great

Micron knew that the RAM crisis was going to be great for them. The reality that has gone even better

by

As it could not be otherwise, the companies that are benefiting the most from the RAM crisis They are precisely those that have the product and, therefore, they are the ones that set the price. Micron is one of those few companies that is profiting from the excessive demand of this key component for any gadget, a demand caused by the AI ​​fever. The figures from its latest financial report have even exceeded expectations. Although there are some nuances to comment on. Let’s go to trouble. What has happened? Micron just published the results of its second fiscal quarter with numbers that have left analysts speechless. Its revenues have almost tripled those of the previous year, reaching $23.9 billion, well above Wall Street estimateswho expected about 20,000 million. Earnings per share have skyrocketed to $12.20, compared to the $9 projected. And for the third quarter, the company anticipates revenue of approximately $33.5 billion, almost ten points above what the market expected. Those who share the benefit. Artificial intelligence has changed everything in the memory market. The data centers that power AI models require massive amounts of high-performance memory, and the available supply cannot meet that demand. Micron, together with Samsung and SK Hynix, forms the trio that controls practically the entire supply world of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, which are basically one of the key components to run the long-awaited NVIDIA GPUs. Those who buy at any price. Micron’s own CEO, Sanjay Mehrotra, counted to CNBC that the company can only cover between 50% and two-thirds of what its main clients need. Put another way: there is a queue of buyers willing to pay whatever it takes, and Micron simply doesn’t have RAM for everyone. According to SK Group President Chey Tae-won, the global shortage could last another four to five years due to structural bottlenecks in semiconductor production. What’s coming Aware that what is happening now will not last forever, Micron is investing at a speed that has made the market nervous. The company plans to exceed $25 billion in capital spending in 2026 alone, and has already announced that in 2027 that number will rise another $10 billion. Among other operations, it has closed purchasing a plant of Taiwanese Powerchip for $1.8 billion, which will begin producing DRAM wafers in the second half of 2027. The company has also started mass shipments of its new HBM4 memory of 12 layers, which will be directed to the new Vera Rubin platform from NVIDIA. Precisely how much NVIDIA will depend on Micron for this new generation compared to its rivals is the big open question for all investors. Everything is going well for them, but the shares are going down. There has been a bit of a cold reaction in the stock market, as shares have fallen around 5% in the session after the results, despite the fact that the numbers have beaten all forecasts. The reason is the same thing that happened with NVIDIA a few weeks ago: When expectations are very high, even good results can disappoint. From Goldman Sachs they counted that the value could move in a narrow range in the short term after a “very solid quarter with guidance well above consensus, in a context of already elevated expectations.” That has not prevented banks like Wells Fargo or Barclays from updating their upward forecasts to $550 and $670 per share, respectively. The big photo. Micron has accumulated a revaluation of more than 60% so far this year, and has become the most profitable value on the PHLX (Philadelphia Semiconductor Index). Mehrotra affirms that Micron is “the invisible layer that powers AI today.” But it seems that the company is slowly losing that cloak of invisibility. In Xataka | NVIDIA has been pining for months to sell its H200 to China: it just received the news it was waiting for

Taking money from a family member just before their death seemed like a great idea to avoid paying taxes. It wasn’t

by

Why should an additional tax be paid for receiving money in inheritance for which the deceased already paid taxes? Many people ask that question and They decide to jump into the mountains (prosecutor) trying a thousand and one tricks to avoid payment of the Donations and Inheritance Tax. The most common trick is to empty bank accounts of the family member before he or she dies. Spoiler: it goes wrong. A solved case by the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid shows that this belief can be very expensive, and that the attempt to avoid the treasury can end up exactly where one wanted to avoid arriving: paying the Treasury even more than what they would have paid in the beginning. Money, what money? A woman was listed as the owner or authorized person on several of her sister’s bank accounts. In September 2017, this died without leaving a will. When the General Directorate of Taxes of the Community of Madrid began to investigate the case, it found that the deceased’s assets were much larger than what her sister wanted to make out. As of December 31, 2016, the three bank accounts of the deceased accumulated considerable balances: one with 9,217.08 euros, another with 51,216.58 euros and a third with 132,644.53 euros, in which the sister appeared directly as joint owner. In addition to these savings, the deceased had received 45,000 euros in April 2017 for the sale of her part of a property that she shared with her sister. By December 31, 2017, all the money in the accounts was gone. The Treasury calculated that the total money and assets that should have been declared in the inheritance amounted to 122,931.67 euros, to which was added the value of 50% of a property in Hoyo de Manzanares valued at 1,812.50 euros. ​No resignation possible. The sister responded to the first requests from the Treasury by assuring that the deceased had died without assets. Some time later he provided a notarial document of renunciation of inheritance dated September 29, 2020, more than three years after death occurred. His argument was that he did not know that his sister had assets, and that the only movements he had made in the deceased’s accounts were payment procedures for the residence where he received care his sister in her last month of life. The court that reviewed the case in the first instance initially agreed with him, considering that this payment could be interpreted as timely management. However, the Community of Madrid, in charge of collecting the tax, appealed and the TSJM resolved differently. Although in theory you can renounce an inheritance at any time during the process, doing so after having acted on the deceased’s assets has tax consequences that no notarial deed can erase. What does it mean to accept an inheritance without wanting to do so?. In Spain, you do not need to sign any paper to legally become an heir. The law includes in its article 999.3 the figure of tacit acceptance, which occurs when someone acts on the assets of a deceased as if they were already theirs, even if they have never confirmed acceptance of inheritance. Withdrawing money from your accounts, selling your property or simply managing your assets are examples of actions that, in the eyes of the law, are equivalent to saying “yes, I accept”, even if no paper has been signed.​​ The problem is that many people are not aware of this rule and believe that as long as they do not sign anything before a notary, they are safe. In reality, what matters is not what is signed, but what is done. The Supreme Court takes decades establishing that any act that unequivocally reveals that someone he is behaving like an heireven if informally or even unconsciously, has the same legal and fiscal effects as an express acceptance of the inheritance.​ What the law says about disappearing money. The TSJM applied the article 11.1.a of the Inheritance and Donation Tax Lawwhich establishes that the assets that would have belonged to the deceased up to one year before his death They are considered part of the inheritanceunless proven otherwise by solid evidence. Not only did the sister not provide any explanation as to what had happened to that money, but she did not even try throughout the entire process. The court also assessed that the deceased was admitted to a nursing home and was receiving special care, which made it highly unlikely that she would have been able to manage the withdrawal of the money from her accounts on her own. Given that the sister was the owner or authorized owner of all of them, the judges concluded that moving that money was equivalent, in the eyes of the law, to having accepted the inheritance. Pay the tax, but get rid of the fine. The TSJ of Madrid confirmed that the woman had to pay 26,217.11 euros as settlement of the Inheritance Tax for her sister’s inheritance. However, the judges annulled the fine of 17,999.73 euros that the Madrid treasury demanded, because the Community of Madrid failed to prove that the woman had acted with the deliberate intention of deceiving the treasury, something that the law requires before being able to impose a financial penalty of that type. In Xataka | The “Great Transfer of Wealth” is not only a thing for the rich: demographic change will concentrate wealth among the youngest Image | Pexels (cottonbro studio)

Why on earth donkeys arose has always been one of the great mysteries of natural history. Until now

by

When we think about the animals that have been accompanying humans since time immemorial, helping us in agricultural and daily tasks, surely the first candidates are horses, dogs, and even cats. Probably the donkeys (Equus africanus asinus) are a little further down the list. Until now we believed that the domestication of the donkey was an event that was repeated in different places and times in prehistory. However, the largest genetic study of these animals carried out to date revealed a different story: that of a single domestication of the donkey, which occurred about 7,000 years ago in the area around the Horn of Africa and what is now Kenya. The closest relatives of the domestic donkey, wild donkeys (Equus africanus) still live today in this African region. The common donkey is sometimes seen as a subspecies of these African donkeys or as an independent species closely related to it (in which case its “scientific” name would be Equus asinus). According to the team, led by French researchers, the donkey was domesticated in this context, and then began to spread throughout the rest of Eurasia, already as a domestic animal about 4,500 years ago, that is, about 2 and a half millennia after being domesticated. The genetic study has not only pointed out the unique origin of this species, but It has also “advanced” the date of domestication by about four centuries. The domestication of the donkey would have made sense in its spatiotemporal context. About 7,000 years ago the Sahara environment witnessed an aridification process that led the desert to expand. The donkeys they had an advantage Compared to other equids, they are more resistant to lack of water, which could have made them ideal for use as an aid in transportation or agricultural work. For their analysis, the international team of researchers analyzed samples of 207 modern donkeys from 31 countries, as well as remains of skeletons of 31 other donkeys who lived in the last 4,500 years. They also used genetic information from other equids to expand the study. The work of the researchers was published in the journal Science. The variety and the mules The study also offers us some curious stories about this animal. For example, genetic analysis of Roman-era remains found in France tells the story of a generation of giant donkeys (up to 25 centimeters larger than the average modern donkey). The Romans They didn’t raise these donkeys colossal for their direct use, but because mules (crosses between male donkeys and horse mares) were of great use to them. The Romans took advantage of an animal that combined part of the robustness of donkeys with the ability to travel long distances more typical of horses. After the fall of the Roman Empire, mules once again gave way to donkeys since economies had become more local, so it was not necessary to use them to transport large loads along the popular Roman road network. The donkey is perhaps the most maligned of domestic animals. Despite having played a key role in human development over the past four millennia, the donkey is often seen as synonymous with stupidity or clumsiness. Such is the point that the donkey has become a threatened species in places like Spain or Mexico. For better or worse, the donkey continues to form part of our cultural heritagefrom the donkey with which Sancho Panza accompanied Don Quixote to that of Friar Perico. Now, thanks to science, we know a little more about the history of what could be the least popular cousin of the equine family. In Xataka | The Iberian lynx is reconquering Spain and that is good news. The challenge now is to understand why In Xataka | Science had always believed that only humans understand geometry. Until we noticed the crows again Image | Ansgar Scheffold

This is how Russia has become the great winner of the Hormuz crisis

by

On Thursday evening, March 12, the Swedish Coast Guard boarded the tanker Sea Owl I south of Trelleborg, off the coast of Sweden. The next day, the authorities They arrested their captainof Russian nationality, and on Sunday a court ordered his formal arrest for using allegedly false documents to operate the ship. This 228-meter-long ship sails under suspicion of using a false flag, in this case from Comoros, and is on the European Union sanctions list. As explained The Moscow TimesAlthough the ship, which set sail from Brazil, claimed to be heading to Estonia, the Swedish Coast Guard believes its actual destination was the Russian port of Primorsk. This is one more link in the “shadow fleet” that Moscow uses to evade sanctions. In fact, just a few days before, Sweden had seized another ship, the cargo ship Caffasuspected of transporting stolen Ukrainian grain. A lethal bottleneck. But while the West tightens the noose in the icy Baltic, the true collapse looms in the south. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, turned into an impassable “digital fog” by the war between the United States, Israel and Iran, has suffocated the world energy market. According to The New York TimesIndia—highly dependent on imports from the Middle East—had been in agony for months after Donald Trump’s administration imposed punitive tariffs to force it to stop buying Russian crude. Without quick access to crude oil from the Persian Gulf and with the US ban on Moscow, the Asian giant was looking into the abyss. Indian state refineries were forced to close entire processing units due to the simple physical shortage of oil. Washington’s retreat. Faced with Iran’s direct threat to shoot up the barrel of Brent at 200 dollarsthe United States has had no choice but to give in. The US Treasury Department has issued a temporary emergency waiver. This license, valid for 30 days, allows India and other countries to buy Russian oil stranded at sea. Although Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent justified the measure by stating that it seeks to stabilize world prices and that it will not bring “significant financial benefits” to the Kremlin, the reality of the markets dictates a very different ruling. Russia makes money (and legally). Indeed, the main beneficiary of this crisis is the Kremlin, and it is also doing so completely legally in the eyes of Washington. According to data from Argus Media collected by Bloomberg, Prices for Russian Ural crude oil delivered to India’s west coast have hit a record high of $98.93 per barrel. This historic rebound has occurred precisely after the United States expanded its permission to buy Russian crude oil in the midst of the upward spiral caused by the war in the Middle East. The humiliating discount that Russia was forced to apply has vanished, reducing it to just $4.80 per barrel compared to the global Brent index. At the diplomatic level, Moscow also gains muscle. According to the Anadolu Agencythe foreign ministers of Russia and India are already talking to use alternative forums to the West, such as the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), to mediate the de-escalation of the Middle East. The great irony of international sanctions. On the one hand, Sweden spends police resources raiding Russian ghost ships in the frigid Baltic Sea. On the other hand, offices in Washington are forced to urgently legalize the purchase of crude oil from Moscow to avoid the economic collapse of India and a global recession. In the end, geopolitics always ends up surrendering to the laws of thermodynamics and infrastructure: the world needs physical energy and, faced with the closure of Hormuz, the West has had to swallow and pay in gold price for the oil of the same country it was trying to suffocate. Image | Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash Xataka | The big winner of the Hormuz blockade is the country that the West has tried to suffocate for years: Russia

Sam Altman has had another great idea to finally charge the user all the money he needs: a receipt at the end of the month

by

We are used to pay the electricity bill or water because they have become basic and totally universal goods. Well, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is clear that artificial intelligence will be exactly that: a commoditya basic and totally universal good. This implies, of course, that there will come a time when, just as we pay the electricity or water bill, we will pay the monthly AI bill. Paying for AI will be an everyday thing. Altman recently participated in an event in Washington DC and there raised an idea that has been around for a long time but is certainly gaining more and more strength: that AI will offer like electricity or water, on demand: as soon as you need it, it will be there for you. That, of course, will mean that just as we now pay for our electricity or water use, we will also pay for the AI ​​supply that we use. And we will do it at the end of the month with the traditional method: an invoice from our supplier. In Xataka The most powerful AI agent in the world has just arrived: the first thing it does is warn you that it is dangerous From consuming kW to consuming tokens. Thus, instead of paying fixed subscriptions as we usually do now when contracting ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro, for example, what we will do is pay that monthly bill. The amount we will pay will be based on how many “tokens“(processing units) we have consumed to solve all types of tasks. We have power plants, we will have data centers. To Altman this speech fits like a glovebecause it justifies its AI data center megaprojects —and those of the rest of the industry—. If AI is to become that universal basic resource, we will have to have the infrastructure (the “AI power plants”) to sustain it. Without such infrastructure, Altman warns, the price of “intelligence” will skyrocket, turning it into an exclusive privilege for the richest or a resource rationed by governments. Compute Yottaflops. That race for infrastructure has already begun, and big technology companies are fueling it. The reason is simple: either they enter that maelstrom or they risk being left out if the AI ​​revolution actually becomes a reality. Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, explained in her opening talk at CES 2026 that the world will need more than “10 yottaflops” of computing – 10,000 times more than the existing AI capacity in 2022 – in the next five years to be able to meet the demand posed by this massive use of AI. Chips missing… and a lot of energy. The real obstacle to achieving such computing capacity not only lies in the chips – the memory crisis is a side effect of this – but also in energy. data centers they consume a lotwhich makes national electrical networks can finish not having sufficient capacity to supply said energy. OpenAI will not stop spending. Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI, explained in December that their projects, no matter how gigantic they may seem, will go further. Although the company has already committed to investing $1.4 trillion with its partners in data centers over the next eight years, OpenAI wants to “get ahead of the future, but I don’t think we can be, no matter how ambitious we want to dream of being right now.” That is to say, he believes that all his estimates and projects may end up being dwarfed by the true scale to which AI can reach. {“videoId”:”xa1wtpm”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”Perplexity, Personal Computer”, “tag”:””, “duration”:”88″} Big Tech wants to bill you at the end of the month. Turn AI into a commodity For it to reach all homes would be an absolute triumph for the companies that are investing in it. The tech industry has not managed to direct its costs to the user other than in things like our internet connection or, at most, in our spending on streaming services —similar to current AI plans—. If it achieves that bill at the end of the month that hundreds (perhaps thousands) of millions of people would also pay, AI would become an extraordinary income machine. In Xataka | OpenClaw changed the rules of the AI ​​race. Technology companies already have their answer: copy it (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news Sam Altman has had another great idea to finally charge the user all the money he needs: a receipt at the end of the month was originally published in Xataka by Javier Pastor .

We thought that the great challenge of veganism was vitamin B12. A study suggests that social relationships are

by

Whatever there is taken the step to veganismfor whatever reasons, knows that the most difficult thing is not to give up cheese or meat, but to face Christmas dinner with the family or the Sunday barbecue with friends, since food is an event with a great social component. In this way, when someone decides to radically change consumption habits in a predominantly omnivorous worldnot only changes the plate, but also social relations. Now science has determined the tactics these people develop in order to survive social frictions. The data. The study, published in September 2025is not limited to conducting a survey among vegan people to analyze the impact on their social relationships. What they did was exhaustive field work between 2017 and 2022, combining in-depth interviews, observation and netnography, which is the analysis of the behavior of online communities. where debates arise about it. The goal here was none other than to understand exactly where and how everyday interactions are “broken.” And above all how they tried to compensate in an almost innate way. Social fractures. The researchers here identified that tensions in a social relationship do not arise from a simple difference of opinion about the most ethical diet, but from what they have called “relational fractures”, which are divided into three very clear areas: Co-execution: The simple act of cooking with another person, such as a partner, or sharing a meal becomes logistically complex. What was once a fluid ritual now requires planning, separate pans, and constant negotiation to arrive at a common dish. Co-learning: Family traditions, like inheriting grandma’s secret meatball recipe, are short-circuited. This means that the exchange of culinary knowledge between omnivores and vegans often comes to a standstill. Activities that may be everyday activities, such as going shopping or choosing a restaurant with other people, become logistical minefields where one has to balance one’s ethical needs with the preferences of others to choose, for example, a restaurant with a menu that suits everyone. Survival kit. So, if relationships fracture, how do vegans avoid becoming isolated? The researchers here discovered that, to maintain social peace and navigate these turbulent waters, vegans develop four specific “relational competencies” that sometimes appear without them realizing it, which we see below. Decoding. This is the ability to “analyze,” meaning vegans learn to anticipate how others will react to their diet and evaluate whether the environment is safe, hostile, or simply curious. Depending on the impression you have, your behavior will adapt to the environment by being more or less open with the topic. Disengagement. The second pillar is to deliberately separate food from social interaction, as it means that one will eat their vegan plate while another eats animal products, prioritizing company and conversation over dietary friction. Chameleon effect. The third adaptation consists of integrating so as not to attract attention in the group. This may mean, for example, bringing food from home to a social gathering or ordering a basic salad at a steakhouse without comment, all to prevent veganism from becoming the central topic of conversation of the evening. Abandonment. The last adaptation that has been detected in some vegans is where they directly give up different shared plans, such as stopping going to certain restaurants or social events. Even, in extreme cases, a distancing has been detected in an interpersonal relationship, since it becomes toxic due to the tensions that are generated. It is not born from nothing. One of the researchers has been exploring “morality in markets” for years and this led her to talk about indigenous and animal consumption practices. In this way, veganism is something that has been scrutinized for a long time in different studiessince it is not just about choosing what to eat, but it is an ethical stance that the omnivorous environment often perceives as a challenge to its own social and cultural customs. The big conclusion that can be drawn from all this is that the transition to a plant-based diet does not only require learning to read nutritional labels or discovering new recipes, but also requires a profound social and emotional re-education.. The long-term success of a vegan lifestyle depends as much on resilience at the supermarket as it does diplomacy at the dining table. Images | Anna Pelzer Xataka | Protein powder has become the star accessory of modern wellness. Nutritionists have something to say

Participate in our raffle and get two double Experience VIP tickets for the great technology event in Seville

by

In just a few days (March 19 and 20) the first edition of CTx Tech in Seville, a great technology, innovation and talent event with more than 400 hours of content that will welcome more than 15,000 attendees. Xataka is the official Media Partner of the event and, to celebrate, we are going to raffle two double Experience VIP tickets for two people and their respective companions. These tickets, valued at 180 euros each, will allow you to make the most of the event and access everything, from the themed hubs to the VIP terrace, including premium and exclusive areas. To be precise, this is all it includes: Full access to the venue during both days. Innovation HUB (thematic agoras, tech, entrepreneurship and innovation). Public & Social HUB (Auditorium of institutional contents). ADA Auditorium with great speakers and star content. General networking within the CTx ecosystem. Access to Investment Hub Thematic Auditorium (investment, AI, tech). VIP terrace with exclusive service. Premium visibility area to the ADA Auditorium. High-level networking with strategic profiles. As is obvious, it is a great opportunity for both technology lovers, entrepreneurs and professionals. And to add something else, on March 19 at 8:40 p.m. in the ADA Auditorium you can attend, if you wish, the live recording of a special program of Infinite Loop with Javier Lacort and Antonio Ortiz, founder of Xataka and co-presenter of Stochastic Monkeys. How to get two double VIP tickets for CTx Tech Image | CTx Tech Participating in the raffle is extremely simple: you simply have to sign up at this form by entering your name, surname and email. It is important to verify that it is written correctly, since it will be that email that we write to in the event of winning. The deadline to participate will end next Tuesday, March 17, at 9:00 Spanish peninsular time. The winners will be chosen at random through EasyPromos, they will receive an email informing them that they have won and must confirm their attendance within 24 hours. If they do not confirm attendance within this period, the tickets will be distributed to the substitutes also chosen at random. To win, in addition to registering correctly on the draw website, you must be of legal age and resident in Spain. There is no geographical limitationso residents of the peninsula, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla will be eligible for tickets. It should be noted that the prize is two double VIP Experience tickets, but travel, accommodation and per diem expenses are not included. That will be in the hands of the attendees. For more details about the procedure you can consult the legal bases of the draw. Images | CTx Tech More information and registration | CTx Tech

The great battle of the Ebro is not between Murcia and Aragón, it is between the headwaters of the rivers, the large cities and the delta

by

The image is straight out of a movie: a team of divers diving into the cold waters of the Arija reservoir to dredge more than three meters of silt accumulated in front of its floodgates. It’s not a whim, It’s the only way to remove them.: that is, the consequence of having hundreds of infrastructures that have not been thoroughly maintained for decades. But, above all, the most striking symptom of a very deep problem: the sediments are killing, at the same time, the reservoirs and the rivers. Reservoirs due to loss of capacity (Mequinenza has lost since its opening more capacity than the sum of the last three reservoirs put into operation), rivers because deltas need sediment to stay alive. The Ebro, without going any further, needs 1.2 million tons per year. And the authorities know it. In fact, since 2003, the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation has been carrying out controlled floods in the lower section of the river to mobilize sediments towards Tortosa. The problem is that each controlled flood moves about 10,000 tons; that is, two orders of magnitude below what is necessary. It’s like emptying a swimming pool with a coffee spoon. So in the last few months, something has changed. Since November 2024, the CHE began a series of measures to try to fix it. Things like extending the discharge by two days, starting it from much higher up (El Grado in Huesca and Camarasa in Lleida) and draining Ribarroja more than usual to mobilize all the possible sediments. Will it solve the problem? It’s not clear, but it doesn’t seem like it. We have to take into account that, only in the Ebro basin, there are many reservoirs and that is an inevitable brake. Calculations say that of the five million tons that were brought to the Mediterranean before the reservoirs, only between 100,000 and 200,000 now arrive. It would take around 100 floods to reach the appropriate figures. And no, we don’t have enough water for that. So? That is the big problem, seeing what we do. We must not forget that the Ebro delta supports 20,000 hectares of rice fieldstens of thousands of inhabitants and is a biosphere reserve. The loss of wetlands and their salinization have a direct impact on agriculture, fishing and tourism. Come on: the interests are crossed and they confront people hundreds of kilometers away. We are entering a new era of hydrological wars in which we are all against each other. Image | Sinto MQZ In Xataka | The Ebro is filling with brown prawns, an invasive species that we are going to find more and more on our plates.

Building data centers in the Middle East seemed like a great deal. Until Iran arrived

by

A few days ago we said that Iran had attacked two data centers in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain. It is the first deliberate attack on a data center and proof that it has become critical infrastructure at the level of power plants. The question is who thought it was a good idea to build data centers in one of the most unstable areas on the planet. A plan that comes from afar. In a trip to Saudi Arabia last yearTrump was accompanied by an entourage of technological leaders among whom were Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Sam Altman or Sundar Pichai among others. At this meeting, massive investments were announced in the region with the construction of a massive data center complex. However, although it has been strengthened by this administration, the previous one was the one that started the path. In September 2024, Biden met with the leader of the Emirates to seek a strategic alliance that would allow them to develop their AI ecosystem. The reason. What has led technology companies to build in the Middle East is evident: saving. They count in Financial Times that the Gulf countries offered very interesting incentives, such as subsidies and cheaper energy. Furthermore, in this way all the problems they are having at home with the electrical gridpermits and resistance from many communities. The business seemed good. The map of AI in the Middle East. Emirates and Saudi Arabia are the countries with the most data centers, with 57 and 61 facilities respectively, according to Data Center Map. Of all of them, many are from American companies. Amazon alone has nine in the area, including those in the Emirates, Bahrain and also Saudi Arabia. Microsoft has data centers in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and is building one in Saudi Arabia. Oracle, OpenAI and other partners are building a mega data center in Abu Dhabi which they expect to reach 5GW. The damage. Although the Middle East has gained presence on the map of big tech data centers, the concentration of infrastructure is still ridiculous compared to that of the United States itself, which has more than 4,000 installations. All in all, build a data center It’s not exactly cheap. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, said a few months ago that Each gigawatt costs about $50 billion.. The irony. The same leaders who posed for a photo with Trump on that trip now see how their infrastructure is threatened and suffering the consequences of the conflict caused by the president himself. The idea of ​​investing in so much digital infrastructure in an unstable area was not such a good idea. The war against Iran It looks like it’s going to get longer. and nothing prevents Tehran from continuing to attack energy and technological facilities in the region. They were looking to reduce costs and it may end up being expensive, although seeing the projected capex for this yearthey can afford it. Image | Data Center Map (edited) In Xataka | The US is beginning to realize something worrying: AI data centers are skyrocketing its electricity bill

Antwerp is the great gateway for cocaine in Europe. Now Belgium risks becoming a “narco-state”

by

Belgium is the heart of Europe, home of the main institutions community, part of one of the regions more industrialized of the planet… and also a ‘narco-state’ in the making. It may sound exaggerated, but that is the warning that a judge from Antwerp has issued. In an open letter disclosed by the city’s own court at the end of 2025, a magistrate puts his finger on the issue by denouncing the high cost for Belgium that the Flemish port has become one of the big doors entry of coca into Europe. In fact, its author does not hesitate to use the cursed word: ‘narco-state’. Message for Belgium. It is not usual for a magistrate to publicly denounce that his country is succumbing to drug trafficking networks. Even less so that this happens in the heart of Europe, in the nation that hosts the headquarters of the EU Council and Commission. However, that is exactly what happened on October 27, when the Belgian Justice published a judge’s letter of Antwerp that warns of the extent to which the mafias are “undermining” the institutions. The letter, anonymous and addressed to the Justice Committee, was launched a few months ago, but its tone is so emphatic that it has continued to stir up the debate. In fact a few days ago the president of the Antwerp Court of Appeal and the general prosecutor of Antwerp and Limburg they sat with Guardian to insist on the same idea: the drug trafficking that is channeled through Belgium poses a real danger to both the judicial system and the rule of law. What does the letter say? “Large mafia structures have been consolidated and have become a parallel power that challenges not only the police, but also the judiciary. The consequences are serious: Are we becoming a narco-state? Don’t you think it’s possible? Does it seem exaggerated? According to our anti-drug commissioner, that evolution has already begun. My colleagues and I share that feeling,” start the writing before remembering that narco-states are defined by their reliance on an illegal economy and their levels of corruption and violence. Does Antwerp meet those requirements? And Belgium? The magistrate begins by remembering what the authorities discovered when accessing Sky ECCcourier network used for smuggling. “The investigation has uncovered a parallel economy in our port, a multi-million dollar economy that operates outside official channels,” the magistrate insists flamenco. His investigations, he recalls, have discovered money laundering networks and a flow of black money that (among other consequences) raises prices in the real estate sector. Corruption and violence. That is just one of the criticisms that it collects the letter. Its author denounces that corruption has managed to infiltrate the port and “permeates” the institutions “from the base”, reaching customs officials, judicial officials, prisons, city councils and even the police. The gangs, alert, operate through blackmail, coercion and large bribes. “Moving a container, a 10-minute job, generates income of 100,000 euros, and a bag costs 50,000.” The mafias also do not hesitate to resort to violence, including kidnappings, torture and murder. “An attack on a house with bombs or weapons, a raid or a kidnapping can be easily ordered. You don’t even need to resort to the dark web. Just use Snapchat. Plus, it’s not expensive.” The author of the letter goes further and states that several investigating judges have had no choice but to live for long periods with an escort or even move house. The risk? Let this intimidation work and fewer and fewer judges and prosecutors in Antwerp are willing to hand down sentences in these cases. “A danger to stability”. The October letter focused the focus in drug trafficking in the heart of Europe, but despite its forcefulness (and the fact that the letter ended with a series of ‘duties’ for the Government) the problem is still far from being resolved. confirmed it a few days ago Bart Willocx, president of the Antwerp Court of Appeal, in an interview with Guardian. “The amount of money involved is so large that it poses a danger to the stability of our society,” ditch. “We are becoming a state with a lot of corruption and threats,” agrees Guido Vermeiren, attorney general. 250,000 euros for an order. The magnitude of the challenge is better understood by knowing certain data. For example, how mafias operate to gain influence in ports. Vermeiren cite a case in which criminals paid more than 250,000 euros to a worker in exchange for moving a single container. When the checkbook doesn’t work, gangs can resort to coercion, sending letters with photos of relatives or even launching attacks with homemade explosives. The Antwerp prosecutor remember another incident from two years ago, when police thwarted an attempt to steal 1,500 tons of confiscated cocaine. There are even suspicions that in 2022 a criminal network tried to kidnap to a Belgian minister. Do you move so many drugs? Yes. Although It is not the only border of the continent plagued by drug trafficking, Guardian assures (citing Europol) that more than 70% of the coca that entered Europe in 2024 passed through Antwerp and Rotterdam. It’s nothing new. For years Antwerp has been identified by something more than its diamond trade: it is often noted as the favorite port of Latin American drug traffickers when they want to send drugs to Europe. Police control would be leading the gangs to go to smaller ports, but even so the data is compelling. In the report June 2025 on surveillance of seaports and drug trafficking, the European Union Drugs Agency reports on the importance of the Flemish terminal: “Seventeen EU ports seized more than 10 tons of drugs in this period (2019-2024), with Antwerp seizing the largest amount, 483 tons.” What the data reveals. The same report recalls that in 2023 the authorities intercepted around 121 tons of cocaine in Antwerp, a figure that dropped to 44 tons the following year. A similar trend was experienced in Rotterdam: from 45 t … Read more

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.