developing large technological infrastructures. In this group they are shuffled international level salaries in order to attract the best qualified talent regardless of their place of origin. However, to access these positions you also have to overcome much more competitive selection processes. These firms offer salary ranges above 100,000 euros and cash bonuses of around 40% or 50% of the base salary are offered for those employees who achieve all their objectives and actions for all levels, even for junior employees. Not everything is money, what career do you want? Beyond money, each group offers a very different style of work. In Group 1, local companies prioritize stability and work-life balance, with schedules that allow for some flexibilityin addition to offering a greater number of job offers. Instead, Group 3 of global giants brings greater instabilitywith frequent rounds of layoffs when you don’t meet expectations and high turnover because they pay so much to attract only the best. Teleworking is a common practice in Groups 1 and 2, but the large corporations in Group 3 practically they have removed it of their offers and sometimes ask to move close to their main offices in Madrid or Barcelona. The number of job offers in Groups 2 and 3 are much lower than those in Group 1, so it is also more complicated to access a company with these characteristics, making it difficult to jump from one company to another within that same group. In Xataka | The harsh reality of salaries in Spain: the most common gross salary in 2023 did not exceed 16,000 euros per year Image | Unsplash (Sigmund)

Japan does not want to depend on China for rare earths. And that is why it is drilling the ocean at 6,000 meters deep

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He map of the world’s (known) rare earth reserves makes one thing clear: China is the absolute queen. Although They are neither earth nor are they rareconstitute a real poker of aces in the game of global geopolitics, energy and technology. And it’s not just about having lanthanides in your territory, it’s about discovering them and knowing how to extract them. Within that graph, in the Asia section, we can see that Japan does not even appear on the map. And it’s not because there aren’t any, because there are, there are. But so far they have turned to their trading partner and neighbor: China. Where Christ lost the lighter. In 2024 Japan found an impressive site of 230 million tons that would put it on the front line. But that site had small print: it is at the bottom of the sea, in a coral atoll in the Pacific about 1,900 kilometers southeast of Tokyo. Fair where they suspected. Last summer discovered his roadmap with a first stage that would begin right now, in January 2026. Japan and China, on the brink of the abyss. The two Asian countries are mired in a deep diplomatic crisis. The great trigger was the statements of the Japanese Prime Minister at the end of 2025 suggesting that a Chinese military intervention in Taiwan could be considered an “existential crisis” for Japan, which would open the doors to a Japanese military response. The consequences were immediate: China considered it interference and began to intensify its maritime patrols and areas near Japanese waters in a move that has displeased the Japanese government. consider it reckless in terms of security. 2026 also began with trade consequences from China such as the veto on seafood products, restrictions on tourism and an embargo on the export of dual-use goods (civil and military), including rare earths. So Japan has to expedite another way to obtain rare earths to feed its automotive industry in particular and technology in general. And he has done it. Just in time. Given the rough patch he’s going through with his partner and neighbor, the timing couldn’t be better. Last Monday a mining ship set sail for that remote atoll located in front of the Minami-Torishima Island to begin a month-long mission in which the famous Japanese drill ship Chikyu and a crew of 130 people will have to go all out, literally, to try to continuously extract rare earths from that succulent seabed six kilometers deep. And we say “try” because It’s the first time it’s been done. If successful, a full-scale mining test will follow in February 2027. Japan’s “detox” of Chinese rare earths. It is not the first time that Japan has been in this situation. Without going any further, in 2010 China retained exports after an incident that took place between a Chinese fishing boat and two Japanese patrol boats near the Senkaku Islands (administered by Japan but claimed by China). At that time, Japan managed to reduce their dependence from China from 90 to 60%. The alternative route involved investments in projects abroad (for example, from Australia) or promoting recycling and manufacturing processes that are more independent of the base material. But now it is different because who can obtain rare earths within their own territory. Looking to the horizon. Since the diplomatic crisis of 2010, Japan has been investigating in search of mineral reserves. Without going any further, this one on Minamitori Island has been in development since 2018 and the Japanese government has invested more than 40 billion yen (250 million dollars) since then. It was previously considered economically unviable, but between China’s embargo and the willingness to pay higher prices, it already seems more plausible, explains Kotaro Shimizuprincipal analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting. The senior director of economic security policy at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan on the China Talk podcast This week’s issue revealed how the government must continually remind companies of the importance of diversifying their supply chains: “Sometimes an event occurs and the company reacts, but when the event ends, the company forgets. We have to maintain a continuous effort” In Xataka | The “B side” of the United States landing in Venezuela: a subsoil full of hypothetical rare earths In Xataka | Greenland has 1.5 million tons of rare earths. The problem is that there are no roads to get to them. Cover | Peggy Greb and Gleam – Photo taken by Gleam., CC BY-SA 3.0

China is launching more rockets into space than ever before. And the reason is very simple: not to depend on Starlink

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China has taken the lead in a disputed area: that of space sovereignty. To talk about space is to think directly about the POTbut the photo has changed in recent years. The space race It is no longer just a matter of government agencies, but also of private companies as SpaceXthe Spanish PLD Space either Blue Origin. Europe seeks its space without depending on anyone and countries like China and India are taking steps to expand your borders by looking into space. And, earlier this month, China complete four space missions. It is a clear blow to the United States. Rhythm. 2025 has marked a turning point in China’s aerospace industry. The country has broke his record of launches with more than 80 orbitals throughout the year (it was on 68 launches), adding the one with three Long March rockets taking off less than 19 hours apart. Something like this is within the reach of very few. Specifically, only within the reach of SpaceX in terms of pace. stress test. The litmus test took place at the beginning of December, when the Chinese space agency carried out a stress test on its system. Between the 5th and 9th of this month, China overloaded its entire launch chain. They used four different launch sites to test the extent to which their launch, logistics and telemetry centers could operate in good conditions. With this, the country wanted to check to what extent its different centers can operate almost in parallel, without interference and without hindering each other. This is key for routine launches of mega satellite constellations, but also for rapid responses during a crisis. It is also a trial by fire to see how optimized the process is in which the rockets can spend the shortest time possible at the launch points, without forming bottlenecks. What do they throw?. For this operation, four ports were mobilized: Hainan, Taiyuan, Xichang and Jiuquan. And what they have put in the space is… a little of everything: Mission 1: A Kuaizhou-1A rapid-deploy rocket launched from Jiuquan. In the cargo there were VDES satellites to identify ships and their purpose is dual: to monitor maritime traffic, but also to have an analytical capacity for data on the high seas. Mission 2: a Long March 8A rocket designed for a high rate of launches that started from Hainan. It carried 14 Guowang satellites, the state’s answer to Starlink. This is also the most strategicsince the Long March 8A is designed to compete directly against Starlink’s Falcon 9 in costs and launch rate. Mission 3: another Long March, 6A. It left Taiyuan without a confirmed payload, although it is a rocket that has previously been used to launch more Guowang satellites into orbit. Mission 4: a Long March 4B that took off from Jiuquan and is the most “military” of all. Launched Yaogan-47, a satellite recognition to “census lands and estimate crops.” It is still a remote sensing satellite, and we are in a very complex moment in the Pacific. CAS Space The fear of Starlink. One of China’s goals is to have its own Starlink system. This involves thousands of satellites orbiting and providing service, something that cannot be launched in one go. This intense four-day campaign puts on the table the logistical capacity of the Chinese space agency to be able to launch many launches in a short space of time without jeopardizing their reliability. It is a movement that will allow climb the launch of thousands of Guowang satellites into orbit and, when we talk about “fear” of Starlink, we mean that China wants to occupy the orbital space before it runs out of chairs. It is estimated that Starlink has more than 6,000 satellites circling and another 42,000 planned. China has 25,000 planned between Guowang and G60, but in space the law of “first come, first served” applies. The International Telecommunications Union assigns orbits and frequencies under this principle, so China does not want to fall behind the West. Specifically, against the United States. Sovereignty. In fact, there is an interesting “prick” with Musk’s satellites that has nothing to do with communication. Starlink has already demonstrated its usefulness in the war context (andn the war in Ukraine, for example), but also, in 2021 Tiangong space station had to maneuver twice to avoid satellites starlink. And we already know that Russia, China and the United States are preparing (and according to the United States, more than just preparing) for a war in space. In the end, it is a matter of spatial sovereignty. The United States is the proper name when we think about space, but China has been strengthening its position for decades and more recently has begun to occupy that space. And from the European Union it is alsoe is testing the ground for that spatial sovereignty. The goal of all agencies and governments is the same: not to depend on external technology. And this stress test by China when it comes to launching is a blow to its biggest rival. Image | CAS Space, Galactic Energy In Xataka | After many years trying to copy the Falcon 9, Elon Musk believes there is a company about to achieve it

They depend on road transport and there is a lack of 3.6 million truck drivers

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Today almost everything you buy, from supermarket food to the latest mobile phone, has traveled by truck before reaching your hands, and in Europe three out of every four tons of goods move by road. 75% of the goods are transported by road and 85% of the transportation of perishable products is done in fleets of trucks that, currently, do not have enough drivers. The International Road Transport Organization (IRU) calculate that in 36 countries that add up to around 70% of the world’s GDP there are 3.6 million truck driver vacancies, which represents around 7% of the total existing positions. With the progressive aging of the templates, the problem it’s not going to get better in the coming years. One million truck drivers by 2026. For Europe, the IRU predicts that in 2026 there will be a shortage of around one million professional truck drivers. Meanwhile the rise of online commerce demand has skyrocketed of road transport and, according to calculations presented by IRU, the volume transported in Europe will grow by approximately 11% until 2030, which aggravates the tension between the supply of drivers and the real needs of the market. The data provided by IRU show that the driver shortage is a structural problem that affects America, Asia and Europe equally and is not limited to a specific crisis in the road transport sector. Sector sources warn that, if decisive action is not taken, the number of vacancies could exceed seven million drivers by 2028, with 4.9 million unfilled positions in China, about 745,000 in Europe and around 200,000 in Turkey. “If concerted and continuous measures are not taken, this demographic time bomb will explode, seriously affecting economic growth and competitiveness around the world,” said Umberto de Pretto, secretary general of the IRU in his report. Spain needs 30,000 drivers. This lack of professional drivers It is already visible in Spain, where it is estimated that there are around 30,000 unfilled truck driver positions and around 4,700 additional vacancies in bus transportation to meet the growing demand. The IRU and national carrier associations warn that, if the trend continues, the combination of more cargo to move and fewer available drivers could translate into uncovered routes, delays in deliveries and strong pressure on transportation costs. An aging sector with little relief. One of the underlying problems is the age of those who are already working behind the wheel of a truck. In Europe, the average age of drivers is around 47 years old, while in Spain the average is over 50 years old. 50% of Spanish truck drivers are over 55 years old. IRU points out that some 3.4 million truck drivers on the continent will retire in the coming years, which means that millions of professionals will leave the sector in a relatively short period, further aggravating the shortage of labor for the transport of goods. Without quarry. At the same time, the freight transport sector does not have a enough generational change. Less than 12% of professional truck drivers are under 25 years of age on a global scale and in Europe that percentage falls to around 5%, with countries such as Spain or Poland where those under 25 years of age barely represent around 3% of the workforce. To attract new drivers, some governments have begun to make moves, although for now in a limited way. In Spain aid has been approved up to 3,000 euros per person to get a truck permit or class C and D bus. Job improvements. Faced with a scenario of labor shortage, professional drivers’ associations they regret the few proposals aimed at improving the working conditions of professionals. According to a study by the transportation sector employment platform TDRJobs, salary increases (24.3%) and improved working conditions (22.1%) are among the main reasons for driver turnover. In Xataka | That Japan has 100,000 people over 100 years old explains a problem: they are literally running out of drivers. Image | Unsplash (Konstantin Kitsenuik)

Spain, France and Germany could not depend on the “button” of the F-35. So the future European fighter aims for something else

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In the month of September the future European fighter in which Spain participates began to disfigure publicly. Germany threatened to open FCAS to new partners if there was no agreement with France, while Spain joined Berlin with Indra and, on the opposite sidewalk, a continental bet appeared, the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) that brought together Italy, the United Kingdom and Japan around a different philosophy. Now, in a new twist of the script, the European fighter is aiming for something else. An overflowing program. He Future Combat Air System (FCAS), conceived in 2017 as Europe’s great bet to build the combat air ecosystem of the second half of the 21st century and put aside the american dependencyis going through its crisis deeper. Germany and France, political and industrial drivers of the project, they study abandoning the most symbolic piece (the new generation fighter) to take refuge in its only still viable element: the combat clouda command and control network based on artificial intelligence capable of integrating manned aircraft, swarms of drones, radars, sensors and naval and land systems in the same operational environment. The shift does not seem like a simple technical reorientation, but rather a tacit recognition that the differences between Airbus and Dassault Aviation They have reached a point of no return. At a time when Europe wants to demonstrate strategic autonomy after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the largest military program of the continent is at risk of fracturing due to the inability of its two main contractors to share responsibilities, cede control and coordinate incompatible industrial visions. The Airbus-Dassault divorce. The conflict between Dassault and Airbus it’s not recentbut it has now reached an intensity that makes advancing the fighter impossible. Dassault, creator of the Rafale and a family-owned company, demands total authority on the design of the aircraft and selection of suppliers. For its part, Airbus (which represents Germany and part of Spain) considers that a European project of this magnitude should be governed by a balanced distribution of work. Negotiations have been stalled for years, with each party accusing the other of breaking agreements. While Dassault threatens to continue alone because “it has all the necessary experience”, the temptation to replace France grows in Berlin through the United Kingdom or Swedentwo partners who already participate in the rival Tempest program. The result is a vicious circle: without trust, there is no cooperation, without cooperation, there is no plane, and without plane, the FCAS becomes an empty shell supported only by the idea. from combat cloud. FCAS The German temptation and the French dilemma. The pressure is not symmetrical. Germany, which has relaxed its spending limit to rearm on a large scaledoes not want to be held hostage by a French company that is blocking progress. According to the Financial Timesin the environment of Chancellor Friedrich Merz an increasingly clear message is heard: if collaboration does not work, Berlin has the resources to continue without Paris. France, for its part, shows caution: its nuclear deterrent It depends on the replacement of the Rafale starting in the next decade, and an abrupt divorce could delay a key system for its strategic security. Although Macron hoped to rebuild trust after years of disagreements, even French voices admit that the project is “immobilized and almost dead,” and that the only real way out is through direct intervention by the president on Éric Trappier, the powerful CEO of Dassault. Combat Cloud The combat cloud as a strategic refuge. Just because the plane stalls doesn’t mean FCAS is meaningless. The most transformative piece of the program is not the fighter, but the AI-based distributed command and control system: a combat cloud european that allows any platform (Rafale, Eurofighter, long-range drones, naval sensors or ground radars) to share data in real time. This system, developed by Airbus (Germany), Thales (France) and Indra (Spain), is the only thing that everyone agrees on: Europe can (co)live with several planes, but not with incompatible networks that depend entirely on the American technological umbrella as was the case with the F-35. That is why it is proposed to accelerate the entry into service from the cloud to 2030a decade ahead of schedule, and armor it as a common pillar even if the joint fighter disappears. For many European countries, having their own cloud is the only way to guarantee that, if Washington one day looks the other way, the continent’s armies can operate in a cohesive and autonomous manner. Failure with implications. If he FCAS collapsesit will not just be an industrial setback, but a devastating geopolitical message. Europe has been proclaiming its desire for military autonomy for years, but every time it tries to create its own capabilities it runs into problems. same obstacles: competition between nations, political misgivings, absence of common governance and divergent priorities. This crisis also comes at a critical moment, when the war in Ukraine has demonstrated that technological superiority it is played onlinethat reaction time is vital and that Western systems must interoperate seamlessly. That the largest European defense project could collapse for corporate disputes shows the extent to which the dream of an integrated defense continues to depend on fragile foundations. What is played in a few weeks. The Financial Times recalled that the calendar is tight. Paris, Berlin and Madrid must decide before the end of the year whether to finance the airplane demonstration, an investment of several billion that no one wants to approve while the project remains blocked. The meetings between the French minister Catherine Vautrin, her German counterpart Boris Pistorius, Merz and Macron will be decisive: or the FCAS is redefined around to combat cloud or formally disintegrates. Everyone repeats that the Franco-German bilateral relationship should not be damaged, but the reality is that companies have carried out the program to the limit. The FCAS was born to symbolize defense Europe, but today only the combat cloud keeps that symbol alive as the last possible bridge between two industries that no longer … Read more

May the world depend on your new energy

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Representatives of eight Western venture capital firms have traveled to China and realized one thing: the West can’t compete in new energy. This phrase could be a ‘clickbaitero’ headline, but it is the experience that representatives of several companies told a few weeks ago to Bloomberg. And the truth is that it is nothing new either. China has been consolidating a extraordinary domain in multiple clean energy sectors. It is something supported by industrial supremacy and significantly lower costs than those of its Western competitors, which has been evidently reflected in sectors such as electric car batteries or in sectors such as solar or wind energy. In the Bloomberg article, some of the components of that peculiar Western ‘road trip’ through China wonder How European and North American competitors can compete (or survive) in sectors such as batteries and components of renewable energy sources. The reason? The figures leave no room for doubt: China dominates batteriesthe wind turbinesthe solar panels, the electric vehicles and something even more important: the production chain and critical materials. New energy mastery Not so long ago, China had a massive problem within its borders: pollution that seriously harmed the health of its population. By adopting different measures, they have managed to reduce it significantly, achieving decarbonization objectives before the established dates. And much of the ‘blame’ is adoption of electric vehicles and energy sources that emit less CO₂ into the atmosphere. It is not unusual to see news every so often about the progress of some of China’s macro energy projects, such as the ‘great solar wall‘, huge wind turbines or the construction of the new largest dam in the world which, in addition, will be a gigantic hydroelectric plant. Such is the commitment to renewables that China has managed to the world depends on its technologywith Europe and the United States that cannot compete in the price of solar panels and with a so fierce competition between your companies that They have even had to sign agreements not to continue selling at a loss. Since we are with solar, esteem that China reached 887 GW of solar capacity in 2024, installing about 270 GW in that year alone. This represents 55% of all new solar installations in the world last year, but they are not only dominating this segment. The percentages leave no room for doubt: China controls between 80% and 85% of the world’s solar panel manufacturing capacity and more than 95% of solar wafers. In wind turbines, they count with 60-70% dominance of global production and nine of the fifteen largest global manufacturers they are chinese. As for electric vehicles, they have control of 70% of global production. In 2024, they manufactured 12 million of the 17 million EVs in the world, and of their production, 11 were sold in the domestic market. Related to the three previous points, we have the manufacture of batteries. It is estimated that they control between 75% and 80% of the production of lithium-ion batteries and these are used to store new energy, but also for electric and hybrid vehicles. The only technology where things are more even between China and the West is hydrogen. It is estimated that China dominates 53% of its production, while Europe (30%) and the United States (12%) would add 42%. Mastery of the production chain (and a model that cannot be replicated in the West) This dominance in production is evident, but beyond the data in the different sectors, there is another key that explains the power of Chinese companies. The country controls the rare earth productionalmost monopolistic way. The world depends on minerals and metals processed from rare earths, as they are critical in all technological sectors, but particularly in batteries and elements such as magnets that are used to create wind turbines. Without going any further, The country processes 80% of the world’s lithium and produce 90% of the anodes and electrolytes present in batteries. For years, The West has delegated that production to China due to how polluting they are, but now Western companies have come face to face with a reality in which China has the upper hand. The United States has realized this: if they applied tariffs, China limited exports of rare earth metals. Speaking of the United States, former Vice President Al Gore affirms that China’s supremacy in the energy transition will force many nations to establish closer ties with the country, describing, incidentally, the United States’ energy shift towards fossil fuels as “a tragedy.” And to this control of the production chain is added the so-called “model 996“. This system emerged in the chinese technology industryparticularly in companies like Huawei or Alibaba, and basically implies: I work from 9 to 9 six days a week. Considered a form of modern slavery, companies justified and defended as the method of matching Western technology companies in record time, but the mental health cost (and even suicides) was so enormous that the Chinese Ministry of Human Resources declared it illegal in 2021. Companies are required to comply with the law, but it has been denounced that there are still technology companies that continue with these practicesand added to all the above, it is something that the West cannot compete with. Unless you are a Silicon Valley company. Image | Google Maps, BYD In Xataka | While half the world debates and makes promises about nuclear energy, only one country is keeping them: China

Data centers do not want to depend on the conventional electrical grid. Solution: build your own plants

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AI data centers have sparked a new fever: the so-called “bring your own power.” The demand and consumption The pressure these plants impose is so enormous that they do not want to depend on external sources. The solution is theoretically simple, and we are already seeing how when a new data center is built, it is normal for some type of power plant to be built next to it. We are seeing it now. The data centers that OpenAI and Oracle are building in West Texas are accompanied by the creation of a natural gas-based power plant. Both xAI’s Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 in Memphis take advantage of gas turbines. And as they also indicate in The Wall Street Journalmore than a dozen Equinix data centers across the US are powered by stand-alone fuel cells. If the conventional electrical grid cannot be used, nothing happens: you create a power plant and that’s it. The US has an electrical problem. The technology giants would prefer to connect to the conventional grid, but bottlenecks in the supply chain, bureaucracy – permits, licenses – and the slowness in building the necessary transmission infrastructure prevent this. According to the ICV firmThe United States would need to add about 80 GW of new generation capacity per year to keep pace with AI, but right now less than 65 GW per year are being built. There is another direct consequence of this problem: the rise in the electricity bill. Data centers that look like cities. The needs and ambition of AI companies has made data centers become calculation and resource consumption monsters. One can only consume as much electricity as 10,000 stores in the Walmart electronics chain, WSJ estimates. Before 2020, data centers represented less than 2% of US energy consumption. By 2028 they are expected to represent up to 12%. A 1.5 GW data center, for example, would have consumption similar to that of the city of San Francisco, with about 800,000 inhabitants. China has a lot of advantage over the US in this. While the US deal with that lack of powerChina does not stop investing in new energy generation. According to data According to the National Energy Administration, the Asian country added 429 GW of new energy generation in 2024, while the US only added 50 GW. It is true that China has four times the population, but its centralized planning is helping to avoid problems that affect the US electrical grid. The white knight to the rescue. Faced with this shortage, natural gas has become the preferred resource for on-site energy generation. Although large turbines have long delivery times, smaller turbines or fuel cells that use natural gas are being used because of their rapid availability and installation. Renewables lose steam. Meanwhile, things are not promising for renewable energies (solar and wind, especially). There are about 214 GW of new generation theoretically in projectbut spending on such technologies could decline due to the potential loss of tax credits: the Trump administration criticizes that those clean energies do not provide a constant flow necessary for AI. The nuclear alternative. Faced with this apparent decline of nuclear energy, there is a growing interest in compact nuclear reactors (SMR), which allow us to provide the advantages of this type of center and a flexibility that can be very interesting for AI data centers. amazon, Google, Goal either Microsoft They are betting part of their future on nuclear powerbut that It doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges to overcome.. Image | Wolfgang Weiser In Xataka | World record in nuclear fusion: the German Wendelstein 7-X reactor has broken all records

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