Spain

If the oil apocalypse becomes a reality, Spain has known for years how long it can last: 92 days

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Faced with the logistical blockage of Hormuz that threatens to drown the global economy, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has decided to press the red button. The organization has proposed the largest release of oil reserves in its history: about 400 million barrels. To put it in context, this figure is more than double the 182 million barrels that were injected into the market in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Spain, as a member of the IEA, will not be left out. How to collect Europe Pressthe vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, has confirmed our country’s support for this plan. If the proposal is approved unanimously, Spain will contribute to the market the equivalent of about 12 or 12.5 days of its national consumption. The Spanish bunker. All this movement leads us to the big question: how much margin does Spain really have if the situation becomes entrenched? Legally, there is a global obligation to maintain minimum security stocks equivalent to 92 days of sales or computable consumption. According to calculations of The CountryAdding all the capacities, the country has about 105 days of autonomy. This safety mattress works through a mixed system: The Corporation of Strategic Reserves of Petroleum Products (CORES) must maintain 42 of those dayswhile the remaining 50 days are maintained directly by the industry. Currently, CORES custody more than 5.4 million cubic meters of stocks. It’s not just crude oil. To be truly useful in a crisis, CORES reserves are composed by 54.4% diesel, 29.2% crude oil and 6.0% kerosene. stocks They are strategically distributed by Spanish geography. The Levante area accounts for 44.8% of the total, followed by the central area with 19.2% and the northern area with 17.7%. The objective of these reserves is not to replace normal long-term supply, but to inject fuel into the market to stop sudden price increases and buy vital time to reorganize logistics and trade routes. We can’t relax. Just because we have a margin of three months does not mean that we are invulnerable. Spain is a country with almost absolute foreign energy dependence. In 2024, national oil consumption was 1,322,492 barrels per daybut own production barely reached 76,947 barrels. Our net crude oil imports represent more than 100% of our consumption. Furthermore, our economy she is addicted to black goldespecially to move. The transport sector is responsible for 71.1% of the final consumption of petroleum products in Spain, with diesel/diesel being the undisputed king, accounting for 61.1% of that consumption. The Iranian asphyxiation has a crack. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have activated a logistical “antidote” capable of rescuing up to 7 million barrels per day. The main asset is East-West Pipelinean oil pipeline connecting eastern Saudi fields with the Red Sea port of Yanbu. The machinery is already in motion, there is already an “army” of at least 25 supertankers sailing towards Yanbu to load this crude oil. Adding to this effort is the United Arab Emirates pipeline, which provides up to 2 million additional barrels directly to the Gulf of Oman. The refinery factor. But the macroeconomy hits a wall, Saudi oil pipelines transport crude oil, not diesel. As analyst Arne Lohmann Rasmussen warns, the real danger is the deficit of distillates. If Europe does not have enough refineries to process that oil in time, the desert pipelines are of no use. This is where the CORES bunker win the game. The 54.4% of already refined diesel that Spain stores is the only thing that guarantees that the trucks do not stop. In short, the Saudi “antidote” prevents total collapse, but our reserves buy the 100 days of peace necessary to avoid seeing the pump in the clouds. If diplomacy fails, not even the bunker will avoid the historic scare. Image | Volgotanker Xataka | The price of oil has plummeted overnight. The one at the gasoline pumps will remain the same

How to know where any Renfe train is in Spain in real time, and know if it has any delays

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Let’s tell you how to know where any Renfe train is high speed, or long and medium distance. You will be able to do this with a website created by Renfe itself, where you can see all the Spanish railway traffic in real time. This is a particularly useful website when you want know where a specific train isso you can know the estimated time of arrival and if there are any delays. That’s why we are going to teach you how to use it. Watch Renfe trains in real time The first thing you have to know is that the website only monitors high-speed trains, or long and medium distance trains. This means that you will not find the Cercaníasbut the rest of the trains do, from the regional ones to the Euromed or the Ave. You can see them in motionand thus know where they are or if they have stopped. To access this website you have to go to the address real-time.longdistance.renfe.com. Inside you will see a map, where you will be able to see the railway network from all over the country, and zoom and navigate to see the area you want. When you zoom in you will be able to see the trains with different colors in the position they are in at all times. If you click on a train you will see all its information in a pop-up window. You will see your previous stop and next stop, your route and your identification number. You will also see the type of train it is and, most importantly, the expected time of your arrival. Next to this scheduled time you will see the time variation, which will show you the minutes of delay that the train is in, and the minutes of anticipation with respect to its initially scheduled arrival. You can also search for trains by their identification number. This way, if a family member is traveling to see you and gives you their train number, you will be able to monitor it in real time. When you search for a train, a column will also open on the right where you will see all its stops. In Xataka Basics | How to know if your train has canceled: where to look on Renfe, Iryo and Ouigo

Collapsing fiber prices in Spain has turned out very well for Digi. And still the accounts don’t work out

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Digi continues with its unstoppable pace until it aspires to become in the third Spanish operator. What might have sounded utopian not so many years ago is getting closer to becoming a reality. The new milestone for the Romanian operator is in its volume of fixed broadband clients. For the first time, they have surpassed Vodafone. The numbers. According to Expansion dataat the end of 2025 Digi has achieved a historic result. For the first time, it has reached Vodafone Spain in volume of fixed broadband customers (mainly fiber). Not only were the data spectacular in terms of volume, Digi attracted almost twelve times more users than Vodafone throughout the year. A difference in acquisition that shows the sustained growth of the Romanian operator. Far from the giants. Both Telefónica and the MásOrange group remain unbeatable, doubling the numbers of Digi and Vodafone in Spain. Despite this, Digi has become the third operator by clients in the residential market, since within Vodafone’s figures there is a significant weight of corporate business. Digi’s strategy. Prices, prices and prices. Digi’s strategy is to offer a quality service at the lowest possible price. And this works. Your Trojan horse is cheap fiberalong with mobile lines at a very reasonable price. A low cost strategy that has led it to be the absolute king in portability, something that has led its competition to sink their prices with fees aimed at directly fighting Digi. Yes, but. Despite its fantastic numbers in customer volume and portability, Digi reported 33 million in losses in 2025. The aggressive pricing strategy together with a large investment means that the operator’s profitability remains negative. Despite this, it is expected that in 2026 Digi will study big plans, like going public. Meanwhile, investment in fiber deployment, network leasing and infrastructure will continue to make it difficult to make enough money while preserving current prices. Image | Digi In Xataka | Digi wants to become one of the largest teleoperators in Spain. And that is why it has gone from 4,000 to 10,000 workers.

Europe has just taken a 180-degree turn in its nuclear policy and has left Spain completely out of the game

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The backdrop couldn’t be more tense. According to an official statement of the International Energy Agency (IEA)the crisis in the Middle East and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have deteriorated crude oil markets to the point of forcing the release of emergency reserves. In the midst of this climate of urgency, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has broken a historical taboo. During the Nuclear Energy Summit held in Paris, Von der Leyen has intoned the continental ‘mea culpa’: “Europe made a strategic mistake by moving away from a reliable and affordable source of low-emission energy.” The Brussels diagnosis. According to German Wellepoints out that electricity prices in Europe are “structurally too high” and hamper competitiveness. In 1990, a third of European electricity came from the atom; today it is only 15%. In fact, the former Energy Commissioner, Kadri Simson, warned of “serious problem” What it will mean for Europe to disconnect 98 nuclear reactors in the short term without solid support. 200 million euros for the atom. To correct this “error”, Von der Leyen has put 200 million euros on the table from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. But here we must make a fundamental stop to understand the debate: this money is not destined to build traditional macro nuclear power plants like the ones we know, but to the Small Modular Reactors (SMR). It is not nuclear as we know it. As detailed Spanish Radio Television (RTVE), the new strategy seeks to reduce risks for private investors and create “regulatory sandboxes” for these SMRs to be operational in the early 2030s. This nuance dismantles much of the current noise: Spain is closing traditional first and second generation reactors that have exhausted their design life. The EU is not betting on reviving that old model, but rather on financing SMR technology that is not yet commercially viable on a large scale. France: sovereignty on the lectern, protectionism on the border. The great winner of this turn is Emmanuel Macron. Coinciding with the 15th anniversary of Fukushima, the French president defended in Paris that nuclear power is Europe’s shield against hydrocarbon blackmail. However, behind this speech lies a fierce protectionist strategy, since France acts as an electrical “plug”. While Germany pays more than €100/MWh for electricity and Spain or Portugal register zero or negative prices due to their enormous wind and solar production, France blocks the Pyrenean interconnections. Paris needs to make profitable at all costs an investment of 300 billion euros in its nuclear park. Passing up Iberian solar energy would put downward pressure on its prices. Thanks to this wall, France has broken his record exporting 92.3 TWh to its northern neighbors, pocketing 5.4 billion euros, while criticizing the Spanish model as “unstable.” And the situation in Spain. On the one hand, the Peninsula is the continent’s gas lifeline. The country owns 35% of the LNG storage capacity of the EU thanks to its seven regasification plants. But this fortress has run into a diplomatic obstacle. Following President Pedro Sánchez’s refusal to support the military offensive in Iran (under the slogan “No to war”), the United States has threatened Spain with a trade embargo. Taking into account that the US supplied 44.4% of Spanish gas in January 2026, the consequences could be notable: analysts predict increases of up to 18% in the gas bill and 17% in electricity bills. To escape this fossil dependence and not waste renewable energy when prices fall to zero, Spain has activated a shock plan silent. In a single month (January 2026), Spain connected 57 megawatts worth of batteries to the electrical grid, more than in the previous three years combined, preparing to store its cheaper energy. The decline of the green agenda? Von der Leyen’s turn is not only energetic, it also has deep political significance. In an opinion column in The Countryjournalist Claudi Pérez accuses the president of the Commission of inoculating a “Trumpist virus” in the EU. By stating that Europe “can no longer be the guardian of the old world order”, Brussels relegates the green agenda and the rules-based international order to the background, moving towards a more militaristic and deregulatory vision. This discontent was highlighted with the protest of Greenpeace activists breaking into the Paris summit shouting “Nuclear energy fuels war.” Europe finds itself trapped in an unsustainable contradiction: it showers public money on nuclear promises for the next decade, assuming the risks of foreign uranium, while blocking its borders from the sun and southern winds that already produce cheap energy today. Image | Audiovisual Service and Clickgauche Xataka | Spain and Portugal would love to share the “free” energy they are generating these days. The problem is called France

Southeast Spain is the driest place on the peninsula and a DANA has just arrived to “rescue” it. It will give more problems than solutions

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Right now, as I write, “the world cup is falling” on Alicante. And that, in itself, is news. Not the DANA that is crossing the southeast right now, which has a moderate entity and is going to leave unremarkable accumulations; No. It could be, but no. The news is thatit’s raining in the southeast and that, for some time now, has become almost a miracle. A miracle that leaves something revealed, Almería, Murcia and Alicante live in a climatic (and emotional) ‘new normal’ for which we have no physical (nor psychosocial) infrastructure. Let’s look at it in some detail. What is happening? At a meteorological level, the situation is very simple. In the early hours of March 10, a DANA detached itself from general circulation and positioned itself between eastern Andalusia and the Alboran Sea. In the next few hours, the epicenter It will be located over the province of Alicante and it will also cause enormous instability in Murcia, Albacete, all of eastern Andalusia and some parts of Valencia. AEMET predicts accumulations of between 30 and 50 mm in Murcia and Alicante, with some very specific areas reaching 80 in six hours. We may see snow above 900 meters. However, it must be taken into account that the DANA is very small: any change in trajectory, can move precipitation from one region to another. Is it normal? If we are honest, it is quite normal. This is part of a very unstable first week of March with storms, DANAs, haze and many more problems. The underlying problem. The problem is that, for months, we have seen how the very abundant rains of January They left aside this corner of the Peninsula. Thus, the Segura basin is the worst in the entire country followed by that of Júcar and that of the Andalusian Mediterranean basins. That is, not raining is a problem. But let it rain too. Because throughout that area of ​​the country, although it may not seem like it, although it is very subtle, tension continues every time a DANA appears on the weather forecast maps. The worst part goes to the areas where it hit the DANA of 2024 (with up to 30% of children with sleep problems and thousands of people suffering from eco-anxiety and fear), but the consequences are there whether we like it or not. Above all, with failures around the corner. Rethink everything to adapt to what is coming. A few weeks ago, AEMET and the University of Valladolid They published a very interesting work in which they explained that without climate change the DANA of 2024 It would have been much more unlikely. The January rains over Andalusia they do not help to calm to the experts. Image | ECMWF In Xataka | In California, the funds discovered that there is no investment more profitable than farmland. Now it’s Spain’s turn

In 1850, Almería inaugurated one of the largest hydraulic works in 19th century Spain. It was a complete disaster

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It is May 8, 1850, Níjar (Almería). Although the promoters have been trying for months, finally the inauguration of the Isabel II reservoir will not have the physical presence of the Queen which gives it its name. But they are not going to let that ruin the moment, their moment. We talk about what may be the largest hydraulic work of the Andalusian 19th century and one of the most ambitious on the peninsula: 35 meters of stonework built at will by more than a thousand private investors that culminate the old dream of the Duchess of Abrantes, to build a dam along the Rambla del Carrizal. A dam doomed to failure. Money in abundance. In 1821, in the heat of the mining boom in the Sierra Almagrera of Almería, Diego María Madollel He created ‘Irrigation of Níjar’ and obtained tax exemptions from the crown. The idea was simple: build a stone structure 44 meters long and 35 meters high with the idea of ​​irrigating more than 18,000 hectares in Campo de Níjar and Campohermoso. Over the next 40 years, Madollel would learn that there are many ways to fail. The first was almost immediate. The second took almost twenty years and the third, in 1842, with the constitution of the Níjar Reservoir Company, seemed to be the good one. The businessman gathered more than a thousand shareholders from Almería, Murcia, Málaga, Madrid and Valencia (people who had become rich from the mines, wanted to invest, but did not know much about the matter) and got the state to declare the project a ‘public utility’; but, five years later, the project could not get off the ground. It wouldn’t have started, but In 1848 the drought began. A persistent, sharp and prophetic drought… but that promoted the construction of the swamp. Madollel saw his opportunity and began selling water rights. The construction moved forward, the Murcian Jerónimo Ros took control of the construction and by 1857 not only the dam was finished, but also a very complex system of irrigation canals and pipes. Madollel had built a hydrological Ferrari: but the road was not in condition to go more than 20 kilometers per hour. How much everything goes wrong. Despite the very long development, the promoters did almost everything wrong. To begin with, they did not carry out hydrological studies of the area and that prevented them from realizing that the riverbed did not have enough flow to fill the reservoir or to irrigate 18,000 hectares. Furthermore, they did not realize that the regime of the boulevard was ‘torrential’: when it rains, it does so torrentially and that causes enormous amounts of sediment to be washed away. By 1871, the reservoir was completely blocked. The failure was enormous. Or almost. Because, although it is true that today the prey is a relic for hikersthe truth is that Madollel did have some vision. Today the Campo de Níjar is the epicenter of one of the largest seas of plastics in the country. The hydrological pressures are the same or worse, but this shows that it doesn’t matter how many times the climate twists our hand, the man is there to try again. Image | ANE In Xataka | The reservoir that would “never be filled” is opening its floodgates: 23 years later, the largest swamp in Western Europe is completely full

Europe is looking for a place to put its AI gigafactory. Spain and Portugal are showing all their renewable plumage

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There is a concept that should be familiar with: technological sovereignty. The United States is looking for her in terms of semiconductors so as not to depend on Taiwan. China wants her with the same goal and with the intention of strengthen your industry. And Europe is also pursuing it. Within this search is the idea of ​​strengthening European sovereignty in artificial intelligence by building AI gigafactories. And Spain and Portugal are clear about one thing: they want to be that node of European AI. InvestAI. Within this search for independence, the truth is that Europe has a long way to go. On the world stage, they depend on the Dutch ASML to create cutting-edge chipsbut Taiwan and China are the world’s factory and the United States has been a key partner both in software as in space matter. Seeing the recent course of the United StatesEurope has realized that it cannot depend so much on foreign alliances and that its key systems are not European, and it is going to dig deep into its pockets. 200 billion euros is what the European Commission’s InvestAI initiative has to invest in programs focused on the development of artificial intelligence. Within it, there are another 20,000 million saved to build gigafactories. GigafactorIA. Its name is quite revealing and it is about huge data centers with capacity for hundreds of thousands of chips with the objective of both training and inferring artificial intelligence models. The plan was launched a few months ago with the reconversion of seven European data centers in data centers for AI and with one objective: that European companies stop turning to foreign ones. For example, the French Mistral signed with Microsoft to be able to use its systems to train Le Chat. The idea is that this be done ‘at home’. It is estimated that one of these gigafactories may have more than 100,000 state-of-the-art AI processors and they are expected to be optimized to have low consumption, reuse of resources such as water and be a strategic node close to other companies, universities and serve to attract talent. Strategy. Spain has been for a few months tempting American companies to build their data centers in the national territory. Aragon has become one of those strategic pointsbut also Madrid either Tarragona. Now, there are other municipalities that oppose it (something that not only happens in Spain). Within this strategy of European technological sovereignty, Spain has two aces up your sleeve: Mora la Nova in Tarragona and San Fernando de Henares in Madrid. They are the two municipalities that could host one of these AI gigafactories and that would take advantage of the technological and energy infrastructure in the area to accelerate the projects. The information is not new, but now Portugal joins in. As detail From Moncloa, both countries are going to carry out a series of bilateral efforts to be at the energy and technological head of Europe, doing emphasis on the coordination of artificial intelligence projects. Because Spain wants the European gigafactory and Portugal too. The neighboring country is already developing a data center in Sines, and the two countries are playing their cards. Energy. Portugal plays the card that Sines has a good connection with the Atlantic submarine cables. Spain also has a powerful argument: if Europe wants AI gigafactories to be energy efficient, the country has a renewable infrastructure that can help make AI independent of gas or coal. Through the agreement between the two, the intention to collaborate to take advantage of the complementary capabilities and synergies between both countries is put on the table. Problem. There are several. On the one hand, the energy ones. Although Spain is one of the Europe’s powers in terms of renewable energyartificial intelligence demands a lot, a lot of energy at peak times. So much so that not only Big Tech have private projects to open nuclear power plantsbut it has been shown that it is necessary turn to coal to meet demand. Because AI needs sustained energy, but above all fast and immediately accessible in the most stressful moments. And there renewables only comply if there are huge batteries involved. On the other hand, Europe is now building its infrastructure… and it is the worst time. If you want gigafactories to have the latest generation chips, it means buying NVIDIA’s H200s. The problem is that these chips, which are currently leading the way, will be surpassed in the short term by a new generation. NVIDIA is already working at full capacity on Vera Rubinand it is not a more powerful chip, but a paradigm shift. This game of being at the cutting edge of AI is slow because the infrastructure has to be built. But, above all, it is expensive. In any case, the results on which countries will host the gigafactories are expected to be published this spring, and we will see if the Spain-Portugal candidacy convinces the Commission. Images | Moncloa, chaddavis In Xataka | Spain has a plan to capture more data centers than anyone else: “shield” them from energy costs

Spain has many options to manufacture the successor to the Airbus A320. We have advantages that our neighbors do not

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Airbus is going to have to make a very relevant decision within its business in the next decade, and that may affect Spain more than we think, although in a good way. We are referring to where the aeronautical giant will manufacture the successor to the A320, the best-selling single-aisle aircraft in the world. In this sense, Spain is running as a strong candidate, and even the CEO of the group himself counted that the country has ballots for it. Why this decision matters. The A320 is Airbus’ star product, the one that moves the bulk of its deliveries and the one that competes directly with Boeing in the highest volume segment of all commercial aviation. The program that replaces it will define Airbus’ industrial roadmap for decades, so the country that houses all its technological knowledge, investment and employment can give itself a good tooth in the teeth. In this context, Guillaume Faury, CEO of Airbus, counted during his meeting with the media at the Getafe plant that “Spain has many cards in its hand to attract these investments.” Where is Spain today? Airbus currently has eight centers and around 14,000 employees in Spain. The largest of them is the Getafe plant, the company’s headquarters in the country and its largest industrial facility in Spain, with nearly 10,000 workers. Added to this is the Illescas factory, specialized in carbon fiber structures, which would soon benefit from the A350 production increasegoing from 5-6 units to 12 in 2028. There is also a relevant presence in Albacete and Seville. “Basically all the activities we have in Spain are growing,” counted Faury. Advantages of Spain. Faury recognized that Spain presents “some competitive advantages over other European countries”, among them the progress in renewable energies, which can help contain energy costs, one of the factors that most concern the group on a continental scale. The CEO claimed also that Europe pays between 2 and 2.5 times more for energy than the United States or China, being a gap that hinders the competitiveness of this industry on the continent. Therefore, in this context, Spain can be a great asset for the company. Added to this is a supply chain with years of experience, qualified labor and a good relationship with the Government, according to Faury himself. But not everything is won. For Faury, the conditions that Spain must continue to meet for the award to be possible include competitive labor and energy costs, a reliable supply chain and a good availability of workers with the appropriate qualifications. He also warns that the challenge of competitiveness cannot be addressed only from a national perspective, but rather a European one. “If we want to keep the industry in Europe in the long term, we have to simplify the regulatory framework and guarantee affordable and available energy,” pointed out the CEO. Consider In this sense, we must “take the bull by the horns” in the face of a situation that he described as urgent. Cover image | Gabriel Goncalves In Xataka | AI seemed ready to destroy skilled employment. A new study with real data says something different: unemployment has barely moved

Spain is preparing a data center specifically designed to have AI for war. The surprise: it is in Soria

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More than two thousand years ago, on the hill of Numanciaits inhabitants preferred to resist to the end rather than surrender to the siege of the legions of Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus. That story of defiance against a superior enemy has remained engraved in Soria’s memory as a symbol of resistance. Now, a few kilometers from that place, in the Valcorba industrial estate, the Ministry of Defense wants to build another kind of fortress: a data center named Numant-IA, where defense will no longer be measured in walls or swords, but in servers, algorithms and artificial intelligence. A unique project. While we live a technological-military schism in the USSpain accelerates in a project that precisely combines both sections. The Government has launched Numant-IA, a data center with a notable investment and totally dedicated to offering computing for AI. Here there are, yes, two notes that stand out. The full name of the project will be the Center for Advanced Defense Technological Capabilities, and its investment is part of the Annual Contracting Plan of the Ministry of Defense (Pacdef) from 2026. It includes 7,868 proposals and 156 framework agreements with a combined value of 10,102 million euros. Soria, new technological capital. The data center announced by the Government last September and that already it was outlined months before, it will have its headquarters in Soria. The project will take advantage of a space provided by the Soria City Council and that covers an area of ​​almost four hectares in the Valcorba industrial estate. Lieutenant General José María Millán, director of CESTIC, already warned then that said center will carry out the “incorporation of artificial intelligence systems for the benefit of the Armed Forces.” Military applications. The initial investment, which was 70 million euros, has been increased to almost 130 million euros according to El Heraldo de Soriaand will be assumed by the Ministry of Defense. Its resources will be used for applications that will process classified data in the area of ​​operations and logistics, and military applications will be an integral part of its mission. This project confirms other movements of the Armed Forces such as the development of Gonzalo, that “ChatGPT” for the army which is precisely designed to support this type of tasks safely. Employment and template. About 20 people will be a permanent part of the staff of this center that will operate 24/7 once it is operational. The construction of the data center, the Department of Defense states, will generate “a significant economic and employment impact on the city.” We know when, but we don’t know what. The Ministry of Defense has indicated that the project has a construction period of 24 months, and therefore they hope that it will theoretically be ready by early 2028. What we do not know is what type of infrastructure it will house or what the real capacity of the data center will be. 67.88 million euros will be dedicated to information systems and servers – unspecified, perhaps because they are not yet defined – while construction will be allocated 58.68 million euros and a third item of 1.65 million euros has no specified purpose. Sovereignty and decentralization. Choosing Soria as the location for this data center responds to the decentralization strategy of the Armed Forces. The defense budgets demonstrate this with a distribution of these funds throughout Spain in different projects that try to avoid the danger of excessive centralization of critical centers. The movement also answers to others that we have been seeing for months and that make it clear that in Spain and Europe they are trying to find solutions that allow us to have the highest possible degree of digital sovereignty. Image | Ministry of Defense In Xataka | Spain’s main problem is not weapons, fighters or drones: it is the number of hands it lacks to use them

Spain is betting its future in the semiconductor industry on a single card: gallium chips

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SPARC Foundry is one of the best assets that Spain can cling to to get on a train, that of semiconductors, currently guided with a firm hand by USA, South Korea, Taiwan, China and Japan. This Galician company, however, does not pursue producing silicon chips. In this area, competing with the five powers I just mentioned is essentially impossible. SPARC’s plan involves building a manufacturing factory in the Valadares Technology Park, in Vigo. next generation photonic semiconductors. The interesting thing is that these chips will not be silicon; They will be manufactured using gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium phosphide (InP) or gallium nitride (GaN), and will most likely have a leading role in the telecommunications, defense, automotive, consumer electronics, quantum computing or the aerospace industry. Be that as it may, SPARC will not tackle the GIGaNTE project alone. Indra leads it with a 37% stake in SPARC Foundrywhich places the latter group as the majority partner of the company specialized in the production of chips. According to SPARC and Indra, the Vigo semiconductor plant will be operational during the first half of 2027 and will have the capacity to manufacture up to 20,000 wafers per year when it is able to work at full capacity. An interesting note: GIGaNTE, the name of this project, has been designed around the chemical formula of gallium nitride (GaN). Gallium aspires to be the protagonist of the next generation of chips Photonic integrated circuits use photons to process and transmit information. Photons are the elementary particles responsible for forms of electromagnetic radiation, including the manifestation of visible light. They have no mass and are capable of traveling in a vacuum at a constant speed: the speed of light. However, something worth not overlooking is that although we are referring to them as particles, they also manifest as waves, hence the existence of the quantum phenomenon known as ‘wave-particle duality’ to identify the wave nature of light. Although, as we have seen, SPARC will produce photonic chips, the core of its business will revolve around gallium arsenide and gallium nitride. Unlike silicon, They are not elementary semiconductors. And they are not because the latter are characterized by being made up of a single chemical element, while gallium arsenide (GaAs) is composed of gallium (Ga) and arsenic (As), and gallium nitride (GaN) is composed of gallium (Ga) and nitrogen (N). SPARC is going to produce photonic chips and the core of its business will revolve around gallium arsenide and gallium nitride The term semiconductor is appearing many times in this article, so it is a good idea that we review what it is about before moving forward. A semiconductor is an element or compound that, under certain conditions of pressure, temperature, or when exposed to radiation or an electromagnetic field, behaves like a conductor, and, therefore, offers little resistance to the movement of electrical charges. And when it is found in other different conditions it behaves like an insulator. In this last state it offers great resistance to the displacement of electrical charges. In elements with electrical conduction capacity, some of the electrons in their atoms, known as free electrons, can pass from one atom to another when we apply a potential difference at the ends of the conductor. Precisely, this electron displacement capacity is what we know as electric currentand we all know intuitively that metals are good conductors of electricity. Curiously, they are because they have many free electrons that can move from one atom to another and, thus, they manage to transport the electrical charge. Gallium nitride and gallium arsenide are semiconductors, and this implies that under certain circumstances they are capable of transporting electrical charge. When the appropriate conditions exist, the mobility of its electrons is much greater than in semiconductors such as silicon or germanium. And this means that its capacity to transport electrical charge is also superior. Another very interesting property of these compounds is their high saturation rate. It is not necessary for us to delve into this parameter to the point of excessively complicating the article, but it is interesting that we know that it reflects the maximum speed at which electrons can move. through the crystal structure of these compounds. This maximum speed is limited by the dispersion suffered by the electrons during their movement. Gallium arsenide transistors can work at frequencies above 250 GHz This property has very important repercussions. One of them is that gallium arsenide transistors can work at frequencies above 250 GHz, which is a quite impressive figure. In addition, they are relatively immune to overheating and produce less noise in electronic circuits than silicon devices, especially when it is necessary to work at high frequencies. On the other hand, gallium nitride can work at very high voltages and reach extreme temperatures without its performance or stability being compromised. Besides, allows manufacturing compact and efficient transformers Because it dissipates little energy in the form of heat, it will most likely play a fundamental role in the charging infrastructure of electric cars and base stations for 5G communications. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | SPARC Foundry In Xataka | Spain steps on the accelerator in its particular chip race. And it does so with a total commitment to integrated photonics

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