plan

It is Samsung’s plan to conquer AI in mobile phones

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Samsung has just unveiled its new high-end: the new Galaxy S26 family is here and arrives with a conservative proposal but at two speeds where the Ultra model is the one that comes out the best. And it also brings more artificial intelligence than ever. Leaving aside the long list of functions that were already in Galaxy AIthose that have improved and new features such as ‘Now Nudge’ or Agentic AI, the big surprise It’s a confirmation: Perplexity lands as a full-fledged assistant alongside what already existed, Bixby from home and Gemini of Android. Full integration. Perplexity comes to compete head-to-head with the home assistant and Google assistant as long as it is integrated at the operating system level. What does this mean? That you can invoke it to use it in system apps such as Notes or Reminder, but also with some third-party applications. It is not a downloaded app: it operates on the device’s framework layer. And as such, you can invoke it via ‘Hey, Plex’ (without Aitana’s boyfriend appearing) or from the side button. This point is more than a simple detail: it is using the hardware as a distribution lever: whoever controls the hardware controls how the user accesses it. A reminder: Google paid a million to Apple to be the search engine on iOS. Context: Samsung’s pending issue. Few mobile manufacturers bet as much and as well on AI as the Korean firm. Samsung It is the brand that sells the most mobile phones within the Android ecosystem, but the assistant battle has been lost with Bixby. On the other hand, he has to integrate Gemini by contract. In short, Samsung cannot control its entire artificial intelligence layer sovereignly and that is a dangerous strategic dependency if you want to be the best. Samsung’s trump card: being a Swiss army knife. According to an internal Samsung investigationabout 80% of users already use two types of AI agents in their daily lives, so they have turned flexibility into a plus. Since Samsung knows that it cannot go to war with the best language model alone and win, it has opted to become a neutral hub, which allows it to attract advanced users who want to use the best of each house without friction. As declared Won-Joon Choi, President, COO and Head of R&D Office of Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics: “We are committed to building an integrated, open and inclusive AI ecosystem that offers users more choice, flexibility and control to perform complex tasks quickly and easily. Galaxy AI acts as an orchestrator, integrating different forms of AI into a single, natural and cohesive experience.” Why is it important. Because with this movement Samsung has changed the rules: it declares itself platformnot an assistant. It is a layer that coordinates several agents, leaving behind the “one assistant to rule them all” thing. The Korean firm thus differentiates itself from Apple’s vertical control and closed integration or Google’s tactic of prioritizing Gemini above all and even putting it in the soup. The movement is most intelligent: it thus neutralizes his weakness (Bixby) to transform it into a virtue. They deliberately decide to open up and let the user choose with whom and for what. Why Perplexity and not another. Here is an elephant in the room that should be remembered first of all: because the most mainstream AI, ChatGPT, She is already married to Apple. From here, it must be clear that Samsung has chosen the best possible strategic partner for its corporate interests at this time. And there are a few reasons: Because it offers a differentiated and complementary value proposition: it is a quality conversational chatbot that cites sources, without advertising and verifiable answers. Its presence is not a redundancy of Gemini, which can be used for productivity and the Google or Bixby ecosystem, for the device. A starting point in the most favorable negotiation: Perplexity is a startup that needs alliances for massive distribution against the power of Google and OpenAI, whose valuation exceeds half a billion dollars. This puts Samsung in a position to get better conditions. He already had a relationship with the startup, whose AI It is already present on the Korean brand’s TVswhich implies that they are not starting from scratch: their teams already know the respective APIs. Its anti-ad positioning. Samsung, which is betting heavily on privacy, has a strong argument here to offer a differential experience compared to Google. Reduce the Googledependency. With Perplexity, Samsung diversifies its partners without fanfare with Google in a move of corporate geopolitics. The Korean firm has a multi-million dollar deal of distribution with Google and with this twist, their position is more advantageous when negotiating or putting pressure on the Mountain View company: they have Perplexity in the bedroom as a third agent. In Xataka | Mobile AI promises, but I only see repeated tricks. The real ace up your sleeve is called “agent” and he is on the way Cover | Eva R. de Luis

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

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

This is the plan to keep our energy cheaper

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Fifty megawatts. That is all the power in batteries that Spain managed to connect to its electrical network in the last three full years from 2023 to 2025. However, in an unprecedented twist of the script, only in the 31 days of January 2026 did the sector has plugged in more than 57 megawatts. It’s not an anecdote, it’s the starting signal. After years of administrative paralysis and debates about how to manage the flood of green energy, the energy storage sector in Spain has begun to wake up. With the aim of reaching 22.5 GW of storage capacity in 2030 marked by the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC), the country faces what is probably the largest structural transformation of its electrical system in decades. Nature’s warning. The Spanish electrical system has just gone through a monumental stress test. As we have been documenting in Xataka during the last weeksthe concatenation of Atlantic storms and historic wind production pushed water reserves to record levels and sank the wholesale price for dozens of hours, even into negative territory. The oversupply was such that nuclear plants like Trillo They stopped operating when they were not married in the market. Beyond the meteorological anecdote, the episode exposed a structural failure: Spain has the capacity to generate enormous quantities of clean and cheap electricity, but it lacks enough “electronic reservoirs” to move that energy over time. The result is renewable waste, zero prices and a system forced to absorb surpluses at any cost. The transition no longer depends only on installing more green megawatts. It depends on knowing how to manage them. The numbers reveal the magnitude of the moment. At the end of January, Spain had less than 100 MW of operational batteries, but more than 11,600 MW with access permission granted and almost 14,000 MW in processing, according to the latest APPA Renovables report. More than 25,000 MW on the exit ramp. The technology and investors are ready. The only obstacle left to overcome is a regulatory framework that seems stuck in the past. The clash against the 20th century. The barrier is not technical, but bureaucratic. José Carlos Díaz Lacaci, CEO of SotySolar, explains it clearly in statements to Xataka: “The problem is not technical/technological, it is that a regulation from the 20th century continues to be applied that understands the battery as a final consumer, when in reality it is an asset of system flexibility.” Currently, the regulations treat the charging of a giant battery as if it were the consumption of a factory. “Or what is the same: we are applying rules of a one-way highway when what is needed is bidirectionality on that road and regulation by traffic lights,” illustrates the SotySolar spokesperson. The frustration in the sector is palpable. A battery does not “consume” electricity in the classic sense: it moves it over time to return it when the system needs it. However, you are required to have firm demand access as if you were an end user. As long as there is no specific regulatory figure for storage – with its own framework of tolls, access and remuneration – the deployment will continue to advance, but without the industrial scale required by the PNIEC. The paradox is that the market already behaves as if that figure existed. Operational data shows that the batteries charge during hours of solar surplus and discharge during peak demand naturally. “The regulator knows perfectly well what the graphs say,” says Díaz Lacaci. “It is not a question of whether it works, but of giving it legal certainty.” Two ways to a big stack. To absorb this renewable avalanche, Spain has to activate its two large storage lungs. On the one hand, large-scale batteries (BESS) offer a response in milliseconds and allow the grid to be stabilized with a precision that no other technology matches. And the queue of projects is historic. According to APPA dataIn addition to the more than 25,000 MW in permits and processing, there are 92,620 MW of demand access requests in the transmission network, much of them linked to storage facilities. It is an unmistakable sign of investment appetite. The international context reinforces the thesis. Spain It is the second country in the world in battery storage projects for the electrical grid, only behind the United States, with 16,000 MW planned until 2030 and an estimated volume of 2,000 million euros in development. However, the current business model remains fragile. Without a capacity market that rewards the constant availability of these assets – and not just energy sold punctually – the viability of large-scale financing is complicated, leaving many of these projects waiting for a clear framework. The muscle of hydraulic pumping. On the other hand, the other lung is hydraulic pumping. Reversible reservoirs act as the country’s heavy battery, Spain has around 6 GW of installed capacity and the PNIEC plans to reach around 10 GW of seasonal storage in 2030. In times of overproduction and plunging prices, these plants use cheap electricity to lift water to a higher reservoir and store it as potential energy. In January 2026 alone, pumping consumption exceeded 771,400 MWh in the national system, according to data from Red Eléctrica. However, its expansion is not guaranteed either. As Antonio Hernández, partner at EY, explains, in statements collected by Expansionachieving the objectives will require approving capacity markets adapted to pumping, reducing the tax burden and establishing hydraulic concessions with sufficient horizons to recover the investment. The risk of capital flight. Time plays against us. Today, the business model for batteries in Spain is complex. They live on “highly specialized niches” in adjustment services, a scheme that is “profitable as artisanal projects”, but which is “unsustainable for the industrialization of storage”, warns the CEO of SotySolar. This regulatory limbo has a real cost. “Regulatory uncertainty always penalizes, and capital, indeed, is very sensitive to that factor,” warns Díaz Lacaci. The industry is aware that international funds are already freezing projects … Read more

the plan to implement 16,000 MW of batteries to save renewable surplus

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Spain is a world power in wind and solar energy: the graphics say it where it fares quite well against much larger countries and also the records he is breaking year by year. None of the world’s major economies came close to level of integration of renewables like Spain and Portugal already in 2024. In fact, there is so much that it reaches unbalance the electrical grid and what has he done to him become an export power. And yet, the blackout of April 28, 2025 He put Spain in front of an uncomfortable truth: I didn’t have enough batteries to accompany the boom of its renewables. So Spain is doing its homework: it is the second country with the most battery storage projects in the world, only behind the United States, according to this Ernst & Young report that analyzes the evolution and perspectives of the sector. Why is it important. Because the implementation of enough BESS would end one of the big problems with renewables: they provide energy intermittently, not on demand. If there is no storage, the excess is wasted (exporting is an option, but France is in the middle). Batteries are what is missing for the energy transition to be a reality, a reality that implies achieving energy sovereignty. On the other hand, with a storage system sized to the capacity, the batteries would function as a blackout-proof airbag in a matter of milliseconds in the event of possible failures. Finally, the possibility of being able to store energy when it is cheap (during very sunny hours) and release it would help alleviate electricity bills. Brief notes on the BESS. Energy storage batteries for the electrical grid or BESS (Battery Energy Storage System) They are not just huge mobile phone batteries, but rather they are storage systems the size of industrial containers (such as those on ships) packed with electrochemical cells with integrated electronics to inject or absorb energy into the grid in real time. They work as if they were a kind of shock absorber to store excess energy that is released later, when necessary. Inside there is a kind of management brain to control its status, power inverters so that the energy is usable on a domestic and industrial scale, and control software that decides when charging or discharging occurs. It’s time. The 2025 blackout was a friendly reminder of the situation, but it also helps that the price of lithium-ion batteries has dropped drastically: from 2014 to 2024 it fell 73% and continues to plummet: now it is at a minimum of 78 dollars per megawatt-hour. This collapse in costs is working as a catalyst for investment. The Spain of batteries, in figures. The EY report speaks of a planned business volume of 2,000 million euros in the form of projects under development until 2030 to store 16,000 MW. By then, the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan hope to have 22,500 MW of storage. The Expansion medium puts This data in perspective: those 16 GW represent a 29% share of everything projected on a global scale. Only the United States exceeds that figure. To make it possible, there is already a committed public investment: 750 million euros come from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, which is added to the 699 million European funds. The ball is in the Administration’s court. Everything mentioned so far are projects and not realities, that is, having these storage systems plugged into the electrical grid. Despite the volume of business and public aid, it is the economic viability that will make these projects go from paper to materialization. More specifically, the sector is waiting for the Spanish Government to develop a regulatory framework on how payment will be for these infrastructures and the service they provide to the network. These rewards will define their long-term profitability and therefore, whether companies decide to execute them or not. In Xataka | Spain’s electricity market has broken: there is so much energy left over that we are using the reservoirs like giant batteries In Xataka | Andalusia is going to become the “battery” of Spain: why it will keep almost half of European funds for batteries Cover | RawPixel

Microsoft has a billion-dollar plan to end inequality in Latin America. And it is to expand AI, of course

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50 billion dollars. This figure that seems so impossible to contextualize is the amount of money that Microsoft is going to invest in what they have dubbed the ‘plan’Global South by 2030‘. And like almost everything that has to do with Microsoft for a few months now, it is focused on one thing: improving access to AI in the countries of the ‘Global South‘. In short. This week, during the AI ​​Impact Summit in New Delhi, Microsoft president presented a plan to invest $50 billion by the end of the decade to improve access to artificial intelligence in developing countries and emerging markets. Brad Smith said they want to sustain the long-term growth of those countries as part of his company’s effort to address a problem they have detected: the growing digital divide between developed and developing nations. There may be many other gaps beyond access to AI, but Smith is convinced that what is urgent is to accelerate the adoption of AI in regions of India, Africa and Latin America. This ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’ thing is not a geographical issue. It is an economic division The plan. The intention of Microsoft is “to make the dissemination of AI real and at scale, so that communities have what they need to access that tool, that they trust it and can apply it to local priorities.” The legs of that plan are: Empower schools and nonprofit organizations through technology and digital skills. Strengthen multilingual and multicultural artificial intelligence capabilities. Enable local AI innovations to meet community needs. Measure the spread of AI to guide future policies and investment. Let it be used more. With this, Microsoft hopes that AI will penetrate more into these territories because, according to an internal report on the spread of artificial intelligence, while 24.7% of the working-age population in the Global North uses generative AI tools, in the Global South only 14.1% use it. According to Smith, developing economies cannot miss out on those productivity advantages that come with AI. AI and hunger in Africa. But it is not the only thing that Microsoft has recently presented that seeks to position AI as a catalyst for change. With the ambitious title of ‘Stop malnutrition with AI’, the American company has presented a project to improve food security in sub-Saharan Africa. Starting in Kenya, the idea is that institutions have access to tools that offer information to predict and prevent food shortages and predict, with AI, the risks that this implies for health. If you are raising an eyebrow like “thank goodness we now have AI to give us the solution to a problem that we already know”, here at least there is no talk of Generative AIbut rather a model that collects all the data and reflects it on a map so that organizations have more detailed information. Data centers. These 50,000 million are added to other previous billion-dollar investments that Microsoft had already done in countries like BrazilIndia or South Africa, but there is something more than “digital empowerment”. The initiative includes building AI infrastructure, and that means one thing: building data centers. This infrastructure requires an immense amount of energy to satisfy the needs of the digital infrastructure, but they also need water and Mexico and South American countries are directly mentioned as home to some of the new data centers. Microsoft has been testing for some time more sustainable data center designsbut precisely in developing places, energy and water are resources that, perhaps, are not abundant. Images | Specialgst, Microsoft In Xataka | What is happening in the US is a warning for Spain: data centers driving up electricity bills in homes

The Government already has a plan to return to physical buttons

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Many of us miss the presence of physical buttons inside the vehicles that land on the market today, that is a fact. However, from various points of the globe there is already a certain movement in reversing and require a certain balance. In this sense, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China (MIIT) has proposed a new regulation which will force manufacturers to install physical buttons and controls for essential vehicle functions. The ‘all screen’ has dominated the automobile industry in China in recent years, but everything indicates that there is now an intention to stop this trend for safety reasons. The underlying problem. The obsession with minimalist interiors with huge touch screens has led many Chinese manufacturers to eliminate virtually all physical buttons from the cabin. A trend largely started by Tesla and that brands like BYD, Xiaomi or Geely have adopted it massively. As if navigating our phone’s interface wasn’t enough, now we also have to spend some time on the central screen of our car, and in several vehicles we have to go through this screen for functions as basic as the turn signals or emergency lights. Which functions will have mandatory physical controls. The regulations specify a clear list of items which must have physical buttons or controls with a minimum size of 10×10 millimeters: turn signals, emergency lights, horn, gear selection (P/R/N/D), windshield wipers, defroster, electric windows, switch to activate driving assistance systems and emergency lights. Technical requirements. Under the proposal, physical controls would need to be in fixed positions, allow use without looking, and provide tactile or auditory feedback. Additionally, basic functions must remain available even when the vehicle system fails or loses power. In this way, the regulatory body intends for the driver to be able to operate these controls without taking their eyes off the road or depending on the screen to respond correctly. It is not an isolated case. China has begun a regulatory crusade for security in recent months. A few days ago we were talking about the ban on hidden handles retractable after several fatal accidents in the country. There is also an intention to eliminate yoke-type (U-shaped) steering wheels, arguing that their design is not suitable for the 10-specific point impact tests on the steering wheel required by new safety regulations, which will come into force in January 2027. Stricter regulation for autonomous driving. The new rules also tighten the requirements for autonomous driving systems levels 3 and 4. Manufacturers will have to demonstrate that their systems can drive as well as “a competent and attentive human driver”, presenting case studies to support this. According to the regulations, if the system fails or the driver does not respond, the vehicle must reach what regulators call a “minimum risk condition” – that is, stop safely on its own. Implementation schedule. The draft is open to public consultation until April 13. According to ChinaEVHomethe regulations on physical controls would come into force on July 1, 2027, with a transition period of approximately six months. New models seeking approval must comply with all of this immediately, while existing models will have 13 months to adapt, according to they count from CarScoops. In Xataka | Two centuries ago the tires on cars and motorcycles were white. It had nothing to do with the design.

Mexico has a gigantic energy treasure under its feet. The plan to extract it is called fracking

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Mexico is walking on a treasure and, at the same time, on a political minefield. Under the land of states like Coahuila, Tamaulipas and Veracruz, an energy giant sleeps: the sixth world reserves of unconventional gas. Waking him up was the great taboo of López Obrador’s six-year term, a red line drawn with the promise of “no to fracking“However, reality has knocked on the door of the National Palace. In a turn that redefines the new mandate, President Claudia Sheinbaum has faced an iron dilemma: staying true to the campaign promise of not using hydraulic fracturing or pursuing “energy sovereignty”, one of the almost mythical aspirations of the Mexican left, to stop depending on US gas. The president has already made a decision: she is willing to pay the political cost. What began as a rumor has become a budgetary and contractual reality in 2026. The data is compelling and leaves no room for doubt about the change in course. Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) has increased its investment for this year in the “Gulf Tertiary Oil” program by 66%, going from 2,423 million pesos in 2025 to 4,016 million pesos in 2026, according to Treasury data obtained via transparency collected by The Universal. The machinery is already in motion. Pemex’s Strategic Plan (2025-2035) schedules the start of these operations after last year’s pilots. Pemex has awarded the first “mixed contracts” to private companies such as C5M, Geolis, CESIGSA and Petrolera Miahuapan. Although the state company retains the majority shareholding and control, it is the private parties who will provide the capital and technology, an urgent need for an oil company with a debt of more than 100 billion dollars. However, this injection of capital has raised alarm bells due to its opacity. The Mexican Alliance against Fracking denounces that in the 2026 Budget there are more than 245,000 million pesos allocated to gas projects that involve hydraulic fracturing, hidden under items that lack public breakdown and transparency, just as collected The Impartial. The semantics of dissimulation If he fracking was a “cursed word” in the previous six-year term, the new government has found a creative solution: change the dictionary. To avoid the political cost of openly announcing the use of fracking, the administration has chosen by a series of technical euphemisms. Rather frackingofficial documents speak of “reservoirs with complex geology” or “reservoir stimulation.” The general director of Pemex, Víctor Rodríguez Padilla, was blunt before the Senate: “We are not going to do frackingwe are taking advantage of technological development in evaluations of existing deposits.” But operational reality belies the rhetoric and breaks the discipline of official discourse. While euphemisms are used in the capital, on the ground urgency rules. The Undersecretary of Hydrocarbons of Tamaulipas, cited by The Countryrecently broke the taboo by declaring: “We talk it like it is here…hydraulic fracturing.” However, to understand the magnitude of the challenge, you have to look at the map. Pemex’s hopes are concentrated in three main basins: Burgos, Tampico-Misantla and Sabinas-Burro Picachos. The Burgos Basin is particularly relevant for being the natural extension towards the south of Eagle Ford in Texas, one of the deposits of shale most prolific of the American boom. If there is wealth north of the border, geology suggests there is wealth to the south as well. However, extracting this oil is not easy. The expert Miriam Grunstein illustrates the technical challenge starkly: the soil in these areas is a clayey “dump” and the crude oil has the density of “toothpaste.” This makes their exploitation extremely difficult, expensive and technologically demanding. Why go back to these complicated areas now? The answer is exhaustion. Pemex is pivoting toward the “unconventional” because its large conventional fields are drying up. It’s a portfolio decision to try to sustain the production platform in the face of the natural decline of traditional fields. If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu Behind Sheinbaum’s turn is a real geopolitical fear. Mexico imports 70% of the gas it consumes from the United States. “If the United States closes the valve, Mexico will be left in the dark,” recognized the head of Pemex himself. But the scenario is even more complex with the neighbor above led by Donald Trump and his vision of natural resources as national security. Recently, Washington has deployed the Project Vaulta strategy to secure critical minerals and counter China, which includes “geological mapping” of Mexican resources. The pressure is such that the Mexican government has had to give in to the harshest pragmatism. It was the Secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, who summarized Mexico’s position regarding the US energy integration demands with a lapidary phrase: “If you are not at the table participating, you are on the menu.” Mexico has decided to sit at the table fracking to avoid being devoured. Furthermore, the lack of liquidity forces this opening. Reactivating the identified wells requires immediate investments of more than $1 billion, money that will now come from private partners. The decision has been made, but the results will not be immediate. Although investment skyrockets in 2026, specialists warn that the launch of massive exploitation will take between three and four years to yield tangible results. The government’s optimistic projections suggest that, in their most developed phase, these fields could provide an additional 300,000 barrels per day. To achieve this, the “Mixed Contracts” model will be the norm: Pemex collect immediate bonuses for the award (almost 50 million dollars in the first round alone) and lets the private parties assume the operational and financial risk. A very high price The cost of this decision is already being paid in credibility with the bases. Organizations like Greenpeace and the Mexican Alliance against Fracking They have accused Sheinbaum of “betraying the people who elected her.” The most critical point is water. In a country hit by drought, the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC) estimates that 5.7 million liters of water are required per well. Greenpeace raise the alert citing the … Read more

the US plan to revive its industry

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On the complex board of global technology, power is not only measured in lines of code, but in the ability to master chemical elements that, until recently, went unnoticed. That’s where gallium comes in, a silvery, malleable metal that, as explained in the Wall Street Journalhas the almost magical property of liquefying with the simple heat of the palm of the hand. However, behind this physical curiosity lies the nervous system of modern defense: unlike silicon, gallium withstands extreme voltages and resists heat without blinking, which makes it the irreplaceable material for military radars, satellites and missile guidance systems. For decades, the world depended on a single supplier. Today, in a twist worthy of the Cold War, the United States and its allies have decided that the era of complacency is over. The plan is as ambitious as it is unusual: extracting the technological treasure from industrial waste, from the so-called “red mud.” The market as a weapon of war. The current crisis is not a supply chain accident, but a state strategy. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), China applied a textbook tactic for years: flooding the market with artificially low prices to suffocate any mining attempts in the West. Once he achieved the monopoly—controlling 99% of refined gallium by 2025—Peking began to turn off the tap. In the report of Wall Street Journal remember that in 2023 China imposed export controls and, soon after, a complete ban on shipments to the United States. Although the ban was temporarily lifted, the damage had already been done: the price of gallium outside China tripled, reaching an all-time high of $1,572 per kilo last January, as reported by AlCircle. For the Pentagon, which in its official documents has recovered the historical term “War Department”, this is no longer a commercial issue, but of national survival. The gallium triangle. To break this siege, Washington has stopped looking at conventional mines to focus on the refinery chimneys. The strategy is deployed in an industrial triangle that starts in Australia. There, at the Wagerup refinery, the giant Alcoa has teamed up with Japan and the US to filter gallium directly from bauxite processing. The objective, detailed by Wall Street Journalis to capture 10% of global demand without opening a single new mine. The effort crosses the Pacific to the banks of the Mississippi, in Louisiana. The Gramercy plant has received a $150 million injection from the Pentagon to process its mountains of “red mud,” a waste product from aluminum production that is now worth its weight in gold. He Financial Times underlines the ambition of the project: This single plant aims to cover the entire US gallium demand. The triangle closes in Tennessee, where the South Korean Korea Zinc leads a multimillion-dollar investment to rescue the strategic metal from zinc refining waste. A market armored against Beijing? Despite the rain of millions, the path is full of economic traps. Professor Ian Lange, from the Colorado School of Mines, warns in the Wall Street Journal that the gallium market is “dangerously small.” If the West ramps up production too quickly, prices could collapse, making new plants unprofitable before they even start. To avoid this scenario, the White House has deployed a financial safety net. It is about the Project Vault, a strategic reserve of 12 billion dollarsdesigned to guarantee the purchase of these minerals and protect giants like General Motors or Google from volatility. This measure is aligned with the proposal of the CSIS to create an “anchor market”a mechanism where G7 allies establish mandatory purchasing quotas, shielding Western production from Chinese dumping. The future is written atom by atom. It is no longer enough to design the best software; Now it is imperative to possess the stuff that makes it work. Between the “red mud” of Louisiana and the refineries of Australia, the West is trying to demonstrate that it can regain its technological sovereignty. As long as Beijing maintains its ability to sink prices at will, these projects will depend on vital support from the State. The great battle for gallium is, ultimately, a fight of resistance to see who sustains the supply of the chips that will move the world of tomorrow. Image | AndrewDaGamer and freepik Xataka | The gold of discord: why 14 municipalities of Guadalajara have rebelled against Europe’s “mineral sovereignty” plan

the plan to turn Asturias into the great energy shipyard that Europe no longer knows how to build

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For decades, the West operated under a mirage: believing that making things was no longer relevant and that the future lay only in software. However, China has woken up Europe of that dream, showing him that national sovereignty depends, ultimately, on knowing how to melt metal. Now that “bath of reality” has just docked in Asturias. The Port of Gijón, El Musel, has ceased to be just a strategic enclave for local coal and steel to become the epicenter of a global ambition. The Asturian group Zima and the Chinese giant Dajin Offshore they have sealed an alliance to build a foundation plant for offshore wind. However, there is a problem and size does matter, a lot. The landing of a colossus. Dajin and Zima have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop a facility that will not only manufacture components, but will function as a port for marshalling —the logistics area where these pieces are collected and pre-assembled—. As detailed in The Economistthe objective is to supply the European market and alleviate bottlenecks in the sector. Dajin is not just any actor. As detailed in local media, It is the largest Chinese private manufacturer of offshore wind structures. This alliance will reinforce the strategic role of the region in the European energy transition. The Gordian knot: the crisis of space. Zima’s initial project occupied 153,753 square meters on the North Pier. However, the entry of Dajin changes everything: the multinational need more space. Making XXL “monopiles” is not like making cars. According to technical data provided by Energetica21Dajin has the capacity to manufacture structures up to 12 meters in diameter, 120 meters in length and 2,500 tons in weight. “Moving and storing these steel cylinders requires massive esplanades that are currently compromised,” warn industry sources. in LNE. El Musel finds himself facing a puzzle. The land requested by Zima borders Ionway’s future battery plant. As LNE explainsthe Port Authority is studying with “the best disposition” how to meet this demand, either by extending towards the sea or looking for non-contiguous plots. An “Electrostate” in the Cantabrian Sea. To understand this project you have to look at the global context. Today, China builds 74% of the planet’s renewable energy. By settling in Gijón, Dajin brings what the West has lost: heavy industrial capacity. As Miquel Zorita, director of Zima, points out, in The Economistthe desire is to integrate local suppliers. This is vital because European wind turbine manufacturers such as Siemens Gamesa or Vestas are going through a deep profitability crisis. Chinese technology in Asturias could be the necessary oxygen ball, even if it is under a foreign flag. The industrial clock against the bureaucratic clock. The success of this operation will not be measured only in the millions of euros of investment or in the jobs created, but in the size of the facilities it will depend exclusively on the space they obtain in the port. Asturias has before it the opportunity to stop being a “quarry” of resources and become a center of high added value. But, as Craig Tindale’s thesis warnsa civilization that sacrifices its material base ends up losing its independence. Gijón is redesigning its map; Now it remains to be seen if El Musel has enough soil to support so much weight. Image | Bafpg and ShellAsp Xataka | Inspecting an offshore wind turbine no longer requires stopping it: the drone that uses AI to ‘x-ray’ moving blades

What the Auto+ Plan offers, requirements and how to request it

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Let’s explain to you What are the aids to buy an electric car? of the Auto+ Plan. Thus, if you are thinking of buying a car of this type in 2026, you will know until when the aid can increase and what the requirements are to be able to apply for it. The Auto+ Plan is the successor to the MOVES III Plan which ended last year, and solves some of the problems that it had been dragging on. This new aid plan has some important newsboth in the amounts and in the way in which the aid is calculated. These are the aids of the Auto+ Plan Below, we leave you the table in which you can see the amounts of aid and the percentage received. Here, to calculate the aid, both the type of car and its price before taxes will be calculated and where it was manufacturedso that those who are European will be given more priority. Here you have the table: Category Maximum aid amount Vehicle type Percentage received based on price Manufacturing Tourism (M1) 4,500 euros Electric: 50% of the aid (2,250 euros) Plug-in and electric hybrid with extended autonomy: 25% of the aid (1,125 euros) Maximum of 45,000 euros before taxes: Up to 35,000 euros: 25% of the maximum aid amount (1,125 euros) Between 35,001 and 45,000 euros: 15% of the maximum amount of aid (675 euros) Vehicles whose assembly and final completion prior to marketing has been carried out in an EU industrial facility will be allocated: 15% of the maximum aid amount (675 euros) Additionally, if a part of the battery manufacturing process (at least must include the assembly of the battery packs): additional 10% of the maximum aid amount (450 euros euros) Vehicle (N1) 5,000 euros Electric: 50% of the aid (2,500 euros) Plug-in and electric hybrid with extended autonomy: 25% of the aid (1,250 euros) No maximum limit: All vehicles receive 25% of the maximum aid amount (1,250 euros) Vehicles whose assembly and final completion prior to marketing has been carried out in an EU industrial facility will be allocated: 15% of the maximum aid amount (750 euros) Additionally, if a part of the battery manufacturing process (at least it must include the assembly of the battery packs): additional 10% of the maximum aid amount (500 euros) Moped (L3e, L4e and L5e) 1,100 euros Electric: 50% of the aid (550 euros) Plug-in and electric hybrid with extended autonomy: 25% of the aid (275 euros) Maximum of 10,000 euros before taxes: All vehicles receive 25% of the maximum aid amount (275 euros) Vehicles whose assembly and final completion prior to marketing has been carried out in an EU industrial facility will be allocated: 15% of the maximum aid amount (165 euros) Additionally, if a part of the battery manufacturing process (at least it must include the assembly of the battery packs): additional 10% of the maximum aid amount (110 euros) Quadricycle (L6e and L7e) 1,500 euros Electric: 50% of the aid (750 euros) Plug-in and electric hybrid with extended autonomy: 25% of the aid (375 euros) No maximum limit: All vehicles receive 25% of the maximum aid amount (375 euros) Vehicles whose assembly and final completion prior to marketing has been carried out in an EU industrial facility will be allocated: 15% of the maximum aid amount (225 euros) Additionally, if a part of the battery manufacturing process (at least it must include the assembly of the battery packs): additional 10% of the maximum aid amount (150 euros) Aid phases and requirements The Auto+ Plan aid is calculated based on three phases. This means that 100% of the aid is divided into three partsone of 50% and two others of 25%. With this, if you want to receive 100% you will have to meet the requirements of each of the phases of the aid. Phase 1: Type of car (up to 50% of the total aid): If you buy an electric or fuel cell car, you will be awarded 50% of the total aid. This is all that can be given to you in this phase. If the car is an extended range electric or plug-in hybrid, then it will only be 25%. Phase 2: car price (up to 25% of total aid): If your car costs up to 35,000 euros before taxes, an additional 25% of the aid will be added. If your car costs between 35,000 and 45,000 euros, you only receive 15%. If it costs more than 45,000 euros, nothing is added to you. Phase 3: where it is manufactured (up to 25% of total aid): This phase is divided into two conditions. If your car was manufactured in Europe, an additional 15% will be added for the aid. And if the battery has also been produced in Europe (at least the battery pack assembly), then you receive an additional 10%. If you meet both requirements, then the remaining 25% is added to the total aid. With this, you will only be able to aspire to the maximum aid of 4,500 euros if you comply with everything: if your car is electric or fuel cell, if it cost a maximum of 35,000 euros, if the car was manufactured in Europe and if the battery was assembled in Europe. In the event that you do not meet all the requirementssince you will stop receiving the percentage of the aid that corresponds to the phase whose requirements the vehicle you have purchased does not meet. In addition to this, you should know that There are other points to take into account. on the types of vehicles to which aid is provided. As we explained in Xatakathese are the points: The aid takes into account all purchases made from January 1, 2026 so those who have purchased an electric car in the first month of the year will be able to have access to them. Aid is only provided for purchases of Zero-emission vehicles. Aid is only provided to passenger … Read more

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