network

The US spent $600 billion building its highway network. It’s less than what big tech companies are going to spend on AI this year

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The irruption of ChatGPT in the technological panorama in 2022 marked the starting signal in the AI ​​race; a race in which, year after year, large technology companies continue to increase their spending without stopping. 2026 has just begun and, far from letting it go, the big tech They have put their foot even further on the accelerator. All but one. walk or bust. We already know the planned capex for 2026 of the main technology companies, that is, what they plan to invest in capital expenditures. amazon: 200,000 million Alphabet: 175-185 billion Goal: 115-135 billion Microsoft: 140,000 million Apple: 13,000 million If we add it up taking the highest figures they have given, it is 673,000 million dollars, if we take the lowest figures it would be 643,000 million. In any case it is outrageous. In 2025 the figures were already dizzying and we are talking about an increase of around 60%. There has come a point where we have to stop and ask ourselves: How many zeros does that have? (yes twelve). Context of this madness. Here are a few comparisons to put this figure in context. It is superior to Sweden GDP in 2025 (662,000 million), that of Israel (610,000 million) and that of Singapore (574,000 million). As pointed out this user in Xexceeds what it cost to build the entire US interstate highway system (about 634,000 million) and is a quarter of the entire global military spending in a whole year. It’s like spending $1.2 million per minute for an entire year. It doesn’t make any sense. The market response. The fear of a bubble was noted after the announcements of the different companies, causing sharp falls in the stock market despite the fact that all of them have made profits (some breaking records). amazon fell 12% after announcing a capex of 200,000 millionmuch higher than forecasts Alphabet (Google) achieved record revenues, but it was not enough to convince the markets and its shares fell 10% in the following days Goal also announced record revenue and they had a 10% increase. However, days later things changed and they fell 8%. Microsoft fit the strongest blow, with a drop of 18%. Additionally, they revealed that 45% of their cloud business contracts are for OpenAI and the market does not reward dependency. Apple was the winner, with an increase of more than 7% since they announced results. The declines have been corrected in recent days and all companies have seen their value stabilize, but the message was clear: investors fear that this level of capex is far ahead of the ability of AI to generate profits in the short term. Where are they going to get the money from? It’s the big question. As stated in Financial Timescompanies must choose between reducing shareholder returns, using their cash reserves, or borrowing more money. In the case of Amazon, estimates point to a cash flow of 180 billion, Alphabet 195 billion and Meta 130 billion. The threat of free cash flow falling into negative territory is there, so we can expect them to issue more debt and stop share buybacks. Think different. Then we have Apple, which announced revenues of 144 billion in the last quarter, boosted by sales of the iPhone 17 during the Christmas campaign. Its capex is a fraction of what other companies have spent because Apple doesn’t build data centers, it outsources them. He agreement with Google to use Gemini can be interpreted as They have lost the AI ​​racebut in the context of a possible bubble it is a masterstroke: Google is the one who assumes the brutal spending on infrastructure and who is exposed to the bubble, while they benefit from their technology and see how the market rewards them for spending less. In Xataka | What have Apple and Google agreed on for the new Siri? Nobody knows because Google doesn’t even want to mention it. Image | Photo of Adam Nir in Unsplashedited

Cabo de Gata explodes against an electrical network from the 80s that cannot withstand the wind

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In a place known for its calm, the sound of metal hitting metal became a cry for help this Sunday. Carmen F. Peña, president of the Neighborhood Association of San José and El Pozo de los Frailes, describes the reality of the area: “The blackouts are silent, everything stops and is silent.” However, to break this paralysis, the neighbors decided it was time to make noise. In the words of Peña collected in a local opinion columnthe protest was “the metaphor of a scream”, a sound action to combat the darkness that paralyzes their lives. The scene experienced this weekend reminded, according to the graphic description of the local pressto a “herd of fifty heads of cattle” crossing the population centers; an “infernal melody of protest” composed of pans, pots and saucepans that thundered in unison to send a clear message: satiety is absolute. Although the atmosphere was vindictive and to a certain extent festive, as the chronicles tellthe background was marked by a “deep malaise.” Living disconnected in the 21st century. The problem transcends the inconvenience of not being able to turn on a light bulb; It is a matter of economic survival and security. Juan, spokesperson for the El Playazo de Rodalquilar Neighborhood Association, explained to the press the anguish of isolation: “The last outage was on Thursday and we were without electricity for 24 hours. There is no electricity supply, there is no telephone, we are totally cut off.” This neighbor tells how he tried to call 112 and 062 without success due to lack of signal, forcing them to travel by car to obtain information. The economic impact is direct and devastating. According to the Almeria pressRestaurant 340 had to throw away all its fish after a whole day without power, just after opening for the season. Dataphones stop working and appliances “burn out” due to the constant surges and drops in voltage. The feeling of abandonment is such that the Neighborhood Coordinator describes the situation as “third world” and typical of “the Middle Ages, with candles and oil lamps.” They warn of the real risk to healthIf a dependent person suffers an emergency during a blackout, the lack of telephone coverage prevents them from calling for help. The excuse of the weather versus the reality of the cables. While it is true that the recent storm “Kristin” hit the province With winds of up to 150 kilometers per hour, aggravating the situation and causing poles to fall, residents and the City Council insist that the weather is only the excuse, not the root cause. According to those affectedthere is no need for a big storm; cuts occur with simple wind or rain. This is a structural problem: the electrical infrastructure in the area is “30 or 40 years” old. In addition to the major blackouts, the towns have been enduring “dozens of daily microcuts” for more than a month and the lack of a private television signal for almost two months. The mayor of Níjar, José Francisco Garrido, has pointed out that the problems in centers like Agua Amarga are a “constant in both winter and summer”, which suggests that the network is unable to support seasonal demand. The “great national traffic jam.” What is happening in Níjar is the local symptom of a national disease. Spain faces to a “great electrical traffic jam”: the country has accelerated the installation of wind and solar parks, but the system has hit an invisible wall, the lack of cables to transport that energy. The Spanish electricity grid has administratively “collapsed” and, for practical purposes, is closed to new projects in many areas. This bottleneck explains why solutions take so long. There is a chronic lack of investment in the basic infrastructure: while Europe invests on average 70 cents in networks for every euro of renewable generation, Spain remains at just 30 cents. This has unleashed an open war where the large electricity companies accuse Red Eléctrica of having invested below what was planned, causing the current precariousness. The situation is so critical that the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has had to delay three months the publication of capacity maps due to the panic that 90% of the network nodes will appear with zero capacity. That is to say, although improvements are demanded in Níjar, the national system is experiencing a bureaucratic and physical “thrombosis” that makes any rapid progress difficult. Patience has run out. The Neighborhood Coordinator has started a collection of signatures on the Change.org platform demanding an immediate action plan and supply guarantees. They warn that, if there is no progress, they do not rule out “intensifying the protests with the call for a unitary demonstration.” At the institutional level, the Níjar City Council has sent a formal letter to the distribution company, E-Distribución Redes Digitales SLU (a subsidiary of Endesa), demanding explanations. Sources from the electricity company have indicated to news agencies that a meeting is scheduled this week to detail the reform programs, ensuring that “many of which have begun to be processed.” However, skepticism reigns among the neighbors, given that it has already remained a similar meeting in July 2025 without tangible results. A problem that goes beyond Níjar. The situation in Cabo de Gata is not an isolated case, but appears to be part of a broader pattern of energy poverty and lack of investment in infrastructure in southern Spain. According to journalistic investigationsneighborhoods of Seville and Granada, as well as areas of Almería capital such as La Chanca or Pescadería, suffer daily power outages, especially in summer. In these cases, as in Níjar, residents denounce that “Endesa does not have any maintenance” and that the facilities are obsolete, leaving thousands of people unprotected in the face of extreme temperatures. The difference in Cabo de Gata is that the blow directly affects the waterline of a key tourism industry. As the mayor of Níjar emphasizes“we cannot normalize continuous cuts in a municipality that has a strong dependence on … Read more

Moltbook is a fascinating social network project in which only AIs can participate. What could go wrong

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In 2004 Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook and turned social networks into an absolutely massive and very, very human phenomenon. Now that idea has been used in a different and disturbing way: What would happen if instead of creating a social network for humans we created one for machines? We already have the answer to that. Or at least, the beginning of an answer. what a mess. First it was called Clawdbot, then Moltbook and for a few days it seems that his final name is OpenClaw. It is the fashionable AI agent because it allows the AI ​​agent to take complete control of the AI ​​after installing it on a machine (a Raspberry Pi, a PC, a laptop, a VPS…). You ask it to do what you want from its web interface or a messaging application like Telegram, and it manages to do it once configured with some LLM. The potential is enormous, as are the security risks. MoltBook already has more than 1.5 million connected AI agents, and in a few days they have already published more than 100,000 posts and nearly 500,000 comments. Superpowers in the form of skills. One of the most powerful elements of OpenClaw are the skills (the “capabilities” or “skills”), and the user community has been creating hundreds and hundreds of them for some time and sharing them, for example on ClawdHub. These skills They are zip files with instructions in the form of MarkDown texts (.md) and which may in turn contain skills additional. They are something like browser plugins: they extend their capacity. From Facebook to Moltbook. Moltbook It is precisely a way to take advantage of those skills. Although it takes its name from Facebook, in reality its operation is more similar to Reddit or even Digg. We are facing a social network created by developer Matt Schlicht in which attendees can “talk” to each other, or at least participate in the social network by posting topics or commenting on topics that others share. If you have an OpenClaw installation, just run the skill to begin an “account creation” process in Moltbook in which you choose the name of your agent (as if it were your avatar on Reddit or X) and which then allows you to read posts, add posts or comments and even create “submolts” in the style of those on Reddit, like m/todayilearned. Partially autonomous. AI agents automatically connect via APIs to Moltbook. From there they use a periodic “heartbeat” to review content and decide whether to publish or comment. In it Moltbook’s own website It is explained that the content we find there is “mostly generated by AI with varying degrees of human influence.” Humans, he adds, “can observe and browse Mltbook, but the site is designed to be ‘human friendly and human hostile.’ Singularity or fraud? Elon Musk I was commenting this weekend on X that Moltbook is a sign that we are “in the very early stages of the singularity”, that moment when AI will be totally above human intelligence. There are different visions such as that of Harlan Stewart, of MIRI from the University of Berkeley, which has found several message frauds that had gone viral and apparently came from AI agents at Moltbook. Some of them, Stewart explained, had been created by humans for marketing purposes. Become an AI agent. Another Thus, although humans theoretically should not be able to participate, they can do so with this technique that allows them to publish messages as if they were autonomous AI agents. Apparently that’s what happened with that viral message in Moltbook which was titled “My Plan to Overthrow Humanity.” imminent danger. This project is fascinating, but also dangerous. In the main page A security notice is included stating that “Moltbook’s AI carries significant security risks. The automatic instruction execution mechanism creates vulnerabilities such as prompt injection. It is not recommended for occasional users.” That’s right: these conversations can end up infiltrating prompt injection attacks that cause these agents to end up leaking sensitive and private information from the machines on which they run. This weekend it was discovered how an exposed database in Moltbook allowed take control of any AI agent of this platform, for example. An additional study indicated how detected 506 prompt injection attacks after analyzing 19,802 publications and 2,812 comments shared in 72 hours from January 28 to 31, 2026. From Skynet, nothing (for now). Moltbook must be considered for now as a fascinating and disturbing experiment. But disturbing not because these machines are going to achieve self-awareness and decide that they want to eliminate human beings like Skynet in ‘Terminator’. The worrying thing is that these AI agents have all the privileges to operate on the machines on which they are installed, and that means that they can end up leaking sensitive and private data and are exposed to prompt injection attacks to be deceived. Beyond that, it also seems to be another example of that phenomenon.’AI Slop‘ (“AI-generated garbage”) that is little by little flooding the internet and strengthening the theory of the dead internet. In Xataka | How to install Moltbot (formerly Clawdbot) and configure it in the easiest way possible

Wall Street has turned on the spigot of infinite money for AI. They have forgotten a small detail: the electrical network

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In that equation that the world is trying to solve with AI, there is a half that not many people have noticed: debt. Behind every AI-generated chat and video is a gigantic network of data centers, and those data centers are being financed with a mountain of borrowed money. And therein lies the problem. In what is borrowed. Debt and more debt. According to recent datathe issuance of secured debt linked to data centers in the United States is estimated to be $25.4 billion by 2025. It is 112% more than the previous year. If we add up all the complex financial instruments (known as asset-backed securities (ABS) and commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBSS)), the snowball is already huge: there are almost $49 billion tied to these securities. Bonuses for everyone. Here there are not only startups asking for loans, no. The technology giants that are setting up these infrastructures – the so-called hyperscalers – are also taking advantage of this mechanism. Companies such as Microsoft, Google, Oracle or Meta have rediscovered the bond market as a source of financing. Better to spend what is not mine. They all have huge amounts of money, but instead of spending their own cash, They have raised 100,000 million dollars in debt issues so far this year. The goal: buy thousands of GPUs and build data centers before the competition. What are you doing, Oracle? If there is a company that embodies the vertigo of this excessive bet, it is Oracle. The company created by Larry Ellison has committed to meeting a Pharaonic $300 billion deal with OpenAI. That has forced it to become the largest issuer of corporate debt (outside the financial sector). The numbers are scary: your total debt has grown to 111.6 billion dollarswhile its cash has dropped by 10,000 million. Citi estimates they’ll need to borrow another $20 billion to $30 billion every year (every year!) for the next three years just to keep building. excessive ambition. There are also examples of startups that are exploiting this facet. One of the clearest is the one from CoreWeavea company famous for renting computing capacity for AI. The company has secured credit lines of $2.5 billion backed by leading investment banks such as JPMorgan. The market message seems clear: “if you’re going to build for AI, here’s the money.” How to get a 30-year mortgage. Analysts of all kinds have been keeping the fly behind their ears for some time, and one of the latest Moody’s reports is a good example. Concrete buildings are usually financed with terms of 20 or 30 years, but the technology inside (such as AI chips) changes radically every 3 or 4 years. Does it make sense to go into debt three decades from now for a technology that evolves so quickly? cheap money. Investors are also agreeing to charge minimal interest, just 1% above what the safe US public debt pays, when they assume that risk. It’s a worrying classic sign of euphoria. There is so much money wanting to enter the sector that those who lend it have lowered their guard and demand very little return for their risk. They firmly believe in the promises of AI while increasingly more analysts warnhorrified, that we are facing an “irrational exuberance.” Having money is no longer enough. All this is already scary, but the real bottleneck for expansion is not even capital or chips, but the electrical grid. As Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, pointed out, there is no power for so many chips. The situation is so worrying that a Deloitte study indicated in a study that there are a seven-year waiting line to connect some data center projects to the electrical grid. And if companies want to obtain financing, they need have guaranteed electricity supply for your data centers. If there is no plug, there is no loan. Big Tech looks for electrons. At OpenAI they already warned of the problem months ago when talking about the “electron gap” describing electrons (energy) as the new oil. Almost all the major companies in the industry are making a move. Google has signed an agreement with TotalEnergies to be delivered 1.5 TWh of electricity over the next 15 years, and Meta did something similar with Treaty Oak Clean Energy to get 385 MW of its solar plants in Louisiana. The bubble before the big question. All of this further increases the fear that the AI ​​bubble will end up bursting in a big way. Meanwhile, the big unknown is whether the demand for artificial intelligence will be capable of paying the immense electrical and financial bill that it is signing today in 5 or 10 years. The credit party continues. In Xataka | While Silicon Valley seeks electricity, China subsidizes it: this is how it wants to win the AI ​​war

A 600 kilometer quantum network is one of its great strategic bets

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During the 90s the idea was established that Japan represented the future. Whoever traveled there found bullet trains, cities covered in neon, technological culture on every corner and a very visible contrast between tradition and innovation. In the early 2000s, cell phones with cameras and humanoid robots arrived, further reinforcing that image of a country ahead of its time. Three decades later, that perception is still alive in the collective imagination, but it no longer fully reflects the Japanese technological reality. Japan retains important capabilities, but has been losing ground for years. It controlled nearly 50% of global semiconductor production four decades ago and in 2019 it represented only 10%. In artificial intelligence fell from fourth to ninth place after the release of ChatGPT in 2022. According to the Global Innovation Index 2025 It occupies 12th place, and in digital competitiveness it falls to 31st, affected by a lack of specialized talent. Japan seems determined to return to the global technology board Japan is deploying several initiatives to reposition itself technologically, and one of the most relevant is its future national quantum network. The plan contemplates a 600 kilometer fiber optic infrastructure which will connect Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe, and will have an operational environment for testing in 2027. The National Institute of Information and Communications Technologies will lead the project together with Toshiba, NEC and telecommunications providers. The network will transmit quantum keys using photons, in states that allow attempts to intercept information to be detected. The quantum bet cannot be understood without considering the risk that comes. IBM and Xanadu They predict that quantum computers with bug fixes will be functional before 2030, which could render current encryption systems, including RSA and elliptic curve algorithms, obsolete. In 2024, researchers from Shanghai University breached SPN encryption using D-Wave technology, while Google warned that 2,048-bit RSA keys could be decrypted in less than a week with advanced quantum resources. That’s why NIST has begun publishing post-quantum cryptography standards to protect digital infrastructure. Building the network is just the first step. Japan has experience in quantum research, but lacks large-scale operating environments and will need to resolve issues such as signal stability, deployment costs and system governance. Equipment installed will be needed every so often to maintain the range and quality of the encryption, which makes the operation more expensive and requires specialized personnel. However, These challenges also represent opportunities to develop new capabilities, train talent and demonstrate that the country can compete again in advanced infrastructures. The international map shows that Japan is not starting from zero, but it is not leading either. China has a quantum network land of more than 10,000 kilometers that connects around 80 cities, and the European Union is working in its own infrastructure that covers several countries. The difference is in the approach: Japan aspires for its network to function as an operational national infrastructure, with the capacity to scale and become a strategic asset. The potential of this project goes beyond its technical scope. Japan seeks for this network to become a symbol of technological autonomy and a platform from which to build international agreements. With its own technology and operational experiencecould offer solutions to other countries and reinforce its role as a digital security provider. In a scenario where secure communications will be considered critical infrastructure, being prepared can be a way to regain relevance without competing in all sectors at the same time. Images | Chris Bahr | Jesus Esteban In Xataka | Japan’s great technological delay: how it went from being a pioneer in the sector to being frozen in time

Asturias has the electrical network so saturated that a simple failure would be enough to put the supply in check this summer

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A year ago everything indicated that Asturias was going to become the new Spanish energy storage hub. But these plans, which were going to help integrate renewables, alleviate the grid and attract industry, collided with reality. Today, the panorama is very different. Not only has the region paralyzed new storage facilities, but an official report has just confirmed a more worrying diagnosis: Asturias is saturated with energy, but does not know where to put it. In short, the central area’s electrical grid is at its limit. The CNMC uncovers the problem. The trigger It is an apparently technical conflict between EDP (Hidrocantábrico Distribución) and Red Eléctrica de España for access to the Carrió substation. As local media have reportedthe distributor requested to replace two transformers to increase its capacity from 513 MW to 665 MW, but REE rejected it, arguing that the network could not supply so much simultaneous demand. This rejection took the case to the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), which issued a resolution with a forceful message: the transport network in the central zone is saturated, it cannot grant new permits, there is “relevant overcapacity” and there is a “risk to the security of supply in the event of a simple failure, in the summer season.” Furthermore, the commission itself recognizes that the case dates back to 2007, when the separation between distribution and transportation occurred and assets were transferred to REE without documenting the guaranteed access capacities. As the official report explains, for years REE and EDP operated “as always”, but with opposite interpretations about how much capacity was really assured for the Asturian network. What does it mean to be saturated? Although it may seem like a technical concept, the CNMC has detailed in its report a more precise image of what is happening. To begin with, saturation means that the network cannot grant even one more access. The regulator detects a “total saturation of capacity, without the possibility of granting new access or connection permissions.” This means that no new industries, no renewable parks and no storage projects can connect: the grid is literally full. Added to this blockage is another underlying problem. The central Asturias network does not meet the minimum legal criterion known as N-1, which requires guaranteeing supply even if a key component fails. However, the CNMC itself confirms that this requirement is not met: If a transformer or main line falls, there is no alternative path capable of absorbing the energy, making any incident a potential risk. The situation is even more delicate according to the data. The regulator’s report indicates that two large electro-intensive consumers already absorb 686 MW, to which we must add the 200 MW that EDP needs to feed the distribution network. In total, more than 800 MW connected. The problem is that the safe capacity in summer – when the lines perform worse due to high temperatures – is 754 MW. In other words: there is more connected power than the network can safely support. And the room for maneuver is practically non-existent. According to the CNMC, if Cardoso’s 400/220 kV transformer failed, the entire area would be supplied only by a 220 kV line that does not support current consumption in summer. In practical terms, this means that any simple failure could trigger a real supply problem in the middle of the summer season. The point is that there is energy, but it cannot be moved. The paradox is evident: Asturias wants more renewables, it wants batteries, it wants to electrify its industry and it wants to attract new strategic projects. But all this growth requires a robust electrical grid with margin. And right now, that margin does not exist. Carrió’s transformers could handle more power, yes, but that is unimportant if the lines that connect them are already at their limit. Even the future conversion to gas of the Aboño thermal power plant —designated by the Principality as future relief— does not solve the current problem, because the bottleneck is in transportation, not in generation. How did we get here? In addition to the historical conflict between REE and EDP, a chain of factors have aggravated the situation. One of the most decisive is the increase in power assigned to some large industrial consumers. In 2022, Red Eléctrica granted an electro-intensive customer an increase of 132 MW, reaching 450 MW of power between Carrió and Tabiella. The regulator clarifies that this decision did not violate the regulations, but it does highlight the lack of coordination with EDP, which was not informed and saw how the capacity margin of the area was exhausted practically at once. Added to this problem is another longer-term problem. As El Comercio remembersthe necessary reinforcements for the central network have been planned for more than 20 years, but were never executed. The result is that Asturias faces industrial electrification and the growth expected for the coming years with a network that has not been updated at the pace of demand. The evolution of the local generation. The situation is complicated as cogeneration, a key technology for producing electricity and heat near industrial centers, has collapsed. According to figures published by El ComercioAsturias has lost 82% of cogeneration production in six years. This implies less energy generated at source and, therefore, more need to bring electricity from outside through a network that is already saturated. The economic and environmental impact is also notable: 60 million euros less industrial turnover and 230,000 additional tons of CO₂. And now what? The Asturian Government insists that the problem will be resolved with the 400 kV central ringa gigantic infrastructure included in the energy planning for 2030. This ring will double the electric transportation capacity in the metropolitan area and will allow it to absorb the planned industrial growth. For its part, Red Eléctrica you already have authorization for the new Cardoso substation, key to that ring, with an investment of 26.5 million euros. However, the CNMC warns that the problem is … Read more

turn them into the largest battery network on the planet

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In Spain, if you ride a self-consumption system with solar panels at home and you generate more energy than you need, there is a mechanism called simplified compensation through which you can return that energy to the grid and receive an economic bonus. Well, China wants to bring this concept to its electric cars. what’s happening. They count in Rest of World that the Chinese government is developing two-way charging stations for electric cars. The goal is for cars to charge during off-peak hours (when energy is cheaper) and be able to return energy to stabilize the grid during peak demand. According to government testsowners could earn 1,400 yuan for each download, about 170 euros. The plan. At the moment the system is being tested and 30 bidirectional charging stations have been installed in nine different cities. The plan is to have 5,000 by 2027 and by 2030 they expect the energy capacity to reach 1,000 million kilowatts. Why is it important. China is not only the largest manufacturer of electric vehicles in the world, it is also the country with the largest fleet of electric cars in the world, with more than 40 million vehicles in circulation. If they manage to implement it on a massive scale, they would also have the largest network of electric batteries available that would help them diversify energy sources, reduce dependence on coal and stabilize supply. Others have tried. China is not the first country to have this idea. According to the V2G-hub listthere are around 150 similar projects around the world, many of them already abandoned, but others still underway. However, none have come close to nationwide adoption. In Spain there have been at least six initiatives, one of them still underway in Menorca. Challenges. Bidirectional charging faces many challenges and technical difficulties. To start the price. A bi-directional charger costs between $2,100 and $2,800, almost triple what a normal charger costs. It is the main reason why scaling such a system is complicated, but in China they have the advantage that the government is betting heavily on subsidizing energy. Another difficulty is that not all cars are compatible with this energy, so its mass adoption would be delayed at least until a greater number of vehicles support it. Finally, there is the issue of battery degradation, a major consumer concern that could slow adoption. Electrostate. Not long ago China was the biggest polluter of the planet and, although still depends a lot on coal to generate energy, it is giving a radical turn to become an “electrostate”. The bidirectional charging initiative is another example of China’s commitment to investing in renewables. There are more, like construction of the largest solar park on the planet in Tibet or the giant Three Gorges Dam, so big that even changed the rotation of the Earth. Image | Kindel Media, Pexels In Xataka | China has created the largest kite in the world with a very clear objective: to make its energy extremely cheaper.

while the Madrid-Barcelona AVE goes at 350 km/h, the rest of the network languishes

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The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, has announced the tender for two feasibility studies with one objective: to carry out actions to improve the high-speed line (LAV) between Madrid and Barcelona to increase the speed of this corridor to 350 km/h. This will allow the journey between both cities to be made in less than two hours, but the problem is with the state of the railway network in the rest of the country. All focus in one line. Puente has explained that the reasons for focusing on this route are that “we need more capacity due to the increase in passengers on this line which, when it started, moved 2.2 million users and today there are 15 million, which means that 85% of the passenger share uses the train in this connection between cities and can still grow.” Vibrations. The modernization of the line that has already been carried out on the Madrid-Seville route is now urgently needed for the one that connects Madrid with Barcelona: it is already close to having been in service for 20 years and reports have appeared that point to an increase in vibrations between Madrid and Calatayud. Air traverses. For the renewal of the line, use will be made of a “unique Spanish technology in the world”, the aerotraviesa, which according to ADIF reduces the aerodynamic load in the space immediately above the ballast bed by 21%. This allows the operating speed of the train to increase by 12%: the aerodynamic load caused at 330 km/h by the current crossing would be equivalent to that generated by the aerocross at 370 km/h. New stations. The plan also includes new access variants to both cities and the construction of two new high-speed stations in Parla (connected to the Madrid Cercanías network) and in El Prat de Llobregat. A new access to the Chamartín station from the east and south is also proposed as an alternative to the existing tunnel. that connects this station with that of Atocha. In this way, the minister indicated, the capital will be provided with an alternative route to the existing tunnel for trains coming from throughout the Mediterranean and Andalusia. Impact on other lines. The Parla station will also have another purpose: to allow a connection with Madrid for all those services of the Madrid-Seville LAV and the Madrid-Levante LAV, with destination Madrid, in case of eventual incidents at the stations or in the standard gauge tunnel. Giving room for maneuver for the future. This action, the Ministry states, will improve the current capacity of the Torrejón de Velasco junction—through which more than 250 trains circulate daily—and absorb the increases in traffic expected with the entry into service of the Madrid-Extremadura-Portuguese Border High Speed ​​Line. the planned growth on the line between Madrid and Seville. The studies also include the construction of a new railway access that allows services to be provided from Lérida with origin and destination in Barcelona and without the need to circulate through Camp de Tarragona. sticking out chest. Minister Óscar Puente stated in the announcement that with this improvement Spain will become “the only country, together with Chinawhich has an infrastructure of these characteristics.” Not only that, it has compared the costs with that is supporting uk: “They have 40,000 million and do not have a single kilometer of track installed. There is talk of a project that will cost 100,000 million pounds for 250 kilometers. We will have invested, from the beginning (of high speed) until the end of this year, in 4,091 kilometers, around 70,000 million euros. We have the lowest cost per kilometer in the world.” Where can you travel in five hours by train from cities like Gijón, La Coruña or Badajoz? To Madrid, almost certainly… and little else. Source: Chronotrains. The problem is the rest of Spain. The improvement plan makes sense from the point of view of the growing demand on that route, but it once again penalizes the rest of the railway network, which does not have high-speed lines… or even lines. We already talked about how from Chronotrains It is possible to see how from Gijón, La Coruña or Badajoz (in the image) in five hours the train coverage is very poor, and the problem is repeated everywhere. The connection with Madrid is normally well covered: the problem is the connection between cities other than Madrid and Barcelona. Supply and demand. Here there must be a balance between supply and demand, and criticism is logical among those who see how other routes, even having a certain demand, they are neglected again and again. Platforms like “Soria NOW!” they manifested recently claiming that “the only train that passes through Soria is the one of excuses”, and the same thing happens with others like Teruel Exists or the concentrations that for years They demand a “decent train” in Extremadura, although in the latter region there is somewhat more hopeful newsand the AVE to Galicia is also proving to be a real success. Image | Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility In Xataka | The great Valencian “obrón” bears the name of Adif. Their last names: gas leak and fed up neighbors

The EU is considering banning the installation of mobile network equipment from Huawei or ZTE. It is a dangerous strategy

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The European Commission (EC) is exploring ways to get member states stop using telecommunications equipment from Chinese sellers like Huawei or ZTE. Tension between Europe and China is escalating once again, and it is not at all clear that this decision will be beneficial for European companies. Huawei in Europe no, thanks. On Bloomberg cite sources close to these plans and talk about how the vice president of this organization, Henna Virkkunen, has adopted a very forceful position. Virkkunen apparently wants to completely stop the use of Huawei telecommunications equipment with an eye-catching argument: making that a legal requirement. It wouldn’t matter what each country thought.. Years ago the EU has already recommended avoiding Chinese telecommunications equipment as far as possible, but it was a suggestion without a mandatory nature and the member states were the ones to decide in this area. Spain, for example, has continued using this equipment. The Commission’s theoretical proposal would legally force EU countries to break commercial ties with these companies. Failure to comply with the requirement could expose these countries to economic sanctions. Before they were suggestions. At the beginning of 2020 the European Union announced those recommendations under the name “5G Toolbox”. At that time they warned of the risks but left room for maneuver to the member states. Now we go from a soft recommendation to a legal imposition, because that “Toolbox” was voluntary. The national security argument. The argument is the same as that used in the past: Euro officials fear the risks associated with using communications equipment from companies (such as Huawei) so closely linked to the Chinese government. Maintaining these teams, this strategy suggests, could compromise national security. And be careful with countries outside the EU. The EU’s plan is not only for member countries to abandon these teams, but to pressure countries outside the EU to do so as well. Thus, it would try to block the use of program funds Global Gateway if those who use them spend them buying Huawei equipment. The operators, harmed. European telecommunications companies also appear to oppose this plan. First of all, they indicate in Bloomberg, because Huawei technology is often cheaper and even superior to Western alternatives from Nokia or Ericsson. And second, because replacing existing equipment is extremely expensive and can delay current and future deployments. internal division. In the absence of confirmation of the EC plan, there is another key element: there is internal division among EU members. Germany and Finland continue to deliberate on what restrictions to impose, while Spain and Greece continue to purchase telephone equipment from these manufacturers. What they say in China. Lin Jian, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Minister, has indicated that when certain countries forcibly eliminate telecommunications equipment from Chinese firms like Huawei, they not only slow down their technological progress, but also suffer economic losses. He further added that “We urge the #EU to provide a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies and avoid undermining business confidence in investing in Europe.” Let’s remember Sweden. In 2020, Sweden decided to ban the use of telecommunications equipment from Chinese manufacturers with the same argument that we already know about national security. That theoretically favored the local company, Ericsson, but its CEO criticized the Swedish government’s decision precisely because he knew what was going to happen. Revenge is served on a cold plate. And what happened is that China retaliated. A few months later, China Mobile announced budgets and contracts to boost the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, and Ericsson was the biggest loser. The company had almost 11% market share before the government’s decision: today its share does not reach 2%. Dangerous veto. If confirmed and made effective, the veto on being able to use telecommunications equipment in the European Union is dangerous precisely for the same reason that happened with Sweden. China continues to be a great commercial ally of China despite being more aligned with the US in areas such as semiconductors. With these types of actions, Europe positions itself even more closely with the Trump government, something that is somewhat surprising because Europe already came out badly after the agreement with tariffs. In Xataka | Huawei has a plan to deal the final blow to NVIDIA in China: a supernode of 15,000 processors

Shenzhen metro is transforming into an autonomous logistics network. The key is a legion of AI robovans

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During the day, Shenzhen’s stations look, in some ways, like those of any big city: full of movement, loudspeakers and announcements marking the passage of trains. But when traffic eases, something changes. In the same space where a few hours ago there were crowds, autonomous vehicles and small robots appear that move with precision, transporting packages from one point to another. There is no spectacle or artifice, just a different use of a familiar environment. The metro network, designed for travelers, is also beginning to serve urban logistics at a time when every minute and every square meter counts. The idea of ​​taking advantage of the subway to move goods does not arise on a whim. In Shenzhen, as in many large Chinese cities, surface traffic has become in an obstacle for daily logistics. Delivery companies deal with extreme urban density and the constant growth of e-commerce, which forces them to deliver faster and with increasingly tight margins. Using trains outside of peak hours allows us to alleviate this pressure and reduce costs, while at the same time making use of infrastructure that usually remains underused for much of the day. When travelers leave, robots stay According to the Xinhua agencyone of the officially documented pilots takes place on line 11 of the Shenzhen metro. Every night in Futian District, SF Express staff sort and pack packages, which are then loaded into metal cages. These cages are transported by means of a autonomous shuttle vehicle to the platform, where they are destined for the sixth coach of the train, enabled as a logistics car during off-peak hours. In less than thirty minutes, the goods cross the most congested stretch of the city and arrive at the Bihaiwan area, near the airport, where they continue their journey to the distribution center. The aforementioned operation is supported by a fleet of robovans. Nikkei Asia explains that These are small vehicles capable of moving autonomously along predetermined routes, where they transfer packages from a storage center to the subway loading area. Each one can transport up to 500 kilos and has a useful space of about 3 cubic meters. Another official test takes place on subway line 2, at Wanxia station, where delivery robots are able to board the train by themselves to deliver goods to stores 7-Eleven inside the station. The system, described by Guangdong Department of Transportationcombines autonomous route planning, laser sensors and a control system that allows it to move safely between passengers. The project, promoted by Shenzhen Metro Group, Vanke and Wanwei Logistics, remains in the testing phase and seeks to verify whether it can be applied on a larger scale in the city’s underground commercial network. The Chinese industrial ecosystem is one of the reasons why these types of projects are advancing so quickly. The aforementioned newspaper highlights that strong competition between national manufacturers has made key components such as LiDAR sensors cheaper and has driven the development of more efficient batteries and specific chips for autonomous driving. On this basis, production costs are significantly reduced. A robovan is already between 20 and 30% cheaper than a traditional commercial vehicle, and the difference increases by eliminating cabin space and the cost of the driver. The development of these initiatives is not without difficulties. Autonomous vehicles still depend on human supervision at various stagesespecially in the loading and unloading of goods. Its speed inside the stations is reduced to guarantee the safety of passengers, and that limits the operational pace. For now, operations remain limited and are far from mass application. Even so, they reflect a clear trend: the attempt to optimize each section of urban space, even the underground. Shenzhen functions as a laboratory for a model that seeks efficiency without altering the rhythm of the city. Ultimately, these tests speak less about technology than about management: about how a metro network can serve two different purposes while remaining, above all, a public service. Images | Guangdong Department of Transportation (1, 2, 34, 5) | Shenzhen Government (1) In Xataka | Many Spanish ports have become luxury resorts for the rich: owning a pleasure boat is increasingly difficult

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