live

We believed that cities were a desert for bees, but 5.5 million live under this cemetery in New York

by

Although cities have their own fauna, the reality is that one could reasonably think that for animals of all kinds the urban environment is far behind the countryside in diversity and quality of life: there is a lot of asphalt, noise, pollutants… well yes, but no, because there is a place where bees have found a true residential paradise: a cemetery in IthacaNew York. Where you see a cemetery, the bees see paradise. It turns out that a laboratory technique called Rachel Fordyce had a trick to get to your work at Cornell University without paying for parking: park on the other side and take a walk through the East Lawn Cemetery. In spring 2022 he arrived at his post with a jar full of bees that he had found along the way: that was the beginning of it all. The bees inside were Andrena regularis, known as the “common mining bee,” a wild, solitary species that nests underground. That is, it does not have a queen and it does not build hives either. Each female digs her own tunnel, lays her eggs, supplies them with food, and seals them. And under the ground of the Ithaca cemetery there are millions, more specifically 5.56 million in just over 6,000 square meterswhich come out every spring to pollinate the surrounding apple trees. Why is it important. Because it is the largest population of wild bees with a nest in the ground ever documented and very far of the secondof 1.6 million individuals of a different species in Arizona. And their work is essential: pollinators in general are responsible for the production of approximately 75% of the world’s food crops. according to the FAO. As explains Bryan Danforthprofessor of entomology at Cornell University, they must be protected: “If we don’t preserve nesting sites and someone paves them, we could instantly lose 5.5 million bees that are important pollinators.” The most striking thing of all is that this enormous population was there, in the midst of civilization and next to one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Context. Contrary to popular belief, the most common way of life for bees is solitary and with a nest on the ground: approximately 75% of the bees on the planet live like this. Those bees that produce honey and live in hives may be the most famous, but they are an absolute minority. Solitary wild bees are not as well known, but their pollination work is key in nature and in food. Thus, this enormous population lives independently but concentrated in that place because the substrate conditions are optimal. The bad news is that pollinators are in decline: according to the report of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Servicesmore than 40% of pollinating insect species are threatened. In this scenario, finding such a large population in a city shows that there are more refuges for biodiversity than we thought and we must find them before they disappear (and if possible, avoid it). In detail. We knew about the presence of Andrena regularis in that cemetery since 1935, but it was not until 2021 when the scientific community began to intuit what was underground. To estimate the population, the team installed mesh traps at 10 points in the cemetery between March 30 and May 16, 2023. The result was extraordinary: as explains the press release from the New York university, is the equivalent of 200 honey bee hives on just 0.6 hectares of land and more than triple the population of Manhattan. Yes, but. The study has important limitations, such as that the population data is from a single spring (2023) and that the figure is a statistical estimate and not a real inventory, so we do not know if the population is rising, falling, remaining stable or how climate change affects it, which is advancing the flowering of apple trees and therefore altering the life calendar of the bees. And although it is the largest aggregation of wild nesting bees documented to date, its presence in a cemetery suggests that there may be others whose existence we are unaware of. In Xataka | We have a serious problem with the extinction of bees. The United Kingdom wants to solve it with bricks In Xataka | If the question is how to protect bees and other insects, in Peru they are clear: recognizing their legal rights Cover | Marisol Benitez, Chad Madden and Damien TUPINIER

Madrid is a black hole of workers and students who live outside Madrid. And they just took away their transport pass.

by

No Autonomous Community lost as many inhabitants as Madrid in 2025. No Autonomous Community gained as many inhabitants as Madrid in 2025. It may seem paradoxical but is what the data says. Madrid has become a labor and economic black hole. And the consequences are obvious. It is the region that attracted the most population last year, adding more than 100,000 new residents. But it is also the one that lost the most population, with just over 12,000 people who have gone to live outside the Community of Madrid. The increase in house prices and the day-to-day cost of living is expelling some of its workers from the city. Some of them simply go to live far enough away to find more affordable housing with the promise that a quick train connection allows them to be just over an hour from their work. A good example is Valladolid. Those, perhaps, are the luckiest. Others have simply grown up outside the region, in a rural environment, and have come to Madrid to try their luck to get one of those jobs. statistics place only in large cities. Workers who, perhaps, simply They arrived in Madrid during their university days. and they have ended up staying. Unlike when they were in their twenties and returned to their place of origin every summer. Or workers who do not appear anywhere because they are irregular immigrants who have arrived in Madrid with the same promises as any other profile we have talked about before but that remain outside of any type of statistics. Madrid has decided to remove their transport pass from all of them. Or make it much more complicated. Unnecessarily unnecessary registration All the previously mentioned profiles could have access to the transport subscription of the Community of Madrid without any type of hindrance. All that was necessary was a DNI, a residence permit or a passport and to pay the corresponding fee each month. This transport pass allows you to take Metro, bus and Cercanías throughout the Community of Madrid, which is divided into zones. These areas even reach the closest towns in Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León and They range from 32.70 euros to 79.00 eurosdepending on the extension we seek to cover. Obviously, the pass is especially useful for those who travel by public transport to go to work or school, since it is a flat rate that in zone A is compensated after 40 or so trips. That is, if every week you take a train, a subway or a bus twice a day, the investment is already worth it. Much more if we take into account that the cost of the youth subscription (from 15 to 26 years old) is just 10 euros. But the Community of Madrid has announced something: you will have to be registered in the region or in one of the municipalities covered by the transport pass. (even if they are in one of the Castiles) to enjoy the flat rate. That is, this leaves out all those who have left the city to more distant municipalities, the students who do not register in the city because they return to their places of origin once the school year ends. Or immigrants who cannot prove their stay in the city. And the latter is what, everything indicates, has served as fuel for the Community of Madrid to make this decision. When the Government of Spain opened the door to the regularization of thousands of immigrants in April, some conditions were placed. One of them was to demonstrate certain rootssuch as receipts for rent, purchases… or being the holder of a public transport pass. The latter, because it is the simplest, filled the transportation offices with immigrants who wanted to get said transportation pass.. In response, in the Community of Madrid the requirements to obtain this card have changed and now they require proof of registration (unless you are a large family) in a municipality in Madrid or in surrounding regions. The result is that, automatically, immigrants in an irregular situation cannot get this transport pass but, as we said before, neither can workers expelled by the city itself, those who come to try their luck for a few months or university students. In The Country They point out that the Community of Madrid estimates that around 200,000 people are affected by this change, which will also be extended to all renovations in the future. That is, if you are not registered in Madrid and you renewed your transport pass last year, you will not have problems in a decade but it will be more complicated for those who renew it next year. The measure has sparked great controversy. And there are those who have pointed out the measure as “racist and exclusive”, as Oscar Lopezminister of the government of Spain and general secretary of the PSOE in Madrid, and of course numerous associations in defense of immigrants such as Regularización Ya, as reported in the newspaper. From the Community of Madrid they defend that The measure has been approved since 2011 and that has been delayed due to technical issues but in addition they have already opened the door for some autonomous communities to co-finance Madrid transport so that Your students can benefit from this flat rate. Those 200,000 affected barely exceed 3% of Madrid’s public transport users, but the economic hole is especially harmful to them. Right now, a university student who lives and goes to class within the city of Madrid pays 10 euros. If you take a bus and a subway each day there and back, you will make a minimum of 80 trips a week (Monday to Friday only). Without registering, you will start paying 58.40 euros. If you live in Madrid but study in another area beyond the city, you will pay at least 85 euros. The punishment is even greater if you combine the metro and/or the municipal bus with the Cercanías service. The situation is … Read more

You can live without the condemnation of the username-password

by

Ah, the passwords. Unlivable, but irreplaceablewhat Sabina would say. For Spotify they certainly are, because they want to get rid of them. In a message it is sending to its users, it warns them that username-based logins will stop working on September 1, 2026. Enough of so much user-password. The company’s message is striking and breaks with a tradition that is the norm in practically throughout the industry: If you want to access a service on the Internet, you normally log in with the traditional user-password pair. Existing alternatives. Spotify currently offers various shapes to log in. This can be done with a username and corresponding password, with an email address and password, or through associated Google or Apple accounts. From now on, use email. The company’s notice only refers to the username option as the one that will be removed, and it does not appear that other forms of login will be removed. In the message they do indicate that “Instead, you will be able to log in with your email” And you know what? Is a great idea. Long live passwordless authentication. In recent years, an authentication system that stops using passwords and focuses on other methods has been gaining strength: Magic links: the user enters their email address, and the system sends a unique URL to that email. As soon as the user clicks on the address, a tab opens in the browser showing how the user has authenticated using that link. One-time passwords: instead of having a permanent password, the user enters their email address and in a few seconds receives a code (usually numerical, for example six digits) that they must enter in the application or web service. Once entered, authentication is completed. Many advantages… This type of email authentication eliminates the need to memorize passwords or manage them with a specialized application. This also allows us to prevent our data from being part of those traditional and disturbing massive password theftsand it is a very simple alternative for the user. No route-forcing attacks, weak passwords or reusing the same password for everything. And of course, nothing stops change them every so often. …and some disadvantages. . The bad thing is that the security of the method depends exclusively from the email address. If someone hacks the user’s email, they will have access to all accounts linked to that email address. This method is also vulnerable to attacks from advanced phishing: A fake website that imitates the design of a legitimate one can ask the user to enter the email, request the real code from the legitimate server and then ask the user to enter instead (Man-in-the-Midle attacks). In Xataka | There is one person who knows more than anyone else in the world about password theft. And they just stole his

Follow the Apple keynote and the news of iOS 27, Siri and more live

by

June 8 is coming and that means two things: that it’s starting to get hot and that we have an Apple event. As is tradition, the apple company has summoned us today in Cupertino for the WWDC 2026, the event for developers where it presents its latest software developments (and, for some time now, artificial intelligence). Of course, from Xataka we will be at the foot of the canyon covering it live both in our live page as on our YouTube channel. The event will begin at 7:00 p.m. Spanish peninsular time. We leave you the schedules by region here: Spain: 19:00 (18:00 in the Canary Islands). Mexico: 11:00 AM Colombia: 12:00 AM. Venezuela and Chile: 1:00 PM. Argentina: 2:00 PM. WWDC 2026, live What we hope to see In all of WWDC there have been, for a couple of years, two things: new versions of operating systems, of all; and some artificial intelligence. Surely today we will see iOS 27 and its brothers for iPad, Mac and Watch and other devices, although no big news is expected in terms of functions. What’s more, this year’s systems are expected to be “a bit Snow Leopard,” that is, transitional versions focused on polishing and purification of what already exists. After all, it was in iOS 26 when Apple made its big leap in terms of design, so it wouldn’t make sense to do it again this time. On the other hand, it is expected that artificial intelligence will be the main protagonist. Not because there is going to be a groundbreaking announcement, which maybe, but because Apple has had a pending task for two years: deliver the new Siri and, therefore, vitaminize Apple Intelligence. Let us remember that at the beginning of the year Apple joined forces with Google to be able to use the Gemini models and their cloud technology. Today, possibly, we will see the materialization of that agreement. In short, everything indicates that it will be a WWDC 2026 focused on fulfilling promises rather than teaching new things. As far as hardware goes, it would be strange as long as there were no major leaks or rumors. Now, it is worth keeping an eye on iOS 27 for one simple reason: what it can (or cannot) tell us about the much-rumored foldable iPhone What we expect for this year. We will clear up doubts in a while. Image | Apple edited by Xataka In Xataka | Follow WWDC 2026 live

It turns out that birds and insects live much better under them

by

We have been hearing for years that the expansion of solar parks threatens the countryside. The mental image we usually have is of hectares and hectares of black panels under a relentless sun, devastating the landscape and without a single bird for miles around. However, the data is beginning to tell a radically different story. There is more life inside than outside. To understand this phenomenon, we only have to look at the most recent data in Spain. According to a report from the Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF)endorsed by the independent environmental consultancy EMAT, photovoltaic enclosures are proving to be refuges full of life. After analyzing different facilities in 2025, the pattern is repeated within the park, there are more species than in the adjacent agricultural field. The numbers in three different provinces leave no room for doubt: Minglanilla (Cuenca): Researchers counted a total of 32 species of birds inside the solar plant, compared to the 19 they found in the control agricultural area located just outside. Revilla Vallejera (Burgos): The balance recorded 39 species inside the facility compared to 34 outside. Trujillo (Cáceres): 31 species were detected living between the panels, compared to 25 outside them. And what kind of tenants are arriving? They are not just common birds. The presence of protected or declining species such as the curlew, the little bustard, the roller, the owl and the lesser kestrel have been documented. And the food chain works its magic: as wild vegetation grows, insects arrive; with the insects, come the birds; and the abundance of these prey is attracting birds of prey such as eagles, vultures, hawks and owls. There is no technology, but something simpler. To understand why this is happening you have to change the reference point. The question is not whether a solar park is ecologically better than a virgin forest, because it clearly is not. The key is to compare it with what was before in that field. In the vast majority of cases, these fields were previously intensive agricultural operations: impoverished landscapes, treated with herbicides and profoundly silent. In contrast, installing a solar park de facto introduces an ecological exclusion zone. In other words, no pesticides or herbicides are used, hunting is prohibited and there is no tillage of the land, and human presence is reduced to very specific maintenance visits. As Martín Behar points outdirector of Studies and Environment at UNEF, this lack of chemicals, added to natural vegetation management through extensive grazing, is generating fantastic results on biodiversity. Spain It is not an anomaly. At an international level, what science is beginning to call “conservatory” systems (the union of renewable generation and active conservation) already has fascinating evidence. In the United Kingdom, a study led by the RSPB and the University of Cambridge analyzed six solar parks in East AngliaEdit. The conclusion was that they housed a greater wealth of birds than nearby crops. In those better managed (with unpruned hedges and varied vegetation), almost three times as many birds were found than in neighboring fields. But perhaps the most curious story comes from Australia. A Lightsource bp study followed 1,700 merino sheep for three years. Half lived in traditional grass fields and the other half lived among photovoltaic panels. The discovery surprised everyone: the sheep that grazed in the solar park produced better quality wool. The reason is that the microclimate under the modules allowed them to alternate between fresh forage, dry grass and hay several times a year, something not feasible in a normal paddock in full sun. It’s not enough to plant the panels and cross your fingers. Of course, the researchers themselves warn of something fundamental: that solar parks can benefit the ecosystem does not mean that they always do so by magic. It is not enough to install the panels and wait. If you just cut the grass close and leave a “simple habitat”, there will be no miracle. For the magic to happen, active management is needed: maintain vegetation covers, use native vegetation on the margins, create ecological corridors and rely on sheep as a natural lawnmower. To push the industry in this direction, UNEF has promoted a Seal of Excellence in Sustainability, developed hand in hand with experts from WWF and SEO/BirdLife. The debate is changing. What makes photovoltaic energy an ally for biodiversity or a territorial threat is, simply, what we decide to do with it. Image | Pexels Xataka | Australia compared 1,700 sheep and discovered something unexpected: those that graze among solar panels give better quality wool

put an astronaut to “live” a year in orbit

by

The Shenzhou 23 mission has been a success on its journey to Tiangongaccording to various Chinese media reports. In these, this milestone is noted as a great step forward in China’s race to the Moon. Certainly, each of these advances brings the Asian country closer to our satellite. However, it should be noted that the milestones achieved with this latest mission are rather achievements of the Chinese space race in general, and not so specific to lunar exploration. It is also worth noting that several records have been broken or are expected to be broken, but again these are particular records for this nation, not worldwide. All this indicates that they have the capacity of the great space powers, although much of what they are doing has already been done before. Three new taikonauts in space. This May 24, three taikonauts (the name by which Chinese astronauts are known in the West) they left with the help of a Long March rocket heading to the Tiangong space station. Docking with one of the station’s ports was carried out without problems 3.5 hours later. Two of the ship’s three crew members are expected to spend around 6 months in these facilities. The normal thing in these missions. However, one of them, which has not yet been specified, will break the record for spending a year in space. Background. There have already been other astronauts who have spent about a year in space. At NASA, the record is held by astronaut Frank Rubio, who spent 371 days aboard the International Space Station. Before him, at the top of the US space agency was Mark Vande Hei, with 355 days. However, both are far short of the 437 days Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov spent at the Russian Mir station. The crew. The three crew members of this Chinese mission are Zhu Yangzhu, Zhang Zhiyuan and Li Jiaying. The latter is the fourth female taikonaut and the first person from Hong Kong to travel to space. Before, she was a police inspector. More first times. The next mission to Tiangong will have a Pakistani astronaut on board, so firsts will continue to be achieved. Future experiments. The astronauts who have now arrived at the Chinese space station will carry out various experiments, related to medicine, materials science, fluid physics, biology and medicine. Highlights include those carried out by the crew member who will extend his stay up to a year, since he will be the one in charge of studying how it affects microgravity to the human body in long stays. It will also focus on the psychological effects of confinement and, in general, everything that could affect the health of the next lunar colonists. Target: the Moon. Of course China has its sights set on the Moon. In fact, with their Chang’e missions, they have done a very exhaustive study of our satellite. They have managed to map it, land on your hidden side and collect samples and return them to Earth for analysis. Even has been made to germinate a seed in a simulated biosphere, within the selenite territory. The Chinese Academy of Sciences has sufficient knowledge about the Moon and has also proven to have more than competent technologies. Their goal is to land on the moon in 2030. NASA’s is set for 2028, but everything can change. At the moment, China is advancing at a good pace in its space race and that, without a doubt, is great news. At the end of the day, we should see the space race as a goal of humanity, not so much as a race between countries. Images | CMSA In Xataka | The space race between the United States and China is, above all, a race to see who can spend the most money

In Japan there is no doubt that they live worse than 30 years ago. Houses are literally getting smaller.

by

The demographic crisis that drags Japan comes long. In 2024 we say that it is the great challenge of the nation, the same one that we could summarize with one fact: if we continue like this, By 2531 all its inhabitants will have the same last name. That’s why we have seen all kinds of ideas and proposalssome with more common sense than othersbut all with the idea of ​​raising birth rates and combating aging. Now there is another fact that aggravates the situation even more: the houses are smaller. The house shrinks. The data is official and comes from a study that is carried out every five years in the nation. The average housing space in Japan has reached its lowest level in 30 years, with an average of 90 square meters at the end of 2024three square meters less than the 2003 peak, according to the government study. The change reflects a trend towards reduction in the size of homes, evident in the last five years. Additionally, in both single-family homes and multi-family units, including rentals and condominiums. Multifamily, in particular, average only 50 square metersfive less than what the government considers adequate for two adults in urban areas. It’s the economy, friend. They counted on a report in Nikkei that the increase in construction costs, which has shot up 30% since 2015 in the country, is the main driver of this reduction of space in homes. To keep prices affordable and protect their profit margins, builders are downsizing homes, a practice known as “hidden price gouging.” Not only that. In addition, land prices in popular residential areas are also on the rise, which further aggravates the situation. This increase in prices has reduced the demand for larger, more expensive, personalized homes in favor of smaller, cheaper units. Impact on quality of life. It is another of the legs that slips from the problem. The reduction in living space creates discomfort, especially in small homes. For many people, like a 50-year-old woman who lives in a 30-square-meter apartment with her husband, the situation is described as suffocating. Even single-person homes, which They represent 38% of households according to the national censusare often considered too small for a comfortable lifestyle. And then there are young people, who face greater barriers to accessing larger homes, with prohibitive prices even on the second-hand market. Young people and birth rates. All this leads to what we indicated at the beginning. The reduced living space and the impossibility of purchasing larger homes discourage young couples from, for example, starting families, exacerbating the already worrying drop in the birth rate. Housing policies alone do not seem sufficient to reverse this trend, and experts such as Masayuki Takahashi emphasize that The key is to increase salaries in a sustained manner. During the period of high economic growth in Japan, rising wages allowed more people to access spacious housing, something that is not the case today. The elderly and housing. The housing problem goes much further. In fact, every time More seniors in Japan face difficulties renting housingeven if they have financial means. Cases like that of an 88-year-old man in Tokyo, who, with more than 100 million yen in savings after planning to sell his apartment, experienced multiple rejections for not being able to provide an emergency contact under 70 years of agea common requirement among homeowners in the nation. After four months of searching, he managed to find an apartment, but the case reflects a broader problem. Rent and the veto for older adults. According to 2020 census data, Japan had 6.7 million single-person households with residents aged 65 or older, accounting for 12% of the total. By 2030, it is estimated that this number will reach 8 million. Again, even though there are approximately 9.3 million of vacant homes, landlords’ reluctance to rent to seniors is a significant obstacle. In August 2025, the Ministry of Infrastructure published a survey specific about owners of the akiya which revealed that approximately 60% of these properties were inherited, with more than 70% built before 1980, and that more than 70% show signs of deterioration or damage. Reasons? 66% of landlords expressed reluctance to accept older tenants, in a ministry survey. The main fear: the risk of death of the tenant alone of which we have talked beforewhich can require costly cleanups and require reporting to future tenants for three years. This situation is worsened by the increasing loneliness of older people and the lack of close family members throughout the nation. Ultimately, and with official figures and data In hand, it does not seem that the housing problem in Japan has improved for three decades. In reality, and sticking to those numbers, houses are literally smaller and more expensive, both to buy and to rent. a problem that we see in many other nationswhere the practice of downsizing in homes to maintain competitive prices ends up affecting the stability of the real estate market and the residents’ own quality of lifewith special emphasis on the case of young people and the elderly. A version of this article was published in January 2025 Image | Ted McGrath In Xataka | Japan has known for many years the secret to cleaning dust less frequently at home In Xataka | If you thought that living in Japan was already a luxury, wait until you see the latest house signed by Aston Martin

memory no longer wants to live in each machine

by

For many of us, memory shortage It may first sound like a problem close to domestic consumption: RAM modules, components and devices conditioned by an increasingly stressed demand. But the phenomenon that The Next Platform describes also points to the other end of the chain. It reaches the large technology companies that train, deploy and offer artificial intelligence models in data centers. The cloud is not an abstraction, and its appetite for memory is forcing us to think about something that until recently seemed unintuitive: perhaps each machine should not depend only on the RAM it has inside. Memory changes places. The underlying idea is to transfer to memory a logic that is already familiar to us with storage. Today, data can live on the computer itself, on another machine on the network, or on a shared system accessed by several servers. The next generation of servers could treat RAM in a similar way: keep a portion local to each machine, but bring a much larger portion to large external systems capable of distributing capacity according to the need of the moment. From there comes what some call “memory godbox”: a large box or cluster of memory that is no longer tied to a single machine. The CXL moment. For years, Compute Express Link has advanced slowly, almost as a promise for more flexible architectures. The technology was introduced several years ago, but current memory pressures are giving it a much more favorable context. CXL provides a coherent interface to communicate processors, memory, accelerators and other peripherals, relying on PCIe. The final idea is simple to tell, although complex to execute: separating resources without breaking the feeling that they work together. CXL didn’t arrive all at once. It was first used to expand the memory of a server using modules connected to compatible PCIe slots. Then, with CXL 2.0, pooling appearedthat is, the possibility of pooling memory in a common pool and assigning it to different machines as needed. The limit was that that memory could be reallocated, but not truly shared between two systems working on the same data. CXL 3.0 It is the point at which that frontier begins to move, because it introduces broader topologies and shared memory between machines, although with certain technical limitations. The underlying problem. According to The Next Platform, AI does not fall short only because of a lack of calculation, but also because of a lack of memory. The HBM that accompanies the GPUs is very fast and is designed to power these chips at high speed, but its capacity is limited and its cost is high. In training, the big challenge is usually processing enormous amounts of data to build the model. In inference, however, we talk about something else: using that already trained model to respond to a request. The memory of the conversation. Each response from a language model is built little by little, token by token. In order not to recalculate everything above at each step, the systems save a type of working memory called KV cache. The Next Platform explains that previous attention vectors are preserved there, which help the model to continue taking into account the context while generating the response. The problem is that in services with many users, this cache can grow to occupy enormous amounts of memory, even more than the model itself. It’s not just theory anymore. This idea no longer lives only in technical documents or architectural promises. The Register mentions Panmnesia, Liqid and UnifabriX as companies working on systems to take memory off the server and make it available to multiple machines. Some do it with CXL switches, others with large reserves of DDR5 that can be distributed among different hosts. The Next Platform adds the case of Enfabrica and its Emfasys system, designed for inference and capable, according to the media, of reaching 18 TB of DDR5 per memory server and 144 TB in a full rack. The conclusion is simple: the industry is not only looking for more memory, it is looking to place it in another way so that AI can take better advantage of it. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana In Xataka | The ‘Chinese Netflix’ has designed a plan for AI to generate the majority of its content within five years. It sounds risky

Microsoft wanted to create a mega data center in Kenya. To function, half the country had to live without electricity

by

In May 2024 Microsoft announced what seemed like a historic agreement for Kenya’s technological development. The goal: create a gigantic data center that would be powered by geothermal energy. This center was going to be created in the Olkaria region, but the Kenyan president, William Ruto, has been blunt with Microsoft’s energy claims: to power the total requested 1 GW capacity, the country “would have to shut down half the nation.” too fair. Kenya has an electrical capacity installed capacity of between 3 and 3.2 GW, with peak demand that already reaches 2.44 GW. Microsoft’s project would consume approximately a third of the country’s total capacity. Even the first phase, which requires a capacity of 100 MW, would take a huge bite out of the production of the Olkaria geothermal complex, which generates about 950 GW in total. Kenya seems to be clear that sacrificing domestic consumption was not worth it when most of the project’s profitability will end up in the hands of a large foreign technology company. Financial disagreement. In addition to the energy problems, the negotiations have ended up getting stuck in the economic field. According to sources close to the process cited in BloombergMicrosoft and the investment firm G42 have reportedly asked the Kenyan government for a financial commitment. Specifically, payment for a certain amount of capacity each year, something with which the Kenyan leaders did not fully agree. The project has not been canceled. John Tanui, head of Kenya’s Ministry of Information, explained that his country is still in negotiations with Microsoft and G42, and that the agreement “has not failed or been abandoned. The scale of the data center they needed requires some structuring,” and that includes solving both the energy and economic problems. A project with a lot of geopolitics behind it. This project was not only a technological milestone for Microsoft and Africa, but also a diplomatic one. It is part of a $1.5 billion deal between Microsoft and Abu Dhabi-based G42, which was designed to counter potential deals on this continent with China. In fact, as a condition for the G42 agreement had to divest its Chinese assets and remove Huawei equipment from their systems. While the project is on hold, however, the Chinese company continues to expand in this region and has recently launched new broadband services over fiber with the largest Kenyan operator, Safaricom. Bottlenecks everywhere. The case of Kenya is not the only one that is stopping Microsoft’s plans. The company has announced a capex of 190 billion dollars by 2026 that will be invested in data centers, and the company is adding approximately 1 GW of computing capacity each quarter globally. However, about half of the data centers planned in the US this year have been canceled or delayed due to the shortage of electrical infrastructure. Image | Microsoft In Xataka | In 2024, Big Tech spent absurd amounts of money on AI. In 2025, they managed to spend 77% more

In 1962, someone donated shares in a company to the elderly in his town. The company was Nokia and today they live like millionaires

by

There are stories that seem taken from a Hollywood script. That of Onni Nurmi, a young Finnish entrepreneur, has a name, surname, date and even a street named after him. The story of our protagonist It has all the elements for a script worthy of an Oscar: a man who was born in misery, fell into debt with his neighbors, crossed the Atlantic to settle his outstanding accounts and returned to his country. Decades after he died, he has become the greatest benefactor of his people. All this, for having donated to the nursing home in his town the shares of a rubber company that did not attract anyone’s attention. A Nurmi always pays his debts Onni Nurmi was born in 1885 in Savijoki, a small town within the municipality of Pukkila, in Finland, a town of just under 1,700 inhabitants. Nurmi grew up in a humble home marked by the hardships of being raised by a single mother who worked in the fields and ran a small canning store in the town. When she died unexpectedly at age 49, Onni was only 13 years old and had no future in Pukkila, so he moved to Helsinki. In 1912, he returned to Pukkila and resumed the family business by opening a store. However, his business did not work out. The following year, indebted to dozens of neighborstook a ship to America and spent 15 years working as a game warden in Minnesota. When he returned in 1928, he went door to door paying off every outstanding debt owed to Pukkila residents, some of them incurred a decade earlier. He didn’t do it because no one demanded it. Onni was simply that type of person. Onni Nurmi. Source: Kylä Savijoki Helsinki’s most unlikely investor With his debts paid off, Onni moved back to Helsinki, where he worked as a property manager and led an orderly, quiet life. He never married or had children. At some point he discovered investments in the stock market and, without financial training and with the only help of his intuition, he decided to buy shares of a small company that manufactured paper, rubber, rubber tires and boots which had its headquarters in the city that gave it its name: Nokia. In 1959 he wrote his will and decided to leave all the shares of that company that manufactured wellies to the municipality of Pukkila, with two conditions: They should never be sold and his donation was to be used solely for the well-being of the town’s elders. Onni Nurmi died in 1962 at the age of 77. The 780 shares he donated to the town where he had lived most of his life were then worth about $30,000, the equivalent of about $320,000 today. His gesture was undoubtedly generous, but not extraordinary…yet. The Buffett Effect: Let Time Do Its Work The clause preventing the sale of the shares seemed a problem at first. If the town had been able to cash in on the stock portfolio at any time, it would have obtained funds to improve the nursing home. However, the will was blunt on that point: shares had to be keptand they could only use dividends that these actions will generate over time. However, what seemed like a limitation to local authorities eventually became the best investment decision anyone in Pukkila could have made. The will was forcing them to apply a technique that for more than six decades has become a millionaire to Warren Buffett: leave let time do its work. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Nokia left rubber boots behind to become the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world, position he held between 1998 and 2012. The original 780 shares that Nurmi had donated multiplied by a thousand due to its growth in the stock market and the overwhelming sales domain of their phones. At the height of the technology boom, Pukkila’s portfolio was valued at around 90 million dollarsmaking their Pukkila retirees the most prosperous in Finland, at least on paper. What do we do with so much money? The prosperity of the actions opened a new debate among the residents of Pukkila. They were sitting on a fortune and doing nothing to profit from it. In 1997, the city council proposed selling part of the shares to diversify the portfolio and reduce the risk of a hypothetical fall of Nokia. Not everyone agreed. A section of the town argued that selling the shares was against Nurmi’s will. Another sector even proposed that the benefits be used so that residents would not pay municipal taxes for 12 years. Given the disagreement, the debate reached the courts and lasted for several years. Ironically, the “Buffett effect” came into play again, and the judicial paralysis was the best possible news for the people’s coffers: while the issue of the sale of shares was being settled in court, Nokia shares did not stop increase its value. The courts finally approved an agreement by which the municipality could sell a part of the portfolio and diversify its funds, always respecting the original will of the will to support the town’s elders. as main beneficiaries of those actions. With that money the Onni Wellness Centeropened in 2008. The building stands on Onnintie Street (which in Finnish literally means Happiness Street) and includes sheltered housing, spaces for people with memory disorders, a health center, pharmacy, swimming pool, gym, library, cafeteria and a Japanese garden. All this in a municipality of less than 2,000 inhabitants. Onni Nurmi never imagined the magnitude of his donation decades after his death, but in some ways, he more than repaid the patience his neighbors had in waiting decades to pay off their debt. In Xataka | Giving money away wasn’t enough: Warren Buffett turned Christmas into an investing masterclass for his family Image | Unsplash (Pawel Czerwinski, Joe Zlomek, MW), Kylä Savijoki.

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.