Microsoft

Microsoft rises strongly the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate in Spain. The increase comes next to a renewal of plans

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If you are an Xbox Game Pass user or you are thinking of subscribing to the Microsoft service, prepare for important changes. Adjustments have just come into force that do not go unnoticed, including a strong increase in the price of its most complete modality. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate now costs now 26.99 euros per month. It is a 50% increase compared to the 17.99 euros paid so far. It is not the first time that this plan increases its price: in July 2024 it had already gone from 14.99 to 17.99 euros per month. The justification. According to the company, Ultimate will give access to more than 400 titles worldwide, “including most of our partners who wish to continue bringing their future games to Xbox Game Pass.” In addition, the service will offer support for 1440p resolution and improvements in the bits rate on certain devices. How far the changes arrive. Microsoft has also reorganized the offer and says goodbye to the previous nomenclature. Xbox Game Pass Core is called Xbox Game Pass Essential, while the standard plan is transformed into Xbox Game Pass Premium. Game Pass Essential Game Pass Premium Game Pass Ultimate Game Pass for PC available games More than 50 More than 200 More than 400 “Hundreds of games” for PC Cloud streaming Yeah Includes own games Yeah Shorter waiting times Includes own games Yeah “With the best quality” With shorter waiting times Includes own games No available games day one No No, they join up to 12 months Yeah Yeah Online multiplayer Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Rewards points Up to 25,000 a year Up to 50,000 a year Up to 100,000 a year Up to 50,000 a year Advantages in games Yes, in ‘League of Legends’ and ‘Cod: Warzone’ Yes, in ‘League of Legends’ and ‘Cod: Warzone’ Yes, in ‘League of Legends’ and ‘Cod: Warzone’ Yes, in ‘League of Legends’ and ‘Cod: Warzone’ others – – EA play and ubisoft+ included EA play included price 8.99 euros 12.99 euros Free 14 -day test 26.99 euros 14.99 euros With Ultimate already on the table, it is time to see how they are premium and essential, what they include and how migration will apply to current subscribers. Premium, the intermediate option. With this plan you access more than 200 games both in console and PC, in addition to the possibility of playing in the cloud without limit, even with titles you already have in your library. • More than 200 games in console, PC and cloud • Access to classics such as Minecraft, Forza Horizon 5 or Grand Theft Auto V • New games published by Xbox available within a maximum period of 12 months (excluded Call of Duty) • Game in the unlimited cloud, also with own titles • Advantages In-Game in League of Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone or Rainbow Six Siege • Rewards of up to 50,000 points a year The ancient standard plan subscribers will automatically pass to Premium. It remains in the strip of 12.99 euros per month, that is, there is no price increase with respect to what we paid with the plan with the previous denomination. Essential, the new entrance door. With a more tight price, it offers the basics for those who want to try the service without great pretensions: a reduced catalog, cloud game and online multiplayer. • More than 50 games in console and PC • Access to prominent titles such as Hades, Stardew Valley or Cities: Skylines Remastered • Game in the unlimited cloud, including some games that you already have • Online multiplayer in console • Benefits in games like League of Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone • Rewards of up to 25,000 points a year We could say that they are designed for those who seek to start in Game Pass or just want access to a more limited set of games with basic advantages. Its price is encrypted at 8.99 euros per month. What about active plans. Restructuring does not force users to do anything: Microsoft will apply migration automatically. As we say, the old Core will pass to Essential, those of the standard plan will move to Premium and those who already pay Ultimate will continue in that modality. In development. Images | Xataka with Gemini 2.5 In Xataka | Saudi Arabia is not buying EA for video games. He is buying cultural influence in hundreds of millions of homes

OpenAi wants to bill as much as Microsoft in five years. For this

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OpenAi projects to enter 2030 about 200,000 million dollars. It is almost the same as Microsoft invoices today, 245,000 million dollars. A company that this year will touch the 12,000 million dollars believes that it will multiply its income in less than five years. To contextualize excess: Apple took four decades to reach those figures. Google, two decades. Openai intends to do so in decade and a half of life, with a nuance: Until three years ago I did not invoice or one hundred million. His “zero moment” was in 2022. The planned growth graph, published by The InformationIt has many layers. The excessive ambition is just one of them. The income is triggered exponentially, but the computer costs – both training as an inference – grow almost linearly. This equation only works if Openai ceases to be what it is today: a company that sells access to LLMS for 20 dollars a month. It needs to be something else that goes much further. The question is not whether they can multiply their income by 17, but what they have to invent to justify such assessment. The secret is in the agents. But not what we imagine. Openai does not aspire to sell you a smarter chatgpt. Aspires to replace entire departments. Deep Research The model already hints: do not charge for consultation but for work done. If a report that previously required three Junior analysts for a week now does an agent in a few minutes, supervised by a single employee, how much is it worth? It is not worth $ 20 of a subscription. It is worth $ 50,000 that these salaries cost. Multiplied by each department of each company of Fortune 500 … Suddenly, the 200,000 million do not seem science fiction. They seem to conservatives. But here comes the existential paradox of OpenAi: pato capture that value need their models to be irreplaceable, unique, unattainable. However, every month that passes, the gap with Claude, Gemini or Deepseek narrows. The Commoditization of the AI It is not a future threat: it is already happening. How do you justify monopoly prices when your product is becoming water or electricity? Openai’s response seems to be the speed: Arrive first. Dominate the market. Create dependence before others can react. It is the old strategy of companies such as Uber or Amazon: losing money to buy market share, praying so that when profitability comes, you are the only one standing. Plan B is in vertical applications. They will not sell generic but specific solutions: The complete customer service system of your company. The educational platform of your university. The legal co -pilot of your office. Each vertical, a new market of billions. This is where the numbers begin to make sense. Microsoft 365 generates Microsoft almost 100,000 million annually. The World Business Software Market Billón approaches. If OpenAI captures just 20% replacing traditional software with intelligent agents, it reaches its goal. You don’t need to invent anything new. You just need to make everything that exists obsolete. Openai’s real bet is not as technological as temporary. They are buying time with 350,000 million in computer costs, betting on the AGI “Or something similar enough, that For something Altman has been moving the goal for some time– It arrives before the money is over. If they get it, those 200,000 million will be an anecdote. If they fail, we will have seen the most spectacular bubble in technological history. And the fascinating thing is not that Openai is trying. Is that everyone who imports –Microsoft, Oracle, Softbank, the US government– They seem to believe they can achieve it. Outstanding image | Adolfo Félix In Xataka | The alliance between Oracle and Openai does not go only from data centers: it goes from advanceing Google, Apple and Microsoft on the right

Microsoft has never been so valuable throughout its history. And he has never been so close to the abyss

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The first computer of Satya NadellaCEO of Microsoft, was a VAX manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (Dec) in the late 1970s. That machine excited him in such a way that Nadella was clear about her future: she wanted to devote himself to computer science. More than that: I wanted to devote yourself to computer science and work for DEC. That could not be. The concept of microordoring the company was based on its own architecture, called Virtual Address Extension (hence Vax), but that technology ended up being crushed by which it would succeed at that time: the RISC architecture. The company tried to survive, but ended up being acquired in 1998 by Compaq and, a few years later, disappearing. The lesson that Nadella learned with Dec By the time the debacle started, Nadella had moved. After a brief period in Sun Microsystems, he began working in Microsoft in 1992 and was climbing positions until it ended becoming the company’s CEO in 2014. The funny thing is that now That past with Dec pursues him. This was recently confirmed at a meeting with Microsoft employees in which it confessed something important: “Our sector is full of practical cases of companies that were in their day and that simply disappeared. There is one in particular that persecutes me, called Dec.” In fact, he explained how “some of the people who contributed to Windows NT came from a DEC laboratory that was closed.” The Microsoft CEO thus answered an employee’s question about the moral situation in the company, which according to indicate in The Verge It is in historical minimums. Not in vain Microsoft has just suffered a massive round of layoffs with 9,000 affected employees. The curious thing, Nadella admitted, is that after 51 years in the market some metrics indicate that Microsoft is at its best. This shows Its stock market capitalization is around four billion dollars and places the Redmond company like the second or third —Intercambia positions with Apple, Nvidia remains unstoppable – company of the world in relevance. “But at the same time, when I think of the degree of difficulty that awaits us, to be able to navigate a changing industry, a changing technological sector and a changing economy, we have a very hard job ahead.” And they certainly have it. What happens if the software doesn’t matter when you are the largest company in the software world The main external threat for Microsoft is not that IA improves existing software products. It is to make them irrelevant. Nadella himself admitted it to saying at that meeting with employees that “all the categories we could have loved for 40 years may not matter.” Days later he talked about all this in a post on the official Microsoft blog. He titled it “Recomproming us with our why, ours what and ours“. The implications of paradigm shift are colossal for world software giant: Office and Windows: Traditionally its great sources of income, the productivity suite and its operating system can end up having no place in our world. If an AI agent can end up managing all office tasks, creating documents, analyzing data and coordinating the work without the need for the Office suite or even a traditional operating system interface, the base of the Microsoft business would be eroded. We would no longer use an application to do the job. We would say to an AI to do it, how is it starting to happen. Competitors without ties: The new AI companies are not weighed by the legacy of an office suite or a 40 -year -old operating system. These startups can design lighter, fast and totally native solutions in the AI ​​era. For Nadella it makes no sense “to be in love with what we create in the past.” The situation for Microsoft is certainly disturbing. Despite its multimillionaire investment in OpenAi, The relationship has evolved To turn both companies into uncomfortable allies that are sought their own B plans Like softbank, Nvidia or Oracle. For Microsoft, things have not gone so well: it has injected billions to end depending on the technology of another company that is also becoming direct competitor. He has bazas in his favor as his gigantic Azure infrastructure, but not even that ensures survival. The Microsoft’s pressure to reinvent itself It is huge. He already achieved it after the failure in the segments of Internet search engines, social networks or finally mobile phones, but now the black clouds appear again with the AI ​​boom. The funny thing is that Microsoft was the Big Tech that adopted the AI ​​paradigm shift with the necessary intensity. His bet – especially, by OpenAi – was extraordinary, but for them the threat is not that of a company that ignores the change, but that of one that perhaps made the wrong bets. At the moment it does not have a competitive foundational model, and that co -driver overload has not just set in the market. What will Nadella and your company do to react? You move, Microsoft. In Xataka | The marriage between Openai and Microsoft is broken at times. The problem is that both are still needing

Windows 10 was going to die next month. Microsoft has just thrown a lifeguard to all who wanted to continue using it

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The end of official support for Windows 10 security updates It is near. However, if your intention is not to update Windows 11, either because you do not have a PC compatible with its strict requirements, or because you simply do not want, Microsoft offers A series of options To US and European users to obtain one more year of completely free security updates. Under these lines we tell you what options you have. Deadline for a few weeks. Microsoft had set on October 14 as the final final of the security updates for Windows 10, which meant that from that date there would be no more free security patches. This left the more than 650 million world users who continue to use this operating system in a delicate situation, having to update Windows 11 or run out of security updates. In Europe we win. Microsoft has enabled its domestic users two paths to get free updates. In Europe, Simply logged in With a Microsoft account to access updates for another year. After the pressure of multiple agencies in Europe, the company has confirmed that users of the European Economic Space will be able to enjoy an additional year of free security updates for Windows 10. In the United States, not so much luck. In the United States, The options you had announced are maintained. In this case, users will have two ways to stay in Windows 10 for one more year with free security updates. On the one hand, they can upload their profiles to the Microsoft cloud and make a backup through the app Windows Backupor redeem 1,000 points of the program Microsoft Rewards. Users who are selected for the extended security updates program (ESU) will find a notice through Windows Update and can thus select the option that best suits them. You can also pay. The other option is to pay $ 30 for an additional year. In the case of companies, the ESU program offers up to three years More updates, being more expensive than the previous one to keep the device in this operating system. In fact, in Windows 10, this program is the first time it is offered to users, being something exclusively oriented to companies so far. At the moment, domestic users will only have free updates up to one year if they choose any of the options described. The pressure that has led to this change. The decision has not emerged from nothing. European consumer organizations have actively pressed against the end of support. The French halte a l’Obsolescence Programee launched A petition asking for free updates until 2030, while the German consumer federation warned in May that Microsoft’s decision “worries consumers and limits their ability to make free purchase decisions.” From the Euroconsumers group, an organization dedicated to the protection of the European consumer, we can see A letter of response from the organization where they confirm that Microsoft has approved the users of the European Union to be able to obtain free security updates for another year in Windows 10 without having to do anything more than logging with a Microsoft account in the system. Incompatible hardware. Many users find that their teams do not meet the technical requirements of Windows 11, either by The TPM 2.0 chip mandatory, or by Specific instructions of processor that are indispensable for the operation of Windows 11. The good thing is that the first thing can be raffled, but the second does not. This leaves them in the position of having to buy a new computer or risk using a system without safety updates. The free extension gives them a one -year respite to evaluate their options. Other alternatives. However, there are also other third -party methods, such as the one that offers 0patchwho undertake to offer free security updates for Windows 10 to 2030. In addition, users can also explore alternative options such as Windows LTSC or try some Linux dystro (maybe it’s time). What comes later. This measure is temporary and strategic, since Microsoft gains time for more users to voluntarily migrate to Windows 11 while avoiding criticism for abandoning millions of people. After this year of grace, in theory there will be no more free security updates for Windows 10 users. But who knows, Microsoft is changing again in the face of so much pressure. We’ll see. In Xataka | Microsoft is already thinking about how the computers of 2030 will be and has come to a conclusion: playing is overvalued

But those who are making it more likely are neither Google nor Microsoft

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OpenAI has announced The construction of five new data centers in the United States as part of Project Stargate. These facilities will be developed in collaboration with Oracle and Softbank, and will have a joint power of 7 GW, more or less the equivalent of what would generate seven large nuclear reactors. Why is it important. We had just believed that The announcement of the colossal project It was really to crystallize, but eight months later this announcement confirms that there are certainly solid plans to try to carry it forward. It seemed not easy for the gigantic financing of $ 500,000 million in the next four years, but the pieces seem OpenAi ad. Oracle as the main partner. Three of the new facilities will be developed in Oracle collaboration. They will be created by Shakelford County in Texas, in Doña Ana County in New Mexico, and in a third location still to be determined in the mid-west. The announcement is precisely the confirmation of the Agreement announced Between both companies in July. In this agreement there was talk of how both companies were going to create data centers with a joint capacity of 4.5 GW in addition to that both are already building in Abilene. In 2026 the first will be ready. The most important data center of this collaboration is that it is already under construction in Abilene (Texas), which will be owned by Oracle and will have OpenAi as the main client. The project is being managed by the startup Crusoe, and It is expected that is completed in mid -2026. It will consist of eight large buildings, each with a capacity of 100 MW. One of those buildings is already completed and in total the center will consist with more than 400,000 GPUS and will have a joint capacity of 1.4 GW according to sources close to the project. Is it better than not missing? Jonathan Koomey, a professor at the University of Berkeley in California, has studied the efficiency of data centers for years. In his opinionthese gigantic investments may not be enough to guarantee Openai’s success, especially when Depseek showed that much more efficient and affordable models can be valid alternatives. For Koomey, Openai’s bet – scarce big – may not go well, and will have to be fulfilled that the demand for computing that Altman foresees and his own is fulfilled. Dizzy figures. If Openai manages to execute this project, it will cease to be a mere research laboratory to become a reference in the field of infrastructure, competing with traditional giants such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. That only the Abilene data center has a capacity of 1.4 GW is extraordinary, especially when Denmark’s average consumption was 4.38 GW (38.4 twh divided by the number of hours of the year, 8,760). This is: the OpenAI Data Center consumes almost a third of the average total electricity consumption throughout Denmark for 2024. THE OTHER BIG TECH. The really surprising thing about this project is that traditional Big Tech are not involved in it, but companies that seem to ambition to enter that group … or create a new elite. So, Stargate is, above all, a slogan. Although initially it was assumed that Stargate would be a new company, now managers close to the project indicate which is rather a kind of “umbrellas” under which all OpenAi data centers projects are encompassed, except those developed in collaboration with Microsoft. There is still uncertainty. Despite this announcement, the challenges facing the project are still colossal. The chip supply chain, the development of energy solutions and cooling systems is fragile, and remains to be seen 1) if those data centers will be completed and enter into operation, and 2) if they will really be necessary. Sam Altman is especially obsessed with that idea, and In a recent post on your blog He talked about how the use of AI services will grow even more spectacularly in the coming months. In Xataka | Great door or nursing: “circular financing” between Nvidia and OpenAi can be the genius of the century … or the collapse

Microsoft raises the prices of the Xbox Series X | S in the US. We already know what will happen in Europe

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If you are in the United States and plan to buy a Microsoft console, time play against you. There are a few days left to order before the price upload the Xbox Series X | s. The company has announced that the increase will enter into force next month. From Redmond they explain that the measure responds to “changes in the macroeconomic environment.” They have not given more details, although in the background the current tariff war appears, which could be behind this decision, although Microsoft avoids mentioning it explicitly. The striking thing is that the adjustment is limited only to the United States. On its official website, the firm ensures that “prices outside the US remain unchanged.” A phrase that gives a respite to European users and other markets, at least for now. This is the prices of the Xbox Series X | S in the US Current prices in the US prices from October in the US Xbox Series S (512 GB) $ 379.99 399.99 dollars Xbox Series S (1 TB) $ 429.99 $ 449.99 Xbox Series x $ 599.99 $ 649.99 Xbox Series X Digital $ 549.99 $ 599.99 Xbox Series X 2TB Galaxy Black (Special Edition) $ 729.99 $ 799.99 This is the second time in the year Microsoft makes its consoles more expensive. In May it already applied a global increase that, in addition, it extended to accessories such as controls and headphones. For example, the Xbox Series S of 512 GB, which could be achieved for 299.99 euros, stated 349.99 euros, an increase of 16.67%. But, as we say, in the old continent we will not have to support a new price increase in Microsoft consoles. Below we include a table with public sales prices (PVP) in Spain. It should be remembered that, although increases outside the United States will be applied, the figures may vary in other markets. Xbox Series X: First impressions – Are you going to give us great joys? Current prices in Spain Xbox Series S (512 GB) 349.99 euros Xbox Series S (1 TB) 399.99 euros Xbox Series x 599.99 euros Xbox Series X Digital 549.99 euros Xbox Series X 2TB Galaxy Black (Special Edition) 699.99 euros In development. Images | Billy Freeman In Xataka | No one would think of leaving ‘Super Mario 64’ on for 14 months. But whoever will find a surprise

Microsoft wants to dominate AI to gross power blow

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Think of a complex so extensive that it could be confused with an industrial city, where each square meter is designed so that the artificial intelligence Do not stop for a moment. Thus the new Microsoft campus in Wisconsin (United States) is configured. The goal they announce is overwhelming: Render ten times more than the fastest supercomputer of the moment, a message with which they want to make it clear that the battle for AI is played on the computer scale. A data center of this type does not resemble that of a traditional cloud where emails or web pages are housed. It is conceived to train and execute large -scale AI models, such as those that drive applications such as Chatgpt either COPILOT. According to the American company, the project will materialize at the beginning of 2026, after an initial investment of 3.3 billion dollars. When the cloud becomes concrete, steel and many chips The cloud does not float in the air. It rises on concrete soils, with metal structures, pipes and cables that travel underground kilometers. This is how it actually materializes, and Fairwater It is intended to be the most ambitious sample of it. According to Satya Nadellathis campus will become a strategic piece to hold loads that demand each time More energy and computing capacity. In the IA competition, having data centers of this scale is more than a matter of competitive advantage. Fairwater’s key is how it organizes all that calculation power. The company explained that each rack integrates 72 GPU Nvidia Blackwell, Linked through NVLink and NVSWITCH to share up to 1.8 terabytes per second and access 14 terabytes of grouped memory. Of course, he has not detailed the exact number of racks that the campus will have and has limited himself to talking about “hundreds of thousands of accelerators” in total. Together these systems will work as a single supercomputer capable of processing 865,000 tokens per seconda figure that gives an idea of ​​the magnitude of the project, and will be part of a global network of the Azure Network Wide Network Wide Network Beyond the technology that houses, Fairwater impresses with its physical dimensions. It rises on a land equivalent to more than one hundred hectares and adds more than 110,000 square meters of built area. Civil works, according to Microsoft, has required huge figures: 75 kilometers of foundation piles 12,000 tons of steel structure 193 kilometers of medium voltage electric wiring 117 kilometers of mechanical pipes Refrigeration is one of the great challenges of any data center, and in Fairwater becomes even more critical for the chips density it houses. According to data from the Wisconsin Climatology Officethis state presents a Very marked thermal amplitude: In winter, minimum temperatures can fall below 0 ° C with abundant snow, while in summer stockings greater than 25 ° C are reached with high humidity. This variability forces us to have infrastructure that does not depend on a favorable climate, unlike locations in northern Europe where constant cold becomes a natural ally. That is why Microsoft has opted for a liquid refrigeration system in closed circuit that only requires water once during construction and then reuses it without loss. According to the company, more than 90% of the capacity works with this method, supported by the second largest water coolers in the world and in 172 six -meter -high fans that help dissipate heat. The rest of the infrastructure takes advantage of the outer air, but changes to water in the hottest days, when the temperature and humidity exceed what the environment can offer. It is a design designed to maintain efficiency throughout the year in a place where the weather does not always play in favor. Behind Fairwater there are more components designed to sustain datasets massive No bottlenecks. Let’s look at some of them: Total capacity in exabytes “Five soccer fields” size systems More than two million reading/writing operations per second in each cloud storage account Its own system that accelerates access to data and reduces latency, guaranteeing that GPUs never stop Enough optical fiber to give 4.5 turns to earth. Fairwater is, for the moment, a project under construction and many of its promises must still be tested. Microsoft states that when starting at the beginning of 2026 it will be able to perform until ten times more than the fastest supercomputer of the world, although it does not need which one refers to. The true magnitude of Fairwater will only be known when we enter into operation and we can contrast if those figures are fulfilled beyond paper. Images | Microsoft (1, 2, 3, 4) | Xataka with Gemini 2.5 In Xataka | Huawei has a plan to advise Nvidia in China: a supernod of 15,000 processors

A Microsoft Data Center in Mexico collided with the reality of the electricity network. Your solution: use gas generators

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Artificial intelligence has become daily, but behind each consultation to tools such as Chatgpt either COPILOT There are real buildings that consume a lot of energy and require reliable infrastructure. In that framework, Microsoft announced May 7, 2024 The beginning of operations of its “Central Mexico” data centers region, with several locations in the Querétaro Metropolitan Area. The deployment, however, coexists with very specific tensions: According to the companyat least one of those centers, that of Columbus, cannot benefit from the advantages of the electricity network until mid -2027 and obtained permission to temporarily operate with gas generators. It should be remembered that the proximity of these infrastructure to users is essential: it reduces latency, improves the quality of the service and allows to meet data residence requirements. But that technical advantage depends on something elementary: having an electricity grid capable of sustaining permanent operations and constant cooling. Microsoft stressed the magnitude of its project in the North American country. The new region aims to offer local access to Azure, Microsoft 365Dynamics 365, among other services. The firm also presented the initiative as an “avant -garde” infrastructure aimed at accelerating innovation in the region. The Achilles heel of deployment: energy In a request to the Ministry of Environment delivered in 2023Microsoft acknowledged that, although the data center would connect within the planned deadlines, due to the construction deadlines included in its contract with the Federal Electricity Commission, the energization of the connection would not be ready until the Second quarter of 2027. To save that void, The use of seven generators was approved capable of covering 70% of the demand of the center of Columbus for 12 hours a day, for at least four months. According to Rest of World, Mexico already has about a hundred data centers, with investments that exceed 7,000 million dollars from 2020 by Microsoft, Aws and Google. Querétaro has established itself as the main attraction pole, with 15 facilities that concentrate about 80% of the sector’s energy demand, about 200 MW. The Mexican Institute for Competitiveness projects thatby 2030, the network will face a deficit of 48,000 MWh, more than half of what it produced in 2023. With more than 70 new centers planned in the next five years, the mismatch between installed capacity and electric transmission becomes an obvious threat. The American company has set ambitious environmental goals: Being negative carbon in 2030, eliminating all its historical emissions in 2050 and supplying 100% with renewable energy contracts in 2025. In contrast, in Columbus is the provisional measure of operating with gas generators until it can be fully connected to the network in 2027. What It is not clear is whether these equipment were usedif they remain in operation or what intermediate solution the company will apply in the coming years. Microsoft, for now, has not specified with which energy sources Opera Colón. The launch of the Central Mexico region was presented as a decisive step to accelerate the country’s digital transformation and attract foreign investment. But energy reality introduces a decisive nuance: the infrastructure necessary to sustain that deployment does not advance at the same rate as the technological ambition. The tension between promises of sustainability and limitations of the network is a reminder that the cloud, far from being ethereal, rests on concrete foundations, cables and megawatts that define, in a way, how far artificial intelligence and other services can go. Images | Microsoft (1, 2) In Xataka | This nuclear reactor is different from everyone else. It has been expressly designed for data centers

Microsoft 365 will have cheaper versions worldwide. It is the result of the antitrust pressure of the European Commission

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Soon, many Microsoft Office customers worldwide can access cheaper subscriptions. It is not a promotion or isolated commercial gesture, but the result of years of Brussels. Microsoft has accepted change your strategy to close an antitrust investigation I could cost him expensive. With this agreement, the company dodges a possible fine and the European Commission reinforces its image as guardian of the rules that govern the digital market. The European Commission confirmed that Microsoft must maintain versions of Office 365 and Microsoft 365 without Teamsyour communication tool, at a clearly lower price compared to the editions that include it. These conditions will be in force for at least seven years and will be complemented with interoperability and data portability commitments for a decade. The American company has indicated that it will implement changes globally. Microsoft undertakes to lower prices and open its ecosystem The origin of this pulse dates back to July 2020, When Slack denounced Microsoft to the European Commission For packaging Teams within Office, claiming that it made it difficult for users to choose alternatives. Three years later, Brussels opened a formal investigation To evaluate whether this practice was abuse of dominant position in the collaborative software market. The case focused on the impact of Teams integration on competitors such as Slack and other business communication platforms. To reduce the pressure, Microsoft began taking action before a resolution arrived. In October 2023 he disaggregated Teams of his suites for commercial clients in the European and Switzerland Economic Space, with lower prices for those who chose not to include the tool. In April 2024 he extended this policy to the rest of the world, withdrawing for new business clients the traditional editions with Teams and introducing “without teams” plans along with an independent license. These steps sought to show good regulatory will and simplify the catalog for multinational companies, but did not suffice to close the file. With the agreement announced this month, the measures become mandatory and more ambitious. Microsoft must guarantee a significant price difference and allow customers to migrate to versions without teams without penalties. It should be noted that to benefit from these sales, organizations must hire the new plans or make the change to renew subscriptions; There will be no automatic discounts for those who maintain current contracts. It also undertakes to facilitate that rival services integrate Office applications into their platforms and that users export Teams data to other tools, reducing change barriers. This valued the measure, Teresa Ribera, executive vice president of the European Commission for the clean, fair and competitive transition: “With today’s decision, we make binding for seven years or more Microsoft’s commitments to end their linking practices that could be preventing their competitors effectively competing with Teams. Therefore, today’s decision opens the competition in this crucial market and guarantees that companies can freely choose the communication and collaboration product that best suits their needs.” Microsoft published concrete examples of prices that will enter vigor in November this year: In Enterprise plans, the difference will be up to 8 euros per user per month; In the Business Standard and Premium plans, it will be around 3 euros. Of course, domestic users and students will not see changes: their subscriptions of Microsoft 365 Personal or family did not include payment teams and are not affected by the new framework. In any case, this episode arrives at a time where the commission has intensified its scrutiny about large technological in recent years, with multimillionaire sanctions to companies such as Google, which recently imposed a fine of 2,950 million euros. However, Brussels face a diplomatic challenge: the US president Donald Trump has criticized these measuresthreatening to activate section 301 of the Commerce Law as a response. Images | Ed Hardie | Microsoft In Xataka | The EU has put Apple against the strings: none of its options guarantees that its devices remain the same

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

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

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