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When they told us all the advantages of intermittent fasting, they forgot one small detail: that it could make us bald.

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For years we have been sold that intermittent fasting It was the strategy of the future to lose weight and improve our metabolic health. It is logical: it was something easy to implement, reasonable and very striking. Had everything necessary to become a fashion. And so it was. It is now, as the first long-term studies come to an end, that we begin to really understand its pros and cons. The most striking, of course, is the one that has to do with hair. What exactly is intermittent fasting? In general terms, we call ‘intermittent fasting’ a diet that alternates periods without food restrictions with brief periods of fasting. ‘Fasting’, here, is a deliberately elastic term: it can mean eating absolutely nothing or significantly reducing the number of calories consumed. The idea behind it sounds good.. When we undergo prolonged calorie restriction, the body goes into “savings mode” and that causes weight loss to slow down (or, at least, slow down). Intermittent fasting would attempt to trick the body into not adapting to the new calorie restriction and therefore continuing to “spend” at a normal rate. And does it work? That’s the bad news. “Research does not consistently show that intermittent fasting is superior to continuous low-calorie diets” when it comes to weight loss, the study tells us. more complete analysis on the subject after reviewing almost fifty studies. The clinical trials that have been carried out Subsequently, they only insist on the same thing: in general terms, the results are identical to those with the rest of the normal diets. Both in the dropout rate and in the amount of weight achieved or the improvement in health markers. The choice of another method, ultimately, has more to do with individual philias and phobias than with any type of extra scientific evidence. After all, everyone has a peculiar relationship with food and, consequently, there are some strategies that ‘fit’ us better than others. In other words, there are people who use it. Yes and the truth is that nothing happens. Little by little, researchers are discovering good things (can help intestinal cells regenerate) and bad things (could promote the formation of precancerous polyps). So, little by little, we are better understanding what it does, what it stops doing and what mechanisms are behind intermittent fasting. That’s when the surprises begin. Because, for example, a clinical trial carried out with mice has discovered that intermittent fasting slows hair growth. Researchers at Westlake University (in Zhejiang, China) took about 50 mice, shaved them and divided them into three groups with dietary restrictions (fed every 8, 16 or 48 hours) and one without restrictions which is the control group. After a month, the mice that could eat without problem had recovered their hair. Those who fasted, on the other hand, only partially recovered after 96 days. As? Because? What is happening here? The first thing is to make it clear that the researchers “They don’t want to scare people away from intermittent fasting.“; but rather highlight “the importance of taking into account that it could have some unwanted effects.” Taking this into account (and that the study is in mice), the answer is both simple and full of uncertainties: to begin with, hair growth is a process that requires constant and balanced nutrition. But researchers believe the problem could go further: It is possible that “the body uses fat reserves instead of glucose and this could trigger the release of chemicals that damage hair cells.” However (and this is important) the research is in a very seminal state and there is still much to investigate. After all, there is no better occasion than this: the occasion they paint her bald. Image | Seika In Xataka | The great promise of science to end baldness is not a transplant or a medicine: it is a vaccine A version of this topic was originally published in February 2025

Millionaires are fleeing the Middle East. And their unexpected destination is a small Swiss canton called Zug.

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In 2011, during the Arab Spring, several European private banks detected an unusual phenomenon: Within days, high-net-worth clients began transferring large sums from the Middle East into accounts in Switzerland without prior notice. It wasn’t the first time something like this happened, but it was one of the fastest. That left a clear lesson in the financial sector: when stability falters, money does not wait to understand what happens, it simply moves. War moves money. we have been counting. The war in the Middle East is not only altering military and energy balances, it is also causing a silent movement but massive capital. What were previously fiscal decisions or lifestyle They have become urgent security decisions, where the priority is no longer optimizing profits, but protecting assets. In this context, an idea begins to prevail: billionaires do not wait for the situation to get worse, they go aheadand that movement is redrawing the global map of wealth in real time. Dubai is no longer an unquestionable refuge. For years, Dubai was the natural destination for international fortunes seeking stability, tax benefits and a secure environment in a complex region. However, the conflict with Iran has introduced a variable that previously seemed controlled: the direct risk. That perception has been enough for activate discrete outputs but constant numbers of businessmen, executives and large assets who are now looking for more predictable alternatives outside the gulf. This is not a collapse, but a change in mentality: when security is no longer absolute, attractiveness quickly erodes. Aerial view of Zug And, suddenly, Zug. In this displacement, the place that is attracting attention is not a great global capital, but a small swiss canton of just 135,000 inhabitants: Zug. Traditionally known for its role in commodities trading and, more recently, in crypto ecosystemhas become the first destination that many of these capitals look to. Reasons? counted the financial times that both wealth managers and bankers agree that demand has grown significantly since the beginning of the conflict, to the point that for many clients the request is direct and automatic: move there. The call effect. This growing flow is having immediate consequences in an already limited market, especially when it comes to housing. Demand has rapidly outstripped supply, generating intense competition for any property available and lines even for modest rentals. Added to this are administrative barriers that make entry difficult, especially for those who do not belong to the European Union, forcing residence to be linked to employment, investment or specific tax agreements. Zug attractsbut it does not absorb without friction. Switzerland reinforces its role in the geopolitics of money. What is happening in Zug is not an isolated phenomenon, but rather part of a broader dynamic in which Switzerland consolidates again as a refuge in times of uncertainty. Its political stability, its legal framework and its financial tradition make it a almost automatic destiny when overall risk increases. In fact, other cantons like Lugano have begun to capture part of this growing demand, expanding the phenomenon and confirming that the movement has only just begun. A map of wealth that changes with each conflict. In short, the result is a progressive movement of money from risk areas to safe enclaves, where each crisis acts as a catalyst. The war in the Middle East is accelerating this process and leaving one conclusion abundantly clear: global fortunes are no longer driven only by opportunity, but for threats. And in that new balance, places so small and discreet like Zug They can become, almost without noise, the great beneficiaries of an increasingly unstable world. Image | Schulerst , IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, LohriPR In Xataka | The most buoyant market right now is selling streaming and satellite images of US movements to Iran. In Xataka | Commercial aviation is based on very old aircraft. The Iran war is going to make it even worse

DeepSeek promised them happiness as the great Chinese AI. I didn’t count on a small detail: Kimi

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Just a year ago, DeepSeek was one of the biggest scares that Silicon Valley had received dwarves. A Chinese model trained with a fraction of OpenAI’s budget equal to GPT-4 in benchmarks. Upon its arrival the message seemed clear: Western dominance of AI had its days numbered. Today, the story stands, but not thanks to DeepSeek. The DeepSeek case. DeepSeek carries months late for its V4 and, to date, has already lost three of the authors of R1, the model that catapulted them to success. The monthly downloads fell 72% in the second quarter of the year, seeing how Doubao (ByteDanec) snatched the lead. With missed dates, usage errors due to cyber attacksand the difficulty of split from NVIDIA To bet almost entirely on Huawei’s Ascend chips, Chinese alternatives like Kimi have been gaining ground. Meanwhile, on the other side of China. Moonshot AI was not born surrounded by noise like DeepSeek. It was founded in March 2023 by three former colleagues from Tsinghua University: Yang Zhilin—PhD from Carnegie Mellon, former Google Brain and Meta AI—, along with Zhou Xinyu and Wu Yuxin. There were no visible or media faces behind it, only product. That product is Kimi, and in early January 2026 the company launched it in its K2.5 version. In code and video benchmarks managed to surpass GPT-5 and Gemini Pro 3with the key to Chinese AI: its API costs between 4 and 17 times less than OpenAI’s. Those responsible for Moonshot explained how Kimi was almost at Claude’s level in software development testing, encouraging the race for open models. The money arrived. The commercial results are what really attract attention. In less than 20 days Following the launch of K2.5, Kimi’s cumulative revenue exceeded everything billed during 2025. API’s international revenue increased fourfold since November of the previous year. The consequence in valuation has been dizzying: 4.3 billion dollars in December 2025, 10 billion in February 2026, 18 billion in March. Three months, valuation multiplied by four. Kimi has thus become the fastest decacorn in Chinese business history. The Chinese maelstrom. DeepSeek was born a year ago as the great revolution that questioned the closed model of Silicon Valley. It only took a few months for Moonshot to steal the limelight and manage to be on par with – or even above – giants like Google and OpenAI in the most used models in the world. In favor of DeepSeek, it should be noted that its objective is different: it does not follow the typical startup pattern with pressure for immediate monetization and it is a gigantic AI laboratory that can afford not to win in the short term. In Xataka | DeepSeek API: what it is, what it is for, prices and how you can get one to use in your projects

ideal for its photographic section and for lovers of small mobile phones

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MediaMarkt usually launches many direct offers, others through its app, sometimes with a discount coupon and sometimes by accessing what it calls myMediaMarktwhich is basically registering in the store. Precisely today one of these latest offers has fallen into the Google Pixel 10awhich again remains at the minimum price of the store as long as we are registered in it. In this way, the mobile goes from 549 euros to 466.65 euros. Google Pixel 10a (128GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Return to the lowest MediaMarkt price He Google Pixel 10a It is a particularly interesting mobile for those people who want to have a model from the brand, that takes good photos and that is “small”, since in this case we are talking about a model that comes with a screen 6.3 inch pOLED. Internally we find the Google Tensor G4, a processor that, despite not being the best in Android phones, offers a good experience when running apps or navigating through the system menus. Furthermore, continuing in line with the brand, this mobile will receive Android updates for many years. In addition, Google mobile phones are the first to receive them. On the other hand, the Google Pixel 10a supports both fast charging (30W) and wireless charging, comes with artificial intelligence functions through Gemini and It comes with a good photographic sectionone of the key points being the Google app for the camera. ⚡ IN SUMMARY: google pixel 10a offer today ✅ THE BEST His sizesince it is currently one of those considered “small” mobile phones. The softwarewhich will have updates for seven years. ❌ THE WORST l128 GB of internal storagea very small number if we want to save many photos. Repeat the same processor of the previous generation. 💡 BUY IT IF… You want to make the jump to the Google ecosystem with a mobile phone that takes good photos, and you don’t want to spend what the Google Pixel 10 or its older brothers cost. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… You are going to save a lot of photos, videos or files locally, since the 128 GB of storage is going to become short in a short time. You may also be interested Google Pixel 10a Case – Made for the Pixel 10a with Recycled Plastic, Unimpeded Charging, Drop Tested – Fog Gray The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Pixel Buds 2a – Wireless earbuds with Active Noise Cancellation – Light and comfortable – Water resistant – Bluetooth compatible – Moss Green The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Ivan LinaresGoogle In Xataka | The best mobile phones, we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | Best wireless headphones. Which one to buy and 21 models from 15 euros to 470 euros

3.6 million people watched the Goya gala. Only a small part went to see the nominated films

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The gala of the Goya 2026 has scored a 26% screen share, its best figure since 2020 and the second highest since 2010, in a context of television consumption down. Paradoxically, this massive attention contrasts with a box office that remains stagnant and with an audience that prefers to see Spanish cinema on television platforms and events rather than in theaters. Technology and new consumer habits explain this gap. The figures. The broadcast of the gala on RTVE’s La 1 brought together an average of 2,396,000 viewers and reached a 26% share. In his analysisVertele emphasizes that linear television consumption has been significantly reduced in the last decade, with fewer people watching DTT at the same time than in 2010. That the gala reaches percentages comparable to fifteen years ago in an ecosystem fragmented by streaming and delayed viewing platforms suggests that the Goya remains an event capable of bringing together a mass audience in real time, in the style of a sporting event. These good figures are part of five consecutive years of growth for the gala in audiences, with an increase of 1.6 share points and 56,000 viewers compared to the 2025 edition. However, the majority of the films that competed for the award that night had not managed to recover their investment in theaters. Less box office. According to the official data published by the ICAASpanish theaters closed 2024 with 72.9 million spectators and a collection of 484.6 million euros, figures that represent a 5% decline in attendance compared to the previous year. The share of national cinema within this shrinking market was around 18.65%. But that percentage is not sustained by the auteur films that dominate the Goya nominations, but rather the exact opposite: family comedies and commercial thrillers. This can be applied to the big winners of this editionwhich we summarize in this table. All of them enjoyed subsidies between one million (except Sorda, with 800,000 euros) and 1,200,000. That is to say, they are films highly valued on the awards circuit, rather than by the general public. In this way, the market bifurcates, and the cinema that really fills theaters, such as the family comedies by Santiago Seguraare left out of the Goya. QUALIFICATION BUDGET COLLECTION SIRAT 6.5 million euros 2.87 million euros Maspalomas 5 million euros 716,000 euros Deaf 2 million euros 735,000 euros Sundays 4.7 million euros 3.7 million euros dinner 5 million euros 716,000 euros The captive 9.8-15 million euros 5.2 million euros lto Spanish exception. It is not something that happens in all countries: in France, the eternal model in which we want to see ourselves, French films raised 44% of the year’s box office. But at the same time, the three most watched French titles of the year (a comedy with disabled actors, an epic adaptation of Alexandre Dumas and a romantic drama) are films that also aspire to the Césars, their equivalent to our Goyas. Subsidies are also comparable in quantitybut here the number of releases has skyrocketed (168 in 2016, 364 in 2025), while the collection has decreased (from 111.5 to 85.6 million in the same period). And yet… the Goya audience demonstrates every year that there is interest in the industry. There is a potential audience that debates whether ‘Sirat’ deserved to win more awards than ‘Los Domingos’, but they did not go to the cinema for the premiere of ‘Sirat’. The hinge of the platforms. Three weeks after its very limited theatrical release, ‘The Snow Society’ landed on Netflix: in its first eleven days accumulated 51 million views and closed the first half of the year with 103 million views, becoming Netflix’s third most viewed film globally. The fact that he had that success right after leaving the theater sums up the problem. In October 2025 Netflix advertisement that they would spend one billion euros on Spanish production between that year and 2028. All this in Tres CantosNetflix’s largest production space in the entire European Union. Since its arrival in Spain, Netflix has produced more than a thousand titles with Spanish teams, generating 20,000 jobs in the sector. Amazon Prime Video follows a similar logic, although with less weight in its own original production. The money from the platforms has allowed Spanish cinema to produce on a scale outside the traditional financing system (subsidies, investment from traditional chains). For this reason, and in the face of competition from platforms, which produce and release almost immediately in their space, in 2022 the Spanish exhibitors They formally requested a minimum window of one hundred days between the theatrical release and the arrival on platforms, shorter than the windows in France (15 months) and Italy (3 months). At the moment, there is no regulation and each window is negotiated separately. The power of the Goya. However, there is a Goya Effect at the box office. Last year, when ‘El 47’ and ‘La infiltrada’ won the award for Best Filmthe two tapes their box office skyrocketed by more than 70%. It is something that carries lifetime happening with the Oscars, but here we do not have the muscle of international Hollywood distribution. In Spain, ‘Los Domingos’ continues in 50 cinemas and ‘Sirat’ in 35 throughout Spain. It is insufficient for them to experience notable growth. But these are the highest grossing ones: the Goya, their audience proves it, they generate real interest, but the majority of the winning films, such as ‘Sorda’ or ‘Maspalomas’, are already streaming. The impact of the awards does not benefit the box office because there are no open avenues to do so. In Xataka | Santiago Segura is so clear about his success that with ‘Torrente Presidente’ he is trying something: without a trailer or a pass for critics

the small print of the new PVPC and the end of volatility

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The January 2026 slope has come with a moderate surprise for millions of homes: the electricity bill is lower than last year, despite the fact that the structural costs of the electrical system have risen sharply. Behind this partial relief there is a significant change that marks a before and after in the regulated rate: the Voluntary Price for Small Consumers (PVPC) has entered its final phase. After the energy crisis of 2022 and the blackout of April 2025, the Spanish electricity system seek stability. The result is a less volatile, more predictable, but also more rigid rate. The underlying question is whether this new PVPC protects the consumer or prevents them from taking full advantage of the drop in prices when energy is abundant. A respite on the January slope. For an average household, the start of the year is being less suffocating than expected. According to the simulator of the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), an average consumer will pay about 9% less than in the same period last year. As detailed The Information, The monthly bill is around 52.50 euros, compared to 56.40 euros in January 2025. This decline is not minor if we take into account that two winds are blowing against us. On the one hand, regulated costs have risen —tolls and charges—which represent between 35% and 45% of the bill. On the other hand, it remains the “reinforced operation” of the electrical system after the blackout, which forces the use of more expensive gas plants more frequently to guarantee the stability of the network. Even so, the receipt goes down. The key is in the reform of the PVPC. The metamorphosis of the PVPC. What the consumer sees on their bill today is the result of a transformation that began in 2023. For more than a decade, the PVPC was almost entirely linked to the daily wholesale market, the so-called poolwhere the price is set every 15 minutes. This design made it possible to take advantage of specific drops, but also exposed households to extreme increases during the gas crisis, with prices that in 2022 exceeded 200 euros per megawatt hour on average. To reduce this vulnerability, the Government designed a three-year transition that ended on January 1, 2026. Since then, the price of PVPC energy is calculated with a stable distribution: 45% depends on the daily and intraday market and the remaining 55% on the futures markets—annual, quarterly and monthly. As explained The Conversationthe objective is not to always make the bill cheaper, but to prevent it from behaving like a roller coaster again. This greater stability comes at a cost. The Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) remember that in 2024 The new formula made the bill 5.2% more expensive compared to what would have been paid with the old system. In 2025, with calmer prices, its impact was almost neutral. In 2026, the model is already definitive. The abundance that does not reach the pocket. The new PVPC coincides with a paradoxical moment. During Christmas 2025, Spain and much of Europe experienced some of the lowest electricity prices in recent years. thanks to records of wind and solar production. However, many consumers hardly noticed this drop in their bill. The reason is structural since more than half of the PVPC price is linked to futures contracted months in advance, the sharp falls in the daily market they only partially move upon receipt. This effect is accentuated in moments of curtailmentwhen renewable energy is wasted because the grid cannot absorb it. In Spain, this problem has tripled due to the lack of investment in infrastructure, with especially stressed areas such as Asturias. The result is a contradictory situation: clean and cheap energy at source, but limited by saturated networks and a system that prioritizes stability over extreme savings. What the consumer can do. As he emphasizes The Conversationthe PVPC does not eliminate the user’s decision-making capacity, but it displaces it. The price of energy is no longer the only relevant factor. The bill is made up of several terms and only two are really manageable: the contracted power and the hourly distribution of consumption. In 2025, the power term represented around 20% of the average bill, and the energy bill, 56%. Adjusting the real power needed and taking advantage of off-peak hours—early mornings, weekends and solar periods—remains key to containing costs. The difference is that extreme micro-optimization, based on monitoring the market every hour, loses weight in the new system. So, is it worth staying? The PVPC maintains clear advantages because it remains the only way to access the social bonus and offers total transparency, with prices supervised by the Administration and acts as a cushion against sudden increases in gas in a context of geopolitical uncertainty. But it also loses appeal for very active profiles. Those who adapted their consumption to the cent can no longer fully benefit from the hours of almost free electricity that occur in spring or autumn with high renewable production. The free market, for its part, offers fixed rates that provide certainty, but are not free of risks. The OCU warns of automatic revisions linked to the CPI—3% year-on-year in November—which can make the bill more expensive even for regulated concepts. Comparing carefully is essential. Shadows on the horizon. Beyond the individual consumer, the electrical system faces a fundamental risk. The Government has calculated the 2026 charges assuming that electricity demand will grow by 4.5%. However, the CNMC has much more cautious forecasts, around 2.3%. If consumption does not grow enough, income will not be enough to cover regulated costs and premiums for historical renewables. It’s not a bargain hunter’s fare. The PVPC of 2026 will be more stable, more predictable and safer, but also less spectacular at times of minimum prices. The energy transition has managed to generate clean and abundant electricity, but the consumer continues to pay for obsolete networks, increasing fixed costs and a system designed to avoid blackouts rather than … Read more

MediaMarkt’s Downhill makes this Google Pixel cheaper. A small and ideal mobile if you prioritize photography

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MediaMarkt’s La Cuesta Abajo is leaving quite interesting discounts on telephones. In relation to mobile phones with a good photographic section, the store right now has the Google Pixel 10 for a price of 649 euros. This is one of the best prices MediaMarkt has had to date. Of course, the offer will end on January 23. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A mobile phone with an excellent photographic section He Google Pixel 10 It is a perfect mobile phone for those looking for good design, a small format and an excellent photography section. Ride a OLED panel with a size of 6.3 inches which offers a resolution of 2,424 x 1,080 pixels, a refresh rate of 60 to 120 Hz and 3,000 nits of peak brightness. Internally it incorporates the processor Google Tensor G5 and in this case it comes with the configuration of 12 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. Its operating system will be updated for many years and its battery supports both 30W fast charging and 15W wireless charging. On the other hand, this Google mobile stands out, like other models of the brand, for its photography section. The front camera is 10.5 MP and on the back it comes with a 48 MP main sensora 13 MP wide angle and a 10.8 MP 5x telephoto. You may also be interested Pixelsnap Case for Google Pixel 10 & Pixel 10 Pro – Durable Protection – Stylish Protection – Obsidian (Created by Google) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Spigen Glas.tR EZ Fit Screen Protector for Google Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, 2 Units, Easy Installation, High Definition, 9H Hardness, Anti-Scratch The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Pepu RiccaGoogle In Xataka | The best mobile phones, we have tested them and here are their analyzes In Xataka | The best quality-price mobiles. Their analyzes and videos are here

Xiaomi smart glasses arrive in Spain at a very low price. They are just missing a small detail

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Xiaomi, for a long time, has not been a smartphone brand. It is an ecosystem brand. And to close the product circle it presented its Xiaomi AI Glasses. While these end up landing (or not) in Spain, the company has just quietly brought its Mijia Smart Audio Glasses. A quite different alternative in design to the formats we are used to for a simple reason: they are glasses purely focused on audio. You see it, you hear it. This is the slogan of Mijia, Xiaomi’s ecosystem sub-brand, for its Smart Audio Glasses. These are not the smart glasses we are used to. They are a device designed for audio functions. They have compatibility with both Siri as with him Google Voice Assistant. They have a voice recorder, included for calls. Real-time noise cancellation. Real-time notifications A design of… glasses. One of the main problems with alternatives with double chambers is the thickness of the temple. Being simpler glasses, these Audio Glasses have an appearance that could easily pass them off as normal glasses. In fact, the thickness of the rods is only 5mm. The chassis weighs only 27.6 grams. The hinge promises more than 15,000 bends and is detachable in case we need to replace it. They have polarized lenses that not only filter 99.9% of ultraviolet light, they also filter reflections and 25% of blue light. The design is finished in titanium. The controls. To interact with these Xiaomi glasses we will have two solutions. The first is to use its temples, with touch controls. These allow you to enable calls, alerts, start recordings… Of course, while we are recording a small indicator light will turn on, so that there is evidence that we are recording. The second method is to use its app, through which we can manage recordings, connected devices, gesture control and even find the glasses by emitting a sound if we can’t find them. The autonomy. If you are wondering how long the battery of a product like this lasts, the answer is: little if you use them a lot, enough with logical use. They promise up to 13 hours of continuous playback, 9 hours in calls and an average of a day and a half of use. Why is it important. The Mijia Smart Audio Glasses are not just glasses focused on audio, they are proof that Xiaomi wants to bring to Spain a product ecosystem that, sooner or later, will end up competing with giants like Go with your RayBans. The integration of the Xiaomi ecosystem as a Trojan horse in Spain It is something we have been talking about for a long time, bringing its ‘Human x Car x Home’ philosophy to all aspects: smartphones, appliances, smart accessories, cars… and even robots. Styles and price. The Mijia Smart Audio Glasses are now on sale in the Xiaomi Spain website in three different mounts: Pilot Style: 179.99 euros Browline: 179.99 euros Titanium: 199.99 euros Image | Xiaomi In Xataka | Meta is so serious about smart glasses that its catalog is already a mess: this is how the new models differentiate themselves

Europe believes it has won the gas war against Russia, but it has forgotten one small detail: infrastructure

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Europe has made a historic decision: 2027 will be the year in which the last trace of Russian gas disappear from the energy system of the continent. However, between the offices in Brussels and the reality of homes there is a chasm that is not measured in cubic meters, but in months of construction. The continent’s security no longer depends on diplomacy with the Kremlin, but on the speed at which terminals can be erected, tubes connected and ships deployed. The new European sovereignty is in the hands of the engineers. A system to build. As analyst Giacomo Prandelli explainsthe focus of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) market has been on the price, but the real crisis is infrastructure. Europe is in a frantic race to replace Russian gas, but much of the necessary capacity is still under construction or in the planning phase. This has created a golden opportunity for a very select group of companies that own the physical assets. According to Prandelli, there are vital European companies that still go unnoticed. He gives as an example a firm valued at 662 million euros that operates “at a bargain price”: Their profits are very high compared to their stock market value and, most importantly, they already have government contracts secured until 2030. They are, basically, the owners of the “plugs” that Europe is forced to go through. The reasons for structural change. The reason for this urgency is an irreversible “divorce”. According to data collected by OilPriceRussian exports by gas pipeline to Europe have fallen by 44% in 2025, reaching lows in the 1970s. The definitive closure of the Ukrainian route this December leaves the continent without its historic arteries. The reasons for this new reality are three: US dependence: US gas It already represents 56% of LNG imports in Europe. The July 2025 agreementby which the EU will buy 750 billion dollars in energy from the US, has reconfigured the global board. The physical rigidity of the system: Although there is plenty of gas in the global market, European regasification plants (especially in the Netherlands) have operated at the limit of their technical capacity. Spain has the gas, but cannot send it to the rest of Europe: its pipelines with France they only allow export 8,500 million m³ per year. The problem is not the lack of fuel, it is the “funnel” of the pipes. Gas as an eternal backup: A report from McKinsey & Company issues an uncomfortable warning: Gas demand will grow by 26% until 2050. Europe needs gas to stabilize its electricity grid when renewables fail. The energy transition, far from eliminating gas, has turned it into a “permanent strategic pillar.” The Black Sea axis and the ghost fleet. However, the European wall has cracks. Hungary and Slovakia they keep injecting money to the Kremlin via the Druzhba pipeline and the TurkStream route. While Brussels asks for disconnection, Budapest and Bratislava build new connections towards the Black Sea, claiming that the cut would be “economic suicide.” Added to this is the fear of the “ghost fleet.” Brussels fears that Russian gas will repeat the oil scriptan opaque market of ships that change flag and documentation to hide the origin of the gas. To avoid this, the EU has imposed fines of up to 3.5% of global turnover and certificate of origin systems, but the crude oil precedent shows that, when Europe closes a door, the market usually opens a clandestine window. Europe’s floating lifebuoy. Given the slowness of concrete, a technical solution arises. According to Professor Alexandre Munspoints towards FSRUs (Floating Storage and Regasification Units). These ships are mobile regasification plants that use the heat of the sea to process the gas. According to Muns, their advantages are the speed of deployment and the cost since they can be rented for about $155,000 per day. Giants such as Excelerate Energy or Höegh LNG are those that today allow the EU to keep the pulse. Without these ships, the gas crossing the Atlantic simply would have nowhere to enter the continent. The tyranny of the calendar. Europe closes 2025 with deceptive calm. As reported by El Economistaprices have fallen to four-year lows (€27/MWh) thanks to a mild winter and the constant flow of ships. But, as the president of Sedigas, Joan Batalla, warns, this stability is “conditional.” Any extreme cold snap or technical failure in a saturated terminal could skyrocket prices again, because the network operates without margin for error. Europe’s autonomy is no longer negotiated in Moscow; It is built in the ports of Germany, in the interconnections of the Pyrenees and in the FSRU shipyards. The success of the 2027 plan will not depend on politicians’ promises, but on cranes and welders finishing their work before the climate changes the rules of the game. Image | freepik Xataka | The European Union has finally made the decision that has terrified it for so many years: stop importing Russian gas

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

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