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Samsung no longer sells you a great processor. A good intermediary sells you

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He Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 It is surely the most powerful processor that has ever come to an Android phone. Samsung has it in S26 Ultra. And in the launch communications of this mobile he has barely mentioned it, contrary to his modus operandi of yesteryear: the chip used to be one of the big arguments along with the camera and battery. What Samsung has developed with the S26with a lot of time and detail, has been AI. Specifically, the S26 will work with three: Gemini, Bixby and Perplexity. That you choose. That each one does different things. That the device is responsible for coordinating them between them. High-end hardware has reached a point where the differences are marginal for most users. Nobody buys an Ultra anymore because it has 20% more performance in the vapor chamber. But he can buy it because the phone asks him for the Uber only when he has an event on the calendar and calculates the times without him doing anything.to. Or because it filters the calls from spam (there will be trials for this), because it answers for you if you don’t want to pick up the phone, or because it suggests photos of the trip when a friend asks for them via chat. Samsung calls this ‘agentic upgrade’although what it describes is easier to understand: the mobile phone does things in the background without you asking it. There is the twist that the briefing already hinted. Samsung no longer sells itself as the maker of the best hardware. It is sold as the one that best connects you with the intelligence that others have built. It’s not Google, which has Gemini. It is not Perplexity, which has its search engine. It’s not even the chip, which is sometimes an Exynos but sometimes it’s from Qualcomm. Samsung is the layer that unites all thatthe operating system that decides how those agents talk to each other, the hardware that runs them. He is, in the most literal sense, an intermediary. And that’s where he’s focusing now. Perplexity in action, integrated into the S26. Image: Xataka. Galaxy AI. It is not its own AI but rather the integration of someone else’s. Image: Xataka. The bet makes sense as long as that role is difficult to replicate. One UI, Samsung DeXthe integration between native apps and Bixby, the brutal hardware privacy screen that only the Ultra has… All of these are things that you can’t have on another device even if you use the same AIs. For now, at least. The uncomfortable question is what happens when Gemini, Perplexity and Bixby are free on any Android. When what matters is not what AI you access, but how the manufacturer integrates it. Samsung is betting that this difference will be enough of a purchase argument. That’s why it doesn’t sell you the processor. You already assume it’s good. In Xataka | Samsung has a plan to become the greatest AI power in mobile phones. And that is why it has teamed up with Perplexity Featured image | Xataka

Mercadona has become the great supermarket in Spain. Now it is becoming your big restaurant

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On Saturday, at the gym door, I heard a group of friends talking about going out to eat. The debate ended when one of them proposed going to Mercadona and buying some hamburgers in the section ‘Ready to Eat’. From then on the talk went from focusing on ‘where to buy’ to ‘where to eat’: in the supermarket itself, on the beach (advantages of living in Galicia) or in a house. It could be a simple anecdote, if it weren’t for the fact that that conversation between colleagues at the exit of a gym hides something else: Mercadona is becoming the great food supplier from Spain. And it is so to such an extent that it no longer only rivals the rest of the retailbut with the bars, whose pulse is doubling. A percentage: 19.7%. A few weeks ago the consulting firm Worldpanel by Numerator (formerly Kantar) published a report which helps to understand the enormous weight that Mercadona has achieved, not only in the retail homeland, but in the food sector in general: the Valencian chain accounts for a 19.7% share of value in food and beverage consumption. That means it receives almost 20% of what we spend on food and drink, both inside and outside the home. Company-Collective Value share in food and drink consumption Mercadona 19.7% Bar+Cafeteria+Terraces 11.2% Independent Restaurants 8.6% T. Carrefour 6% Lidl 5.1% Quick Service Restaurant 3.4% G. Eroski 3.1% DAY 2.8% consumption 2.7% Alcampo 2% ALDI 1.4% Full-Service Restaurant 0.9% Why is it important? Because that percentage shows that Mercadona already sells as much or more food than traditional hospitality, at least in terms of value. The Worldpanel by Numerator report shows that bars, cafes and terraces account for a value share in food and beverages of around 11.2% and independent restaurants another 8.6%. Together they add up to 19.8%. That last percentage surpasses Mercadona by only one tenth. The list is completed by Carrefour, which accounts for 6%, Lidl (5.1%), the concept of Quick Service Restaurant (3.4%), G. Eroski (3.1%), DIA (2.8%) and Consum (2.7%). A half surprise. That Mercadona accounts for 19.7% of what we Spaniards spend on food is striking, but in reality it is hardly surprising. The data is explained by two trends that seem to move in opposite directions. The first is that we eat more and more at home. According to The Economistspending on food outside the home fell 2.2% last year. Domestic consumption increased, however, by half a point, 0.6%. Mercadona has been able to anticipate this scenario and has been betting heavily on its ‘Ready to Eat’ section since 2018, a section in which it offers already prepared dishes, from starters to sandwiches, stews, paella, lentils, meatballs, pasta… In December the chain had implemented the service in more than 1,110 stores. Nothing surprising if you take into account that Juan Roig, the owner of the company, assures that kitchens will eventually disappear from homes. Expanding your footprint. Mercadona is not only gaining strength as a competitor to the traditional hospitality industry (a sector that faces its own internal challenges, such as the menu of the day crisis), it also does so within the sector of retail. The Valencian chain has been leading it for some time, but that has not prevented it from continuing to expand its domain. The Worldpanel report also reflects that in 2025 the company consolidated its position in food distribution, increasing its share in 0.6 percentage points until they monopolize 27% of the entire ‘pie’. Go for the baskets. Carrefour is followed in the ranking, with a share of 9%, although the French firm experienced a decline of 0.7 percentage points, Lidl (6.9%), Grupo Eroski (4.3%), Dia (3.8%), Consum (3.6%), Alcampo (2.8%) and Aldi (2%). One of the keys that has allowed Mercadona to reinforce its leadership is the increase in the so-called “large baskets”, that is, purchases of the week or month, which concentrate household spending on its shelves. In 2025, Roig’s company reached a 42% share in this type of operations, 0.9% more than in 2024. Another of its advantages is the white label push in the sector of retail and the growing weight of “short assortment chains”, those with a limited supply and very focused on prices. Images | Wikipedia and K8 (Unsplash) In Xataka | We knew that Mercadona was making gold from its suppliers. Now we know the million-dollar toll that this entails.

Mars was the great space battleground between China and the US. Now it’s the Moon (and the stakes are too high)

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For years, Mars has been the great horizon of space exploration: the inevitable destination to which, sooner rather than later, humanity had to head. Earlier this year, Elon Musk, one of the main drivers of that narrative, assured that The United States could land on the red planet within a period of between five and ten years. In parallel, in China, different voices from its aerospace sector They located the first manned mission Mars around 2033. The message was clear: the race for Mars was already underway. On paper, deadlines are as stimulating as they are challenging. Because sending humans to Mars is not a simple evolution of what has already been achieved, but rather a leap in scale. NASA itself has detailed the enormous technical complexity involved in a mission of this type: from entry, descent and landing systems capable of landing heavy loads in an extremely tenuous atmosphere, to infrastructure that guarantees energy, communications and life support during prolonged stays. Depositing a one-ton rover is not the same as lowering dozens of tons of habitable modules and critical equipment. The race no longer looks at Mars, it looks at the lunar south pole However, while Mars made headlines, the real strategy has been taking another direction. As the NASA Artemis Program and the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program have consolidated calendars, investments and technological milestones, the focus has shifted to a more immediate and pragmatic objective: the Moon. Everything seems to indicate that It’s not about giving up Marsbut to assume that the most sensible path goes through intermediate stages. In both cases, the satellite is emerging as a technological test bed, logistics platform and operational experience before facing a journey of months and millions of kilometers. The new space race, therefore, is not being fought, at least for the moment, at tens of millions of kilometers, but at a few 400,000 kilometers away. This proximity changes the equation: it reduces transit times, facilitates the shipment of supplies and allows us to react to unforeseen events with reasonable margins. But, above all, it opens the door to something that is beginning to take shape: the birth of a lunar economy. Permanent bases, scientific experiments, transportation contracts and infrastructure development could make the Moon not only a destination, but a key node of human expansion in space. The epicenter of this new phase is not just any place, but the environment of the Shackleton craterat the lunar south pole. A permanent darkness, as we can see in the photo that accompanies this article, has fueled the hypothesis that in its shadow areas it could keep water ice. This possibility explains why both the United States and China are targeting this region in their next landings, with the stated objective of studying and, eventually, taking advantage of these resources. In practical terms, we talk about water for consumption, generation of oxygen and production of hydrogen and oxygen as a propellant, whenever technology and economic viability allow it. Illuminated rim and shadowed interior of Shackleton Crater The question, then, is not just what is at the south pole, but what changes if those resources are confirmed as usable. In this scenario, the Moon would cease to be solely a scientific destination and would become a functional piece within space architecture. We are not yet talking about industrial exploitation, but about something more basic: reducing absolute dependence on the Earth in each mission. This nuance introduces a real economic dimension to the lunar race, because it alters the logic of costs, transportation and planning of future operations. This is where the notion of an Earth-Moon supply chain stops sounding futuristic and starts to fit into concrete timetables. Although the lunar economy, with its own supply chainmay seem like a distant concept, its foundations are beginning to be built. On the American side, that architecture is beginning to take shape with very specific missions. Firefly Aerospace launched its Blue Ghost 1 module on January 15integrated into the initiative NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services. This is a mission that aims to demonstrate what a cargo delivery system would look like for our satellite when it lands on the moon on March 2. In parallel to these cargo missions, Blue Origin is preparing its own movement towards the lunar south pole. The company founded by Jeff Bezos is working on the first demonstration flight of its cargo module Blue Moon Mark 1known as MK1, scheduled for early 2026. The eight-meter-high lander will take off aboard the rocket New Glenn and will need to validate key systems before any more ambitious operations. It should be noted that the mission does not involve resource extraction, but it is a necessary step to operate in the environment where expectations about the ice are concentrated. Render of a multidome base under construction on the Moon The good news is that the MK1 has been tested at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, including thermal vacuum chamber simulations to replicate the extreme conditions of space and the lunar surface. If it passes this phase and the final integration with the launcher, the ship could become a relevant asset for future missions to the south pole. Another important fact is that the US agency you have already selected this module for transport the VIPER rover in 2027whose task will be to search for volatiles such as water ice in permanently shadowed regions. On the Chinese side, the centerpiece is the mission Chang’e 7conceived as a more complex deployment than a simple lander. The mission is targeting August aboard a Long March 5 rocket and will include an orbiter, a lander, a rover and a small jump probe. The set aims to operate in the vicinity of the lunar south pole, where experiments aimed at studying the surface and searching for signs of ice in permanently shadowed regions will be concentrated. Render of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander and VIPER If the schedule holds, China could make these measurements before the American … Read more

The first great Atlantic submarine cable that connected us to the internet says goodbye for a simple reason: it was too expensive to repair it

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It has been at the bottom of the sea for more than two decades, forgotten. But now, finally, the TAT-8, the first fiber optic cable that crossed the Atlantic and connected us to the Internet, is being removed from its place. And to understand the importance of this, it is worth telling its story, since perhaps the Internet would not be as we know it without this cable. The cable that started it all. On December 14, 1988, AT&T, British Telecom and France Telecom developed TAT-8, the acronym for Trans-Atlantic Telephone 8. It was the eighth transoceanic cable system between Europe and the United States, but the first to use optical fiber. Before him, transatlantic cables ran on copper, with very limited capacity. With the TAT-8, voices and data traveled converted into pulses of light through glass threads thinner than a hair. Just like account Wired in its report, at the inaugural event, writer Isaac Asimov connected by video call from New York with audiences in Paris and London to celebrate, in his own words, “this inaugural voyage across the sea on a ray of light.” Why was it so important? When it came into operation, the Internet was still too technical a concept for the general public. But the TAT-8 literally built the highway on which everything later circulated. The curious thing is that in just 18 months it already reached its maximum capacity, so this forced new cables to be laid as soon as possible, especially after the outbreak of the world Wide Webelectronic commerce and in a context in which the Internet became increasingly relevant. By 2001 the TAT series had already reached 14. Disconnection. Just like account In the middle, in 2002, the TAT-8 suffered a breakdown, and repairing it was not worth it, it was that simple. With more modern and higher capacity cables already operational, it made no sense to invest in their recovery. It went offline and was abandoned at the bottom of the Atlantic, where it has remained for more than two decades. Now they are taking it out of the sea. According to collect Wired, a specialist company called Subsea Environmental Services is physically recovering the cable with its vessel MV Maasvliet. It is one of the few companies in the world whose entire business consists of recovering and recycling retired submarine cables. The operation involves dragging a flat hook across the seabed, waiting hours until tension is felt in the cable, and then hoisting it aboard meter by meter. The workers they explain As the ocean floor is an increasingly crowded space, and recovering old cables frees up routes for new ones. What is done with the remains. The TAT-8 is not thrown away. Fiber optic cables contain high purity copper, steel and polyethylene, all recyclable materials with market value. Copper, especially, is a valuable resource and may become scarce in a few years. And according to the International Energy Agency, in less than a decade could be scarce if the industry does not find new sources. On the other hand, the steel of the cable will end up being converted into fences, and the plastic, processed in the Netherlands, will be transformed into pellets to manufacture non-food packaging. In fact, just as they count At Wired, you may soon be using shampoo in a bottle made from remains of the first fiber optic cable to cross the Atlantic. Sharks. Curiously, the TAT-8 is at the epicenter of one of the legends that has lasted the longest in this sector: that sharks bite internet cables. Just like share In the middle, it all started with a test prior to the TAT-8, the Optican-1, which ended up failing due to problems in its insulation. A Bell Labs engineer appeared at a conference with shark teeth that had supposedly been removed from the damaged cable. The story spread instantly. As well as point At the time, AT&T even included four pages on protection against shark bites in its press kit for TAT-8. Actually, there has never been consensus about whether the sharks really caused that damage. Subsequent tests in aquariums, where they were starved to see if they would bite into wires with electric fields, did not yield any clear patterns. At least the outcome of all that testing and debate was positive, as engineers added a layer of steel between the insulation and the fibers, which improved the cable’s overall resistance to abrasions and damage of all kinds. Cover image | What’s Inside? In Xataka | In 1901, a Spanish man had one of the ideas of the century: invent the remote control before television

AMD wants to be the great alternative to NVIDIA in AI chips, and Meta has a plan that involves both

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Meta has signed one of the largest contracts in history with AMD regarding chips for artificial intelligence. The agreement It represents a boost for AMD in its attempt to stand up to NVIDIA. It also shows how Lisa Su’s company intends to continue putting its foot even further into that little corner of circular financing that big technology companies have created in relation to AI. There are some nuances worth commenting on, so let’s get down to it. The agreement. Meta will purchase enough chips from AMD to power data centers with up to six gigawatts of computing power over the next five years. Just like esteem According to the Wall Street Journal, the total value of the contract would exceed $100 billion, since each gigawatt represents tens of billions in revenue for AMD, according to the company itself. First deliveries will begin in the second half of 2026, with a first gigawatt of AMD’s new MI450 chips. There is more. The agreement is not only about buying chips. As part of the pactAMD will offer Meta purchase guarantees (warrants) to acquire up to 160 million AMD shares at a symbolic price of one cent per share, which could make Meta the owner of up to 10% of the company. Of course, there are conditions, since the titles will be released in tranches as certain technical and commercial milestones are met. The last tranche will only be unlocked if AMD stock reaches $600, according to share the WSJ. On Monday it closed at $196.60, and after hearing the news, AMD shares have risen more than 10% in pre-opening. AMD seeks its place alongside NVIDIA. The company led by Lisa Su has been trying to gain ground in a market that NVIDIA dominates with more than 90% share. This agreement with Meta, together the one who signed with OpenAI in October in very similar terms, is its most ambitious bet to achieve it. “Meta has a lot of options. I want to make sure we always have a clear place at the table when they think about what they need,” counted His at the press conference prior to the announcement. Meta doesn’t put all her eggs in one basket. Zuckerberg’s company is not betting exclusively on AMD. Last week too closed an agreement with NVIDIA to acquire millions of its chips for tens of billions of dollars, and also is in talks with Google for the use of its AI processors. “At the scale at which we operate, there is room for all three,” counted Santosh Janardhan, head of infrastructure at Meta. The company’s strategy involves diversifying suppliers and ensuring sufficient supply for its major expansion. Meta spent 72 billion dollars last year in data centers and plans to disburse up to 135,000 million this year. And back to circular financing. Meta pays AMD for chips, and AMD returns some of that money in the form of shares. A similar scheme that we already saw in the agreement with AMD and OpenAI, but also identical to that of the rest of the big technology companies around AI. The problem of demand is also worth noting. And Reuters stood out the words of Matt Britzman, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, who said that although Meta is securing supply and diversifying, “having to give up 10% of its capital suggests that AMD could have difficulty generating organic demand.” What’s coming now. The AI ​​race is not only fought in laboratories, but also in the field of finance. For AMD, the challenge now is to demonstrate that its chips live up to the demands. For Meta, the goal is to build with them “tens of gigawatts this decade and hundreds of gigawatts or more over time,” in words from Zuckerberg himself. All this while we are witnessing unprecedented spending on infrastructure and energy and of which we apparently do not see the bottom line. Cover image | AMD and Meta In Xataka | IBM has been living for decades that no one could kill COBOL. Anthropic has other plans

Movistar is already giving away its Pixel 10a. In addition, you have movies and great games like Real Madrid-Benfica for 9.99 euros per month

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Free is always good. Most companies have devices that we can get at a good price or without paying anything, although most of the time they are mobile phones that have been available for a few months. We say in the majority and not always because Movistar is there, which puts the new Google Pixel 10a and allows us to get it for 0 euros per month. And, also, movies and football like tomorrow’s great game for 9.99 euros per month. You have the Google Pixel 10a, iPads and more in the Movistar catalog If we take a look at the Movistar page, we can see that it has a fairly large catalog of devices. All we have to do is go to the filters (they are just on the left) and, within the price section, select only those that cost 0 euros. There we can find everything: from various TVs to Dyson vacuum cleaners, including, of course, a lot of mobile phones. We are going to focus on this Google Pixel 10a, which was announced just a few days ago. If we take a look at your file on the Movistar websitewe can see how it will cost us 0 euros per month with both the ‘Premium Pack’ and the ‘Advanced Pack’, whether we are already customers or if it is a new registration. The mobile will be our 24 months, which can be extended for another 24 months. In all that time (4 years) we will not pay anything for the mobile and, when the term ends, we can keep the device by paying 1 euro. This phone has what it takes to be one of the best mid-range phones of 2026. This version, with 256 GB of capacity, will offer you a pure Android experience with seven years of guaranteed updates and a lot of AI from Gemini. In addition, it is compact, so it is perfect for you if you don’t like carrying a large cell phone with you. You have movies, series and football for less than 10 euros per month Beyond cell phones and other devices, we cannot lose sight of Movistar Plus+. You can hire it without having to have anything with Movistar and, furthermore, it does not have any type of permanence: you can try it for just one month and unsubscribe at any time. In fact, it’s a good time to give it a try now that tomorrow we will be able to see the great game Real Madrid-Benfica for alone 9.99 euros per month (although we can get it for only 39 euros per year if we have Cultural Bonus). Monthly subscription to Movistar Plus+ The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Of course, the platform doesn’t only have football. In fact, their catalog has a lot of gems like ‘The Tigers‘, ‘Sirat‘ or others that will arrive soon, like ‘Sundays‘ (premieres next February 27). All rounded off by series like ‘Poquita Fe’ or ‘El Centro’, making it a very complete platform that, remember, you can share with a friend or family member without problem. You may also be interested Samsung TV 65 Inch Neo QLED QN80F 4K Mini LED Smart TV with Vision AI, Quantum Matrix Technology Core, Motion Xcelerator 144Hz and Gaming Hub The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Pixel 10 – Free Android Smartphone with Gemini, Advanced Triple Rear Camera, 24+ Hour Battery and 6.3″ Current Screen – Indigo, 128GB The price could vary. We earn commission from these links 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 | Movistar In Xataka | Movistar Plus+ for non-Movistar customers: what it is, how much it costs, channels, additional services and how to contract it In Xataka | Best televisions in quality price: which one to buy and seven recommended 4K smart TVs

why the next great revolution against cancer is to make it chronic

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If we ask someone what the goal of cancer medicine is, the answer is almost automatic: cure itmake it disappear or win the war against this devastating disease. However, in molecular biology laboratories and advanced oncology consultations, the verb is changing, since we no longer speak of “eradicating” at all costs, but to contain. An idea that may be quite shocking, but which is proposed as the future of medicine. The idea. Douglas Hanahan, one of the most influential figures in modern biology and one of the great responsible of the hallmarks of cancerwhich are the hallmarks that define a tumor, has put this idea on the table. In this case, it points to a concept that clashes with our intuition, but fits with scientific data: cancer without disease. The idea is provocative, since it suggests that histologically malignant tumors are possible living off of us without killing us or affecting our quality of life. The objective is no longer the total elimination of the enemy and becomes something more pragmatic: keeping it under biological and clinical control so that the patient dies with the cancer, but not from the cancer. There is no cure. In a recent interview and in your updates of the Hallmarks of Cancer 2022, Hanahan insists that the complexity of cancer makes a universal cure unlikely. Instead, it proposes to understand what specific capacities sustain the tumor, such as evasion of the immune system, inflammation, replicative immortality… to selectively block them. In this way, it is not about destroying the entire tissue, but about converting a lethal process into an indolent one. This is what Hanahan calls “adaptive resistance”, since we assume that the tumor will try to look for new escape routes, and we will change the therapeutic strategy to block them, maintaining the tumor ecosystem within safety margins. It already happens. All of this is not a futuristic theory, but rather it is already happening on two very different fronts: the tumors that we decide not to touch and the aggressive tumors that we have learned to stop. Not trying is sometimes the best. The most literal example of “cancer without disease” is found in the prostate and thyroid. Here, diagnostic technology has advanced so much that we detect tumors that, biologically, would never have caused problems. In the case of prostate canceralmost half of low-risk tumors now enter active surveillance protocols. In this way, instead of operating or radiating (with the risk of impotence and incontinence that entails), doctors begin to monitor the mass. And the data, after 20 years of follow-up in large groups of people, are quite clear: cancer-specific mortality in these well-selected groups is less than 1%. In the clinic. With all this, the idea is that it is better to live with a controlled cancer than to pay the physical price of curing it, although logically, if it goes too far out of containment, the most correct thing is to try to eradicate it with the tools we have. In the case of papillary thyroid cancer We also have this same situation, since overdiagnosis has led to stopping aggressive surgery in favor of observing tumors that the body keeps at bay on its own. The new chronicity. Where the paradigm changes most dramatically is in advanced or metastatic cancer. Twenty years ago, a diagnosis of stage IV lung cancer or metastatic melanoma was almost invariably a short-term terminal sentence. Today, thanks to immunotherapy and targeted therapies, a new category of patient has been born: the “treatable but not curable.” With this strategy there are already different organizations, like the British NCRIwhich describe growing cohorts of patients living for years with the disease. In this case they have metastases, but they live a normal life with their jobs and trips while receiving chronic or intermittent treatments to contain the disease. But without staying on the road. Changing the rules. This new paradigm within oncology has forced changing the rules of the game in clinical trialssince the aim is no longer just for the tumor to disappear, but for prolonged stabilization. With regard to toxicity, the logic of “maximum tolerated dose” in chemotherapy (give medication until the patient can tolerate it) does not work if you are going to treat the patient for five years, since their quality of life with very aggressive chemotherapy will decrease each time. Right now, quality of life and low toxicity are prioritized with ‘milder’ medications to allow long-term treatment without major side effects. This is why cancer is beginning to resemble, in its management, diabetes or HIV: a chronic condition that requires lifelong medication, but that does not necessarily dictate the date of your death. Psychological problems. Logically, this model of ‘chronic cancer’ has its shadows. Medical literature warns, for example, that living with “dormant” or controlled cancer places an enormous mental burden on patients. Studies on active surveillance show that, for some patients, the anxiety of having a “ticking time bomb” inside worsens their quality of life more than the surgery itself. And each review consultation can mean a world to know if it has gone more or less. And more problems. In addition to this, you must know that not all of these diseases can become chronic, such as glioblastoma or pancreatic cancer, which continue to have an aggressive biology that, today, escapes this lazy control. But also, turning cancer into chronic is great news for the patient, but a titanic challenge for public health, since it implies treating more people, for more years, with very high-cost biological drugs. The summary. Hanahan’s “cancer without disease” is not giving up. It is accepting that, if we cannot eliminate the enemy, victory lies in keeping it at bay long enough for life to continue its course and even allow science to continue advancing. As mortality statistics suggest: more and more people are dying with cancer, but fewer people of cancer. And in that nuance lies an entire medical revolution. Images | National Cancer … Read more

The RAM crisis is great for those who manufacture it. There are those who think that a tsunami will sink many others

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Looking at current technology is peering into a well of contrasts. On the one hand, the optimism of companies that push the narrative of a future supported by AI while spend tens of billions of dollars. On the other hand, the consequences for the consumer segment are a new component crisis. Nobody likes pessimism, but unfortunately the market does not bring good news, and the CEO of Phison has a clear message: Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. And that means that the RAM crisis It is going to take away some technology companies… in all sectors. In short. RAM and SSDs are the components that best exemplify the cost of data centers. They are elements that They have increased the price a real outrage and are made up of NAND flash chips. It is where the information is stored, but even those components need a ‘brain’, and that is where Phison comes into play. This Taiwanese company is one of the most powerful when it comes to creating something very specific: memory controllers. They are responsible for managing access, reading, writing and deleting data from NAND memory, among other tasks. Without them, these components could not function, so it is evident that Phison is interested in continuing to inflate the market. But its CEO, Pua Khein-Seng, has made it clear in a recent interview that this boom in data centers and artificial intelligence will have a disastrous consequence for the consumer market: there will be companies that go bankrupt. And it will be soon: by the end of 2026. slap. According to the boss of the controller company, this situation will put many consumer brands on the ropes, pushing some to disaster before the end of the year. When we talk about “consumer devices”, we refer to mobile phonestablets, consoles and computersbut also cars and of other devices with RAM and flash memories, such as televisions and even routers. Because it’s not that we can’t buy a couple of RAM pills, it’s that gigantic companies like Apple or Lenovo are already facing the problems involved in not having RAM. Memory production is dominated by just three companies and, although there are others such as Intel, tesla and the Chinese wanting to get their nails in the matterSamsung, Micron and SK Hynix are still the only ones capable of supplying the demands of the one that cuts the cod: NVIDIAas well as from Meta, Google or Microsoft. All production is focusing on creating memory for AI, and that means that Corsair, Dell, HP… but also Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO, Sony or Nintendo They cannot buy RAM or they have to do so at higher prices. Consequence? That if they buy at a higher price, they must also sell the product at a higher price. And they may make devices that users are not willing to buy if they are more expensive either by price or by a less memory than that of previous generations. Unprecedented. There were already estimates that certain mobile companies were being more cautious with their shipment estimates for this year, but the CEO of Phison give a figure: between 200 and 250 million fewer mobile phones. It also targets the aforementioned PC industries (not those that we can assemble in parts, but to those pre-assembled by the companies) and to that of televisions. If all televisions are already ‘smart’, they need components that have a price through the roof. The executive is not the only interested party that has sent a pessimistic message about the situation. In statements to BloombergMicron’s executive vice president already pointed out that the current shortage is unprecedented, ridiculing even the previous components crisis that we live in 2020. In fact, something that is also unprecedented is that RAM manufacturers request payments up to three years in advance. Big Tech optimism. While users cannot buy components and consumer-focused companies are beginning to see sea level rise, Big Tech continues investing exorbitant amounts. There is not a day that we do not have news about billion-dollar investments in some data center or agreements between the main protagonist companies. And the most curious thing about that is that a lot is being invested in something that does not yet exist. Goal, for example, ends to buy graphics cards from NVIDIA for a data center not yet built. AND NVIDIA depends on Samsung I sent him a memory that he still doesn’t have. But the wheel keeps turning and, as one of the SMIC bosses commentedthe big feature of China, “no one has really thought about what exactly those data centers will do, but companies would love to build the entire capacity of the next 10 years in just one or two years.” We’ll see who gets ahead. Image | Andrey Matveev In Xataka | There was only one way to lower the price of RAM: Samsung and SK Hynix have flatly refused

Aragón 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 Híjar, 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 Gaén 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. Aragón 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 | Aragón is not afraid of AI: it has just approved three more new mega data centers in full commitment to renewables

a Great Wall of fishing barges

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A silent war is being fought in the South China Sea. No weapons are fired, but they are constantly mobilized huge warshipspatrol boats and experimental missile launch platforms. The area is a hotbed in which China claims Japanese and Taiwanese territories as its own, but among so much military maneuver, the movement that China made in mid-January: Hundreds of fishing boats marched to create an artificial reef. It is the ‘Great Fishing Wall’, and the curious thing is that it has not been an isolated event. what has happened. It happened last January 11. In a report of The New York Timesit was exposed how at least 1,400 Chinese fishing boats abandoned their usual tasks to group together in a highly coordinated manner at a midpoint between China and Japan. The result was a ‘wall’ about 300 kilometers long and with a density that forced some transport ships that had to cross the area to carry out maneuvers to avoid or, directly, go around. January 9 | Image from The New York Times January 11 | Image from The New York Times It’s not the first time. The fishing choreography is impressive from a satellite view, but the most curious thing is that the January 11 maneuver was not an isolated event. It has been repeated on at least one occasion. Specifically, on Christmas Day 2025, when more than 2,000 ships gathered to form an inverse “L”. The long “wall” was also located between China and Japan, but the shorter wall was planted at a point that created a division between Taiwan and the mainland’s most important ports. In the NYT article, the analysts consulted they point They had already seen some similar unusual maneuvers, but on a scale of a couple of hundred ships, never something as massive as the operations of December 25 and January 11. Christmas Operation | Image from The New York Times Because. China has been seeking for years to consolidate its control over a large part of that maritime territory. It seeks to legitimize its sovereignty over islands and reefs that Japan and Taiwan They maintain that they are theirs property as part of the “historical territory”. To apply pressure, from time to time China takes its warships out for a walksomething to which Japan also responds with their own (even with plans to rearm as they had not done since World War II). Another way to mark muscle is through dozens of artificial islands that China has been building for decadesand all to ensure strategic trade routes and reinforce its position in the regional system, but also to exercise sovereignty in an area with valuable resources such as fishing (something that China needs like eating), the hydrocarbons and until rare earth (that China already dominatesbut you can always cover more in such a powerful strategic resource). The result is the militarization of that region, with a United States that has joined the ‘call’ seeking to prevent China from covering more than it currently has and taking off state-of-the-art weapons in collaboration with Japan. Maritime Militia. Two factors stand out in this story. The first is the speed at which the ships were organized and the precision with which they headed to the indicated point. The second is how effective the blocking is. Seeing that the transports had to avoid this fishing militia (which is a term that has been used before), in a crisis situation, China could mobilize hundreds of civilian ships to obstruct sea lanes, complicating military operations such as ship deployment and supply. Because the theory indicates that the enemy powers would not shoot at or run over those civilian ships. Lure. And, of course, American analysts have not missed the opportunity to give their vision. Thomas Shugart is a former US naval officer and noted that these masses of small ships could be more than just a blockade: They could act as decoys for missiles and torpedoes. Radars would be overwhelmed by a map full of small targets, camouflaging and protecting the real warships. They do not neglect military force. Faced with such a deployment, other analysts “praised” the coordination capacity to ensure that so many ships entered into a formation like the one seen on both dates and, as usual, China has not said anything about these maneuvers, but from the United States it has been verified that they were real ships, no false signs to confuse. And most importantly, the last maneuver occurred days after China completed some military maneuvers around Taiwan with the aim of blockading the island. Because, although the maneuver of thousands of fishing boats mounting a physical blockade is something striking, the South China Sea has witnessed several more serious movements by China in recent days. For example, it has been reported that The J-16s of the People’s Liberation Army have approached dangerously at Taiwanese F-16s, even launching flares when Taiwanese fighters were going to intercept them. Also the crossing of a red line by China when a military drone, for the first time, invaded Taiwan airspace. And all while the US is convinced that China is doing nuclear tests while calling for calm. The end, military maneuvers on the maritime border have been a constant for years, but the coordinated choreography of fishing boats can be a monumental headache if someone decides to attack civilian vessels, no matter how much they block critical routes. And it is something that seems like a brutal pressure weapon with which it is not necessary to fire a single shot to exert that influence. Images | Ernest Gunasekara-Rockwell In Xataka | China once again shows its spaceship worthy of ‘Star Wars’. It is so beast that it is impossible with current technology

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