Sovereign Archives - usatoday24

Spain wants to have its own “sovereign” AI. The first step is called Sherpa.ai, and the State is already a shareholder

July 25, 2026 by usatoday24

The Basque company Sherpa.ai, specialized in AI and data privacy, closed at the beginning of July an $18 million financing round. This has some relevance, since the State itself participated in the round through the American fund Forgepoint Capital, being the first time that the Government has become a shareholder in the company. What has happened? Sherpa.ai, founded in Erandio (Vizcaya) by Xabi Uribe-Etxebarria, has closed its first round of financing since 2021, the year in which had raised 8.5 million dollars. In this new injection of capital, the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT), the public vehicle linked to the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service, enters as an investor. Known as the “digital SEPI”, it is the way that the Government has to invest in technology companies. Who is behind. The fund leading the operation is Forgepoint Capital, a Silicon Valley firm specialized in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence that, as share From El Mundo, he had already invested in two other Basque companies in the sector, Maisa AI and Multiverse Computing. Along with Forgepoint, there are repeat investors who were already in the capital of Sherpa.ai: the Mundi Ventures fund, from investor Javier Santiso; Ekarpen, the Basque Government’s venture capital vehicle; and Allegra Holdings, one of the investment companies of the Losantos Ucha family, precisely the owner of the largest fortune in La Rioja. In detail. Sherpa.ai has been operating for more than a decade and it is one of the Spanish companies with the most experience in artificial intelligence. They focus mainly on what they call “data sovereignty”, that is, the possibility of training and using large language models without the information leaving the client’s servers. It is an approach that is increasingly in demand in this sector, since no company likes having their data flying around while they use AI. Among its clients are Indra, which in fact was close to buying the company two years ago, the United States National Institute of Health (NIH), Caja Laboral, Unicaja and Prosegur, according to they count from the middle. Why does it matter? The entry of SETT into Sherpa.ai is part of the distribution of European funds that the Government has been allocating to technology companies considered key to strengthening Spain’s digital sovereignty. According to collect El Mundo, this operation is one of the last in which the digital SEPI has participated with this item of European funds, since the deadline to commit the capital expired on June 30. In recent weeks, this same route of public financing has also reached another Basque company, Multiverse Computing, which received more than 100 million euros, as well as Openchip. The founder and CEO of Sherpa.ai, Xabi Uribe-Etxebarria, explained that “this round allows us to accelerate our vision: to develop and commercialize a secure and scalable artificial intelligence platform that allows companies and governments to harness the full potential of AI without giving up control, privacy and sovereignty of their data.” Investigation. The company assures having also reinforced its scientific activity in parallel. And at the beginning of July he presented a study on how to train large language models with private data distributed among different organizations, without the need to share them, which reinforces this commercial discourse of technological sovereignty with the intention of favoring sectors such as health, banking or public administration. Basque Country, on fire. With the new funds, Sherpa.ai plans to accelerate the development of its platform and expand its international presence, especially in sectors such as healthcare, finance, cybersecurity and government. Furthermore, the Basque technology ecosystem is gaining traction, as several AI companies in the region have received capital injections these last weeks from the digital SEPI (the aforementioned Maisa AI and Multiverse Computing), just before the deadline to commit European funds. In Xataka | Amancio Ortega breaks his personal purchase record in Europe: more than 800 million euros for offices in Paris

The Government of Spain has announced a “sovereign fund.” It has nothing to do with a sovereign fund

January 16, 2026 by usatoday24

Pedro Sánchez announced yesterday Thursday the creation of ‘España Crece’a fund managed by the ICO with an initial endowment of 10.5 billion euros from the Next Generation funds that the Government will not spend before the end of 2026. The stated goal is to mobilize an additional €120 billion through private investment and debt to maintain the reform momentum beyond the European deadline. Why is it important. The European funds expire this year and have been the main investment muscle of the Government, which has not approved budgets in this legislature. Without this vehicle, Spain would lose public investment capacity just when Sánchez boasts of having placed the country “in the Champions League” economically. The announcement arrives in extremiswhen there was a real risk of losing those 10.5 billion that had not been executed. Between the lines. Calling it a “sovereign fund” creates intentional confusion. The classic sovereign funds (Norway, Saudi Arabia, Singapore…) are born from structural surpluses thanks to oil, gas or trade balances that are permanently in the green. Spain has not had a budget surplus since 2007, when there was some debate about converting the pension piggy bank into a vehicle similar to Norwegian. The 2008 crisis buried that discussion. Yes, but. What the Government has presented is more like a renamed investment bank than a traditional sovereign fund. The closest model is British National Wealth Fundoriginally the UK Infrastructure Bank, which raises private funds to co-invest in green technologies and advanced industry. Its capacity is 27,000 million and Spain aspires to quintuple that figure with a smaller public base. In figures: 10.5 billion: initial public endowment, similar to SEPI business rescue fund created in the 2020 pandemic. 120,000 million: theoretical capacity if private investment is added, a “conservative estimate” according to Minister Carlos Body. 60 billion: what the ICO could mobilize directly through leverage. 9 priority sectors: housing (with a focus on the industrialized), energy, digitalization, AI, reindustrialization, circular economy, infrastructure, water and security. The context. Spain has competed well for foreign direct investment in the last decade – fifth world power in projects greenfield since 2013 – and has capitalized on European funds to promote reforms without approved budgets. But the absence of structural surpluses limits ambition too much. Spain has been running a deficit for almost twenty years and its balance of payments, although in surplus since 2012, does not compensate. What is happening. The Government is turning a necessity (not to lose unexecuted European funds) into a narrative of national sovereignty. But the seams are visible: it acts because the deadline is going to expire, not because there is a strategic plan based on its own surpluses. There is neither of the two things. Missing. Minister Corps will present the full details next week. There remain unknowns about the private co-investment mechanisms and how it will be guaranteed that those promised 120 billion will materialize. The experience of the SEPI fund, which barely used a quarter of its endowment, invites skepticism. Sánchez took advantage of the Spain Investors Day to vindicate the economic moment: “We have become accustomed to competing in the Champions League,” he said. He used the same expression as Zapatero in 2007, a few months before the outbreak of the financial crisis. The simile has not gone unnoticed. In Xataka | Carrying your ID on your cell phone is very easy. You just have to take advantage of your next visit to the police station Featured image | Moncloa

The Sovereign Saudi Fund Buy Electronic Arts for 55,000 million dollars

September 29, 2025 by usatoday24

Post in development The rumors of this weekend They gave in the nail: Electronic Arts has finally been acquired by an investment group Headed by the sovereign Fund of Saudi Arabia and Private Investment firms Affinity Partners, owned by Jared Kushner –Donald Trump son -in -law-, and Silver Lake. The agreement values each at $ 210 (a 25% premium on the current cost of each), since the price of them had fired more than 15% Since the rumor came out this weekendwhich may have accelerated the purchase. This is the greatest purchase operation of this type in history: a company that quotes and gets it out of stock market is acquired. It exceeds in that sense the value of 45,000 million dollars that in 2007 had cost the purchase of the Texas Txu public services group. The greatest cash operation is also treated to date in what we have been. The rumor of which The Wall Street Journal echoed He spoke of 50,000 million dollars, before the price of the shares rose. Thus closes what is the second most important purchase in the history of video games, surpassed only for the sale of Activision Blizzard to Microsoftwhich cost 68.7 billion dollars and a few headaches for the company, since it had to face a series of anti-monopoly processes. As for the changes that may be in the EA managerial organization chart, Andrew Wilson, executive director of EA for years, will continue in the group. He will continue to direct the company after the closure of the acquisition in the first half of 2027. With this step, Saudi Arabia becomes one of the main actors in the video game industry: EA not only has very important sports franchises such as EA Sports FC, Madden either NHLbut also icons that can now take renewed forces, such as THE SIMS, Battlefield either Need for Speed. It is a movement perfectly in line with the purchases from the actions of weight brands such as Nintendo either Capcomor its investment in areas such as eSports, hosting some championships In what many observers, as Amnesty International, have described as Sportswhing. They open up with this action of uncertainty for EA, since the company does not speak in its press release about How could it affect the company’s template. Recall, in addition, that Electronic Arts is notorious for having given Sagas Green Light such as ‘Mass Effect’ or ‘Dragon Age’, whose content could collide frontally with the policy of a country very little tolerant With policies queer and integrators that marked the themes of these games. One of the many precedents in that regard: a DLC of ‘Assassin’s Creed Mirage’ financed by Saudi Arabia and set in the country met with the Protests of a good part of the template of Ubisoft. In Xataka | Saudi Arabia plays with fire: he wants more fee, content Trump and finance his energy transition

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