with seven Dutch companies together

These American companies control 60% of the global cloud infrastructure market: Microsoft and its Azure, Google Cloud and Amazon AWS, a providential sector in the globalized and permanently connected world in which we live. And very lucrative: in 2025 revenues exceeded $400 billion, according to Synergy Researchthis is nine times more than in 2017. There are no corporations capable of overshadowing these three, so seven Dutch cloud services companies they have made a decision: unite to be a real alternative to American big tech. The movement is more important than it seems: it is an organized response to such dependency that it is already considered a strategic risk. The project: Open Cloud Alliance. The answer is Open Cloud Alliantie, a conglomerate formed by Centric, KPN, Info Support, Intermax, Nebul, Previder and Uniserver, with a joint turnover of 2.5 billion euros annually. In their manifesto they explain that they are creating jobs in the Netherlands and that both companies and those who work in them pay taxes there. As explains Ludo BaauwCEO of the Intermax Group to NRC, separately they are competitive and their reason for being is not to set prices, but to bid for public contracts: “I would prefer a competitor from the Netherlands to win rather than a large American technology company.” There was a trigger to join: the possible sale of Solvinity, provider of cloud services for the Dutch government’s Digid digital identity system, to the American company Kyndryl. The agreement is pending approval by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, but it has already had consequences. A strategic vulnerability. The first consequence was to put on the table a vulnerability of the Dutch system that can be extrapolated to all the states of the old continent. According to an analysis carried out by NOS, 67% of the domains of Dutch public organizations, hospitals and schools depend on at least one American cloud service. Why is it important. The project has three compelling reasons for existing: Be real competition from North American big tech. The CEO of the Dutch competition body (ACM) has made it clear: “Overall, alliances like this can boost market forces by creating new players that are better positioned to compete with large American suppliers.” Boost to the national economy. The companies are clear in their manifesto: jobs and taxes for the Netherlands. In a phrase: “it is not an expense, it is an investment.” Data sovereignty. That such critical state services as health, education or digital identity depend on foreign companies subject to foreign legislation and corporate decisions outside of European control. Context. This movement arises within the European debate on digital sovereignty and reducing technological dependence on the United States. The trend is not new, but Trump’s policies have accelerated that conversation. Europe has the legal framework in the form of GDPRthe Digital Markets Lawthe Digital Services Law wave Chips Actwhich make up a solid regulatory arsenal aimed at reducing foreign technological dependence. The problem is that having the laws is not equivalent to having the industry. Local European suppliers are individually solvent, but they do not have the capacity to absorb complex projects or compete with the scale of the big three that dominate the market. Not even GAIA-Xthe large Franco-German sovereign cloud project, has been able to so far. Europe regulates well but scales poorly and that is the void that the Open Cloud Alliantie is going to try to fill. How are they going to work?. He operating model It will be based on three pillars: Common technical standards, which will allow data to be moved between providers without friction by adopting the same technical specifications. Collaboration yes, cartel no. They will share standard infrastructure and may bid together for large contracts, but they are still competing with each other when it comes to winning customers. Sovereignty clause. If one of the seven is acquired by a non-European company, the others automatically absorb its role. The data always remains in Dutch hands, regardless of what happens in the mergers and acquisitions market. Towards technological sovereignty of the cloud. The Open Cloud Alliantie is a relevant experiment on which other member states and corporations will set their sights as long as it is perfectly replicable. Medium-sized companies that otherwise could not compete with large companies in the United States, but that, grouped under common standards and clear collaboration rules, can offer a credible alternative to the public sector. The question is whether other European countries will take note before the dependency becomes too deep to reverse. In Xataka | Europe is looking for a place to put its AI gigafactory. Spain and Portugal are showing all their renewable plumage In Xataka | Europe has proposed to become technologically independent from the US: And it has started with the most difficult thing: chips Cover | İsmail Enes Ayhan and François Genon

the Dutch philosopher convinced that saving snails is saving ourselves

Before the arrival of Westerners, in Hawaii there were more than 700 species of snails that were nowhere else. Since then, these Pacific islands have suffered all the human processes that have existed and to have occurred: from the most orthodox colonization to a totally accelerated globalization through rapid urbanization, intense militarization and tourism, a lot of tourism. The result can be summarized in just one figure: today, 60% of those snails have become extinct and those who remain are in frank decadence. Chronicle of many foretold deaths. By the early 20th century, populations were decimated, but still abundant. The boom in rats in the archipelago, the rapid changes in habitats and, above all, the arrival of the pink wolf snail (a foreign predator) have meant that the 200 or 300 species that survive do it in very isolated areas or, directly, only in ‘conversation labs‘. In one of them, in a trailer on the outskirts of Kailua and in the care of David Sischo, director of the snail extinction prevention program of the state, lived George (the last known individual of the species Achatinella apexfulva). He died there on January 1, 2019. That shocked those who were in the archipelago and, among them, Thom van Dooren. The cuckoo species trap. This professor of environmental humanities at the University of Sydney was dedicated to the study of everything that birds could teach us, he realized George’s trick. The same trap as Sudan or what other animals. He realized that “There is value in saving charismatic speciesamong other things because they are very useful for raising awareness among the population and raising funds. But, as recently explained in an interview“we cannot forget that mass extinction also and above all affects invertebrates, which constitute 99% of animal life and are essential for pollination, soil fertilization or the nutrient cycle.” What we can learn from snails. For van Dooren, what the snails are “slowly and gently” teaching us is to think in the long term, to use the forces of others and to understand that if we do not think about the systemic (the preservation of habitats), we will have to fight very difficult battles one by one (apply “violent care” to species to avoid their extinction) But, above all, it gives us three very specific ideas: Being late is a problem: if we act when the problem is already “stopped”, everything is more difficult. If we have to ‘triar’, we have already arrived late: When we put ourselves in “emergency mode” we have to prioritize what can be saved over other considerations because we have limited time and resources. And intensive interventions do not fix the cause: we can rescue, replace, conserve… but if we do not change the underlying pressures we are only postponing the end. Snails can teach us precisely that: that at the end of the day, the important thing is to be clear about what we want and value. From there, it’s time to act accordingly. If not, we are condemned to live in our particular ‘Noah’s ark’. Image | Marina Grynykha | BBVA In Xataka | They identify the smallest species of land snail in the world: it is around 0.5 mm high and its discoverers needed brushes and a microscope

Nexperia China has been trying to contact the Dutch headquarters for days. The only response has been absolute silence

After the escalation of tension, andThe Dutch government suspended the order to control Nexperia and Nexperia China resumed shipments of critical chips. The European automotive industry could breathe and everything was being resolved, everything except the relationship between the two Nexperias. The conflict has left an internal war that does not seem to have an easy or quick solution. what’s happening. They count in South China Morning Post that Wingtech, the company that owns Nexperia in China (we will call it Nexperia China for simplicity), has been trying to contact Nexperia Netherlands for days and has not received any response. Nexperia China called this silence “deeply regrettable and disconcerting.” Take control. Nexperia China’s intentions are not simply to have a chat. a few days ago They published a statement in their WeChat account in which they assured that “control of Nexperia has not returned to its rightful owner” and expressed their intention to use “all legal avenues” to achieve this. It seems that in Holland they do not agree with these statements and have chosen silence in response. Nexperia Netherlands. His latest official statement It is from November 19, the same day that the Dutch government announced the suspension of the control order over the company. In it, they noted that Nexperia China had stopped “operating within the established corporate governance framework and are ignoring legal instructions from Nexperia’s global management” and provided several examples, such as creating unauthorized bank accounts for clients to make payments, sending letters to clients “with false information” and misappropriating corporate seals. Current status. The conflict put the European automotive industry in checkwhich depends on Nexperia chips for electronic modules and control units of many vehicles produced on the old continent. The Dutch government revoked the order and China lifted the veto it imposed in response. Chips are flowing into factoriesbut the conflict has left a deep scar on the company whose solution seems far away. Recently Nexperia China has appointed Sophie Shen Xinjia as president expert in legal advice and law graduate, so everything indicates that there will be a legal battle for control of the company. Image | Nexperia In Xataka | China has so many electric cars running on its streets that it is going to use them to generate energy for homes

China has not stood idly by in the face of the Dutch offensive against Nexperia. The pulse with Europe intensifies

Nexperia probably doesn’t sound familiar to us. It does not manufacture phones or computers, but its small chips are present in a good part of devices. For years, it was a discreet company based in the Netherlands and owned by the Chinese company Wingtech, far from the media spotlight. Everything changed this fall, when the Dutch Government took temporary control of its management citing reasons of economic securityand a few days later China banned its subsidiary from exporting part of its products. In just one week, an invisible company became the epicenter of the new technological pulse between Europe and Beijing. The Dutch Government’s measure was not an expropriation, but it was an unprecedented move. The Ministry of Economic Affairs invoked the Asset Availability Lawa 1952 law created to ensure the supply of essential goods. With it, he assumed veto power over strategic decisions. In parallel, The Amsterdam Business Chamber appointed an independent administrator and reorganized voting rights to ensure oversight. According to the Executive, it was about ensuring that the company maintained its production in Europe and avoiding any transfer of sensitive knowledge outside the continent. Dutch control over Nexperia has a very specific scope. The State does not own the company, but it can veto strategic decisions, changes in management or movements that modify its structure in Europe. Through the independent administrator appointed by a court, the Government has a direct say in the management and can stop any decision that it considers a risk to supply or technological security. Supervision has been established for an initial period of one year, although it is not clear whether monitoring could be extended beyond that period. Export veto. A few days after the Dutch decision, China reacted with a measure that directly hits the Asian subsidiary of Nexperia. The Ministry of Commerce vetoed the export of certain “finished components and subassemblies” manufactured in Chinese territory, both by the company itself and by its suppliers. The blockade does not affect its internal market, but limits part of the trade routes to Europe and America. The company has confirmed that it is seeking an agreement with the Chinese authorities to reverse the veto. Impact on the supply chain. Nexperia’s Guangdong plant is one of its largest centers, with a capacity of tens of billions of parts per year. The Chinese order affects precisely that facility and its local suppliers, which restricts international shipments. Nexperia keeps its factories active in Europe and Southeast Asia, which could help mitigate the effects of the blockade. For now, the company assures that European production and orders continue as normal. Official responses: Following the Dutch Government’s decision, Nexperia announced that it will fully cooperate with the authorities and implement the management changes ordered by the court. Wingtech, its Chinese parent company, talks about “an excessive intervention based on geopolitical bias rather than a fact-based risk assessment” by the Netherlands. From Beijing, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the politicization of the issue and discriminatory practices against Chinese companies Chronology to understand the case at a glance. In just two weeks, the Nexperia case went from being an administrative decision to becoming a diplomatic fight between Europe and China. September 30, 2025: The Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands invokes for the first time the Goods Availability Act to apply supervisory measures over Nexperia. October 4, 2025: China’s Ministry of Commerce prohibits Nexperia China and its subcontractors from exporting certain “finished components and subassemblies” manufactured in the country. October 7, 2025: The Amsterdam Business Chamber suspends CEO Zhang Xuezheng and appoints an independent administrator with decision-making power over the company. October 12, 2025: The Dutch Government officially announces the activation of the law and the control framework over Nexperia. October 14, 2025: Nexperia recognizes the veto imposed by Beijing and affirms that it is holding talks with the Chinese authorities to resolve the blockade. ⠀ The episode leaves more questions open than answers. China has not published a detailed list of affected products, and the available information comes from Nexperia’s statement on October 14. It is also not known whether Dutch supervision will end within the announced deadline or whether it could be extended. Ultimately, the company operates between two opposing regulations, with no clear margin for stable normality. A conflict, opposing views. The Netherlands maintains that it acts for economic security and to protect technological capabilities considered strategic. China, on the other hand, interprets the measure as a form of discrimination that seeks to slow its industrial advance. Between both positions, the company tries to maintain balance on a board that has become as political as it is technological. What is at stake is not only the future of Nexperia, but the role that Europe wants to play in the new geography of technology. Nexperia is not a minor player. From its headquarters in the Netherlands coordinates a global network of more than 12,500 employees and manufactures billions of components each year for industries ranging from automobiles to consumer electronics. Their chips, invisible to most, are part of the technical fabric that supports much of the digital economy. That scale explains why what began as a national measure has ended up resonating in a global debate about control, dependence and technological power. Images | Nexperia (1, 2, 3) In Xataka | Before the tariffs, China bought most of its beef from the US. After the tariffs another country has won

Microsoft has just made the greatest investment in its history. And not in Openai, but in an unknown Dutch company

Nebius Group, an unknown company based in Amsterdam, has signed a surprising multiannual agreement worth $ 19.4 billion with Microsoft. It is in fact the largest investment ever made by the firm of Redmond, and the question, of course, is why. What is Nebius Group. The company was founded in 1989 as Yandex NV, Yandex’s legal matrix, the well -known search engine that was a rival of Google in Russia. After the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Nebius Group Yandex sold to a group of Russian investorschanged his name to the current one and focused on a key segment: that of artificial intelligence. Data centers to power. Specifically, in the field of servers and data centers. Since then Nebius Group has been dedicated to providing cloud infrastructure for companies that develop and run AI models. Your rivals They are companies such as Coreweave, Crusoe or Lambda Labs, which are a step below the “hyperscators”, Aws, Azure, Google Cloud or Oracle. The agreement. In it Document registered in the SEC The US indicates that Nebius will yield the computing capacity of the GPUS of its data centers in varisa phases this year and the one that comes, and that the total value of the contract will be 17.4 billion until 2031, with an option for Microsoft to extend those services worth 2,000 million additional dollars. Microsoft cloud reinforcement. The agreement will allow Microsoft to access the computing resources available to Nebius in its Vineland Data Center (New Jersey, USA). It is a movement clearly for solve the shortage of resources that is coming when managing AI workloads: more and more users make use of this type of technology and Microsoft current data centers have a limited capacity. More than OpenAi. The operation is even greater than the one that Redmond’s firm He did in Openai Estimated at $ 13,000. This alliance has allowed Microsoft to have exclusive access to OpenAi’s models and reuse them in the form of its Copilot platform. Meanwhile, Openai has been able to use the Microsoft infrastructure to train and serve those same models to the general public. Nebius rises to the beast in the stock market. The agreement has triggered the value of Nebius’s shares, which had already folded their value in what we had been, but after the news They have grown 60%. The effect is contagious, because one of its srival, Coreweave, has also risen 5% in the stock market without having made any announcement: it has simply become possible candidate for Microsoft or any other large company to invest in its services soon. European taste centers. Although it has roots in Russia, Nebius seems to want to leave that past behind to settle definitively in the European Union. The company current account with five data centers: three operations (Helsinki, New Jersey and Kansas City) and two in development (Keflavik, in Iceland, and Paris). The focus on the installation of data centers in European territory is clear, as these last two projects in full development demonstrate. Another great “European” unicorn. After the creation of its Data Center in Paris – which will presume to have N200 N200 chips – Nebius announced its intention to invest more than 1,000 million dollars in mid -2025 in its AI infrastructure in Europe. Its new data centers in Paris and Iceland demonstrate that vocation, and the company is managing to capitalize on that commitment to AI. It is undoubtedly one of the last protagonists of the European technological scene, which little by little begins to raise alternatives. Freepik did it in Spainthey have done it Mistral and ASML with its unique agreement This week, and now Nebius does. Image | Nebius In Xataka | The ASML-Mistral alliance reveals the European plan B: if we cannot manufacture chips, we will at least control how they are manufactured

Australia was discovered in 1606 by Dutch. A theory defends that someone advanced a century: the Galicians

Thinking about Australia is thinking about Rare animals with A single objective: kill you. It also implies thinking about the entire country as a British prison. Obviously, it is an exaggeration, but relating Australia with the British is the most normal when it was they who, in 1770 and under the orders of the captain James Cookthey began to colonize the area. But a historian did not believe in official history and developed his own hypothesis: Australia was discovered by the Spaniards. By a Galician ship, specifically, that was brought eucalyptus and left some granaries. 1606, a busy year. The British did not discover Australia, or from afar. The classic Greeks already theorized about something they called “Terra Australis Incognita“Or” unknown land of the south. “They imagined a continent that should be there for the theory of geometric symmetry and even included in European maps without really knowing if there was something there. In 1606, Things changed. The Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon He explored the northern coast of Australia and other explorers from the same country mapped both the north and the west later decades. In 1770, the British Cook arrived at the east coast, explored it and, that same year, he claimed it for the United Kingdom. So He was born The current new South Wales and the English had a new territory to colonize. As? With prisoners that They sent there in 1788. Lost Spaniards. But in 1606 they were not only the Dutch spinning around Australia. Pedro Fernández de Quirós He was a Portuguese explorer in Spain who, in 1605, decided to start from Peru to find that “Incognite Terra Australis.” He reached the current Vanuatu, an island east of Australia, also to the current Tahiti. After weeks, it landed in a larger territory and finally I thought I had given with “Terra Australis.” The christening as “Austrialia of the Holy Spirit” and was so happy. Currently, it’s called Holy Spirit and is part of the Vanuatu archipelago. Quirós and his other ships threw themselves into the sea again, but the ships separated and the captain of one of them, Luis Váez de Torreshe started looking for the main nave. He returned to Holy Spirit, He turned around for the Strait between Australia and New Guinea … and left. The area is named after ‘Strait of Torres‘In his honor and the Australian writer George Colllingridge affirmed that Torres “had discovered Australia without being aware of it.” Robert Langdon. It seems that the Spaniards/Portuguese did not set foot in the continent, but there are those who grabbed a burning nail, defending yes, that the Spaniards had been the first to reach Australia. And if you are thinking that it would be a Spanish historian taking breast, no: it was Robert Langdonan Australian historian who is called the same as the protagonist of ‘The Da Vinci Code‘. Langdon relied on several pillars to develop his theory. The most important was the discovery of guns of Spanish ships discovered in the Atolón de Amanuan atoll of French Polynesia halfway between Australia, New Zealand and South America, in 1929. Langdon defended in his’The lost caravel‘that those cannons were from the San Lesmesa Galician caravel that was shipwrecked in the territory and that pushed its navigators to start exploring the territories of Oceania. They were also reported findings of Spanish armor and helmets in New Zealand that would support this idea, but there are more details that support that idea of ​​the historian. ‘Patakas’ in Australia. A classic construction of Galicia are the Hórreos. It is a peculiar construction to conserve food, such as grain, moving them from soil moisture. They are like high barns that are associated with Galicia, but really in other European countries and even in Japan. This is important because Langdon speculated on the influence of those explorers who departed from Galicia in the architecture and culture of the area. As? With the supposed presence of Galician granaries in the territories of Oceania. The “problem” is that, as there are barns similar to the granaries in other parts of the world, in Polynesia, New Zealand and Australia. They call them ‘Patakas’. Eucalyptus in Galicia. That Galician granario in Oceania would imply the cultural bond between Galicia and Australia, but Langdon also relies on the presence of eucalyptus in Galicia. It is an endemic species of Australia and yes, they took Galicia from the contine In the nineteenth century. In addition, Langdon also used anecdotes to support his belief, such as the presence of indigenous people with light skin and eyes, morphometric aspects in the face that differ from that of the rest of the residents of the Pacific or who knew the metal. The alleged route made by the descendants of the shipwrecked of the San Lesmes No changes in wiki. The arrival of Australian eucalyptus to Galicia is fine Documented And there is no record of transoceanic contacts before the modern era, and that in Australia there are Patakas such as Galicians also implies causality. The result is that there is a lack of evidence that supports Langdon’s theory, and the majority studies carried out by other historians thanks to the period writings show that yes, the Spaniards made several expeditions, but it was Dutch and English who made the greatest advances in the exploration of the continent and its subsequent colonization. Posts to theorize … Now, Langdon was not the only one who threw himself into the pool with alternative theories. Rowan Gavin Paton Menzies He was a British writer and submarine lieutenant who jumped to fame when he affirmed, without providing evidence, that China had arrived in America before Colon. Their Opinions They were embodied in ‘1421: the year in which China discovered the world’. Not happy with it, and also without evidence, he launched the hypothesis that China had arrived 350 years before Cook to Australia and that, in 1434, China sailed to Italy and sowed the spark of the Renaissance. In the … Read more

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