Spain

They are already the nationality that adds the most new members in Spain, surpassing Colombians

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Spain closed 2025 with more than 3.1 million foreign contributors to Social Securityand with a growing weight of immigration in job creation. Official data not only show that a good part of the new work generated in Spain is being filled with labor from other countries, but also that the nationality of these new affiliates is also changing. In 2025, Venezuelans have become the nationality that has grown the most in new foreign affiliations to Social Security, above Colombians. This means that they lead the increase in registrations during the last year, but they are not the largest group if we look at the total number of foreign affiliates, a place that continues to be occupied by workers from Morocco and Romania. Record number of foreign affiliates in 2025. According to December 2025 dataSocial Security registered 3,135,581 foreign affiliates after adjusting for calendar and seasonality, which represents more than 800,000 contributors than before the labor reform and almost a million more than those registered before the pandemic. This increase implies that the workers of foreign origin They contributed 40.4% of the total new affiliations to Social Security. That is, just over four out of every ten new contributors in 2025 were of foreign nationality. Its weight within the whole labor market has also strengthenedand foreigners already represent 14.12% of the total members, six tenths more than in 2024. “The 2025 balance shows that the contribution of foreign people is structural and decisive for employment growth, the sustainability of the pension system and the shared prosperity of our country,” said the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz. in a statement. Venezuelans: the nationality that is growing the most. Within this general increase, the Venezuelan community is the one that concentrates the largest increase in new foreign affiliates in 2025. workers arriving from Venezuela They formalized 40,614 new affiliations compared to those registered in 2024, adding a total of 215,735 Venezuelans. This represents an annual growth of 23.2% and places them as the group that has registered the most new registrations in Social Security in the last year. This jump places Venezuelans in 19.8% of the total new registrations of foreign people, so that almost one in every five new affiliations of immigrants was workers. from Venezuela. The figure consolidates an upward trend that has been observed for almost a decade, but marks a turning point in 2025 by becoming for the first time the nationality that has grown the most in relative terms, placing itself ahead of Colombians who also marked a historical rise. Colombians: more numerous but with less growth. Although Venezuelans have led the increase in new memberships, Colombians remain the largest community in terms of total memberships. At the end of 2025, the system registered around 250,248 Colombian workers, compared to the 212,319 registered in 2024. This represents an increase of 28,929 new members, leaving a growth of 13% compared to last year. Colombians are the largest Latin American nationality in Spain, at least in terms of employment, but they remain behind the 373,000 affiliates from Morocco and the more than 330,000 from Romaniawhich are the most numerous nationalities in terms of affiliation of foreign workers. Key support for the labor market. According to Ministry data, the weight of foreign workers is especially concentrated in sectors where the demand for labor is more intense, such as hospitality (28.8%), agriculture (26%) or construction (23.2%). In these areas, immigrants represent a very relevant part of the workforce and help sustain activity in campaigns and work peaks. At the end of 2025, foreign self-employed workers reached 496,888, marking a historical maximum and growing 6.3% year-on-year. The greatest growth of these new self-employed workers has been registered in the Information and communications sectors (25.9%) and in Energy Supply (22%). In Xataka | It is not a country for Spaniards: Madrid and Catalonia are losing national population while gaining foreign population Image | Unsplash (aboodi vesakaran, Callum Hill)

Bringing fiber to rural Spain does not come cheap. This interactive map tells you exactly how much it cost

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Those of us who live in urban areas take it for granted that we have fiber coverage, but there are many rural areas from Spain where fiber has taken a long time to arrive and even some where they are still waiting for it. To ensure coverage of the entire territory, the government launched subsidies for operators to deploy their network. Now we have a map to know the status of all deployments, interactive and non-profit. The map. It has been developed by Fernando García Álvarez, a software engineer who has contacted us to publicize his creation. It is an independent and non-profit initiative. Its objective was to gather all the information on fiber deployment plans, both the previous PEBA and the current UNICO plans in a single place, something that until now had to be consulted through various sources. His name is Fiber Programs and when we open it we find a heat map of the entire peninsula, with the red areas representing the areas with the greatest coverage and the yellow areas representing the least coverage. Detailed information. To obtain all the information on the different programs you have to zoom in and click on one of them. Here we can see which operator is carrying out the deployment, which plan it belongs to and other more in-depth data such as the total amount of the subsidy and the completion deadline. This is especially useful for those projects that are still underway because it allows you to know when a specific zone will be connected. Subsidies. That in 2026 there will be those who do not have a fiber connection is shocking, but there is a reason why there are still areas without this infrastructure: it is not profitable for operators to bring their infrastructure to an area where there are very few inhabitants. From this need was born the Broadband Extension Program or PEBA. The plan was active from 2013 to 2020 and subsidized almost 800 projects from more than 100 operators. In 2024, the UNICO Broadband plan took over the baton, with more than 18 million euros and with Avatel and Adamo as the main recipients of the aid. Spain and fiber. Although there are some areas left to cover, they are the least. The reality is that 95% of the Spanish territory has access to fiber optics, which places us well ahead of the European average, which is 64%. Our colleagues from Xataka Móvil made a devastating comparison: a town in Soria has better internet than Berlin. Image | Fiber Programs In Xataka | In 2023 Spain tried to create its own “Starlink” to connect the rural world: it has failed miserably

The supermarket sector has been highly contested in Spain for years. Now it is reflected in networks with the super hooligans

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That the supermarket sector is disputed highly disputed In Spain it is nothing new. Especially since Mercadona undertook a unstoppable conquest which has allowed it (thanks to its white brands and prepared dishes) to monopolize almost 30% of the marketat least in terms of value. What is new is that this rivalry between chains is encouraging a phenomenon as curious as chanante in networks: a pulse between ‘hoolingans supermarket’. Same as the ultras who have been going to football stadiums for decades, only in this case the phenomenon is cooked up on networks (X, Instagram or TikTok), through memes and focused on the main store chains. The protagonists here are not Real Madrid, Barça or Atlético, but Mercadona, Lidl, Aldi or Dia. Goodbye Barça, hello Bonpreu Click on the image to go to the tweet. Before getting into the matter, I propose a game. Enter TikTok, type the hashtag #hooligans and take a look at the search results. You will see that there are videos of ‘conventional’ ultras (what anyone would expect to find in a search like this) and others less orthodox that show images of people with balaclavas, scarves, flags and banners that do not read the names of football clubs, but of that store where you buy yogurt and bread. That is, nothing from Real Madrid, Barça, Atlético, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain or any other sports club. What they wave are flags that read Mercadona, Eroski, Aldi or Hipercor. In fact, it is their corporate colors that predominate in the scarves and flares. The phenomenon is so curious that a few days ago the @MariaMayrit account dedicated it an interesting thread in X, where he baptized it as “supermarket ultras.” Click on the image to go to the tweet. Click on the image to go to the tweet. What differentiates them from traditional hooligans? To begin with, the focus of attention It goes from sports to supermarket chains, but that is just one of its peculiarities. Another (fundamental) is that the ‘super ultras’ are a phenomenon that is concentrated on social networks and memesphere. There is no known group of fans of Mercadona, Alcampo, Hipercor or Covirán (to name four chains) that remain in the parking lots of shopping centers to confront each other. Your territory It is another: that of the meme, virality, montages and images generated with artificial intelligence. That does not mean that the phenomenon of ‘super hooligans’ is a curiosity limited to networks, a passing fad fueled by AI. In addition to videos and montages, there are also accounts focused on that content. In the end it is linked to something much more important: the weight that the large chains in the sector retail are acquiring in our daily lives as we homes change. The best example probably Mercadona leaves itwhich no longer aspires only to be the place where we buy food to fill the refrigerator, but rather our reference in general food, the place where they cook for you and you even sit down to eat. The ultras memes confirm something else: the roots that some brands, such as Mercadona, FGadis, HiperDino, Alimerka or Bonpreu, have achieved in certain communities. In fact, the sector itself manages studies that show that the super regionals are supporting the push of the giants of the industry. The reason: their commitment to certain products, but also the value of closeness to identity, precisely what is exploited (with a certain dose of humor) by the memes that circulate these days on the networks about ‘supermarket ultras’. Images | x In Xataka | Mercadona has grown so much in Spain that for the US it is no longer just a supermarket chain: it is a “cultural phenomenon”

In its obsessive effort to be Spain within Spain, Madrid now has a new festival: the April Fair

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It’s been a while since the April Fair It took flight to expand beyond (much beyond) Seville. Today they organize their own fairs with a profusion of flamenco and polka dots in Galicia, Catalonia, Castile and León either Cantabriaas well as in other countries, including other side of the ocean. The reason is very simple. Its mix of dance, gastronomy and culture is popular. So much so, in fact, that in Madrid they have decided to launch your own fair in a big way, with a multi-week event. Its objective is to expand by 200,000 m2 and attract 800,000 visitors. One word: Madrilucía. The name is a declaration of intentions. The objective of Madrilucia is to bring the spirit of the April Fair to the capital. In fact, its organizers they present it as “the first great Andalusian fair in Madrid”, with hundreds of booths, spaces dedicated to fashion, horse parades, gastronomy, music, culture… A little piece of the south spread throughout the capital. The event aspires to take up the witness of the fairs held between 1986 and 1995 at the initiative of Francisco de Paula López and which filled the Puerta de Alcalá or Gran Vía with horses, with carriages like those seen in Seville. López, a Sevillian who emigrated to Madrid in the early 70s, decided to promote a fair in the city to “unite the Andalusians” and overthrow clichés. The initiative even gave rise to a documentary broadcast by Canal Sur, ‘Operation Madrilucía’. One figure: 200,000. The Madrid fair will be organized in the Iberdrola Music (Villaverde, Madrid) and will occupy in total, according to those responsible, more than 200,000 square meters“an ephemeral town” made up of more than 400 booths. The offer is completed with “horses, tapas, concerts and flamenco fashion.” The space will in fact be divided into a “festive” area dedicated to live music, with booths and catering; another cultural one, in which stands dedicated to art, fashion and saddlery will be concentrated; and others focused on equestrian culture, gastronomy, leisure and music. Of course, reserve one of their booths it doesn’t come cheap: the Madrilucía website provides information on options that they range from 55,000 to 59,000 euros (plus VAT) per week, depending on the level of decoration. Go for 800,000. The Madrid fair will not overlap with that of Seville, scheduled for the week from April 21 to 26. Madrilucía will start almost immediately afterwards: on May 9. Those in charge already warn that it will be prolonged 20 days and the objective is to attract some 800,000 people until the first days of June. For now, it already has the support of popular figures, such as the bullfighter Sebastián Castella, who has dedicated a video to promote the event. Heads and tails. Although the organizers point out that they hope that the fair “coexist with the local environment”the neighboring Getafe City Council has already expressed its concern about the noise and overcrowding that the fair may generate. “If for a weekend like the Mad Cool or Regaetton Beach Festival the M45 and streets of the Marconi industrial estate in Villaverde are closed, affecting companies and workers, and access is prevented for residents of Getafe and Villaverde to get to their homes, what will be the device that the Madrid City Council and the Community intend to deploy for a fair that will last 20 days?” they pointed out recently to News for Municipalities from the Executive of Getafe, governed by the PSOE. Why is it important? Because beyond the event, its scope or impact on the environment, Madrilucía confirms the expansion (and popularity) of the April Fair beyond Seville and Andalusia. two years ago in fact we told you how a debate had spread on networks about the appropriate dress code to attend the fair or how virality of the hashtag #papagorda to show people who had overindulged in drinks at the fair led the Audiovisual Council of Andalusia (CAA) to warn of the risks to record without consent. Images |Madrilucia In Xataka | Seville wanted more security on its streets at night. To achieve this, he has recovered an old figure: the night watchman.

that one of the European AI gigafactories ends up in Spain

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If the European Union wants to compete with the United States and China (which has a very detailed plan) in the artificial intelligence race, you don’t just need good models and specialized companies: you also need AI gigafactories. And the EU already has on its roadmap the construction of up to five plants throughout the continent. Where will they be mounted? The decision has not yet been made, but one thing is clear: Spain has submitted his candidacy in the form of a binomial between Madrid and Catalonia. The Madrid – Catalonia proposal. This candidacy combines the storage capacity and the Madrid network with the experience in Catalan computing architecture. On the other hand, the Spanish state has one of the most solid renewable energy networks on the old continent, a critical requirement for approval. Thus, it is based on a Madrid – Catalonia axis that connects the Barcelona Supercomputing Center with a new node in San Fernando de Henares (Madrid) and the previously planned massive installation of Móra la Nova (Tarragona), which would take advantage of the area’s energy infrastructure. What does a factory have to be “giga”? Last February Ursula Von der Leyen announced InvestAI, a project that will mobilize 200 billion euros for artificial intelligence, of which a fund of 20 billion will go to gigafactories, which are essentially large data centers with at least 100,000 advanced AI chips. The fundamental differences between a simple AI factory and a gigafactory according to the action plan are scale and purpose: while a factory is a supercomputing center optimized for fine-tuning AI models to specific tasks, a gigafactory is a much more powerful massive infrastructure designed to train models from scratch. At the hardware level there are also differences: the EU standard for factories is around 25,000 chips. Furthermore, while factories are often integrated into existing data centers, such as MareNostrum 5 in Barcelona, ​​for gigafactories they usually require their own They require their own high-power electrical substation. The list of requirements. The construction of up to five gigafactories in the EU is part of the action plan “AI Continent” from the European Commission. At the beginning of this year and after some delay, the formal call for proposals has already been opened. Regarding the requirements, the proposals must guarantee a capacity of more than 100,000 next-generation chips and the redundant architecture is positively valued, advanced liquid cooling systems, total sustainability and the capacity of a dedicated high-power electrical substation are required. Majority control must be European capital, although the financing model is public-private. Deadlines and budgets. If the EU approves the project in the coming months, construction would begin in 2027 to be operational between 2027 and 2028. As detailed Óscar López, Minister for Digital Transformation and the Public Service, “the joint public-private investment could exceed 4,000 million euros to make this gigafactory a reality.” The public part of the financing would come, among others, from the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation. In Xataka | If we ask Spaniards how they feel about AI, the answer is simple: more productive In Xataka | If anyone thought that Europe had no role in the race for AI, Mistral has something to tell them Cover | chaddavis.photography and Daria Borysenko

In Spain we are used to the signs on highways and highways being blue. In other countries not

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If you have ever had to drive or pass near a highway in Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and many other countries in Europe, you will have noticed something curious: the road signs are not blue, but green. This is something that I was always curious to know why a few years ago, and there is more to the story than it seems. And it is the result of a series of historical and cultural decisions that each country made separately when developing its high-capacity road network. The origin of the “problem.” Europe has had a common road signaling system since 1968, when the Vienna Convention on Road Signs. This treaty unified the shapes, symbols and many traffic rules, but left each country free to choose the colors of the orientation signs. The agreement establishes that road markings can be white or yellow, and that pictograms must be internationally recognizable, but does not impose a single color for highways. Therefore, even if you drive throughout Europe under more or less similar rules, the colors of the signs change depending on the country. Image: Maps Interlude Why Spain chose blue. When Spain began to develop its network of highways and highways in the 1970s, it decided to use blue for high-capacity roads and white for conventional roads. This choice responds to a series of practical criteria: blue offered good night visibility with the reflective materials available at that time. Just like Spain, other countries also decided to opt for this color. The green in other countries in Europe. Many other European countries opted for green for their highways. Belgium, Finland, Croatia, Italy, Switzerland, Ukraine, and many other countries have green signage on their highways. The decision has roots in the continent’s early highway systems. The first two major highway networks were the germans (Autobahnen) and the Italian ones (Autostrade), which used blue and green signals respectively. The Italian choice of green probably influenced other Mediterranean and Eastern European countries, while the German scheme remained very consolidated and was imitated directly or indirectly by countries close to or with strong German technical influence. Image: Luigi Chiesa Nor is there one color better than another. Although you might want to start a war and choose sides between countries that use blue or green on their road signs, none is really better than the other. In fact, the main reason why both colors coexist on the continent is because they have not been standardized at the European level. In this sense, both colors fulfill their function perfectly if they are applied consistently within each country. Blue stands out well at night, while green is very legible during the day and is psychologically associated with progress and continuity. As long as each driver can quickly identify what type of road they are using and it can be read clearly and without problem, all good. What is unified. Although the colors vary, the Vienna Convention guarantees that a driver perfectly understands the signs whether he is in one country or another, because the pictograms, shapes and logic of the system are common. Triangles warn of dangers, circles prohibit or oblige, and rectangles inform. This harmonization is what really makes it possible to drive around Europe without having to study every national code. If there are changes, it will not be in the colors. In 2025, the Global Forum for Road Traffic Safety launched a proposed amendment which could completely modify the text of the Vienna Convention, including new numbering for all signs. What will not change are the colors on the road signs, so each country will continue to have free rein to maintain its tradition. First because it works, and second because we are already used to it and that on the road means saving a lot of time. Cover image | Google Maps In Xataka | Madrid has committed to having an F1 circuit in September: at the moment it has an open field and four streets of a PAU

There is an acute shortage of housing supply in Spain. So the convents of Toledo have seen an opportunity

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Toledo has had an idea to reinforce the meager housing supply in its historic center. In the city there is the curious contradiction that there is demand for flats for rent while around 150 buildings of the monumental area (both public and private) remain closed and without tenants, so… Why not solve both problems at once? With that philosophy as a backdrop, two convents in Toledo are preparing to become landlords and allocate part of their buildings to rent. The historic center sees its housing offer expand (although still timidly) and in the process the religious orders obtain a new source of income. Quite a ‘win-win’. What has happened? That in Toledo they want to kill several birds with one stone. For some time now, its historic center has faced three challenges that, although at first glance they seem to have little to do with each other, are directly related. The first is the shortage of residential rentals. In Idealista, just over a few are announced right now. 50 apartments for lease and many of them do so as seasonal rentals. For long stays the offer is only 33. The second challenge is represented by abandoned buildings. Last year, the Consortium of the City of Toledo did the math and found that in that same area of ​​the Castilian-La Mancha capital, 150 buildings unused, some in ruins. The third challenge is not so much the city itself but the religious orders that live there: How to achieve income in the 21st century? Where to get money to pay bills or unforeseen events such as repairing the roof of the Discalced Carmelites convent, sunk during a DANA in 2023? Connecting the dots. The Toledo Consortium has come to the conclusion that these three challenges can be connected and has had an idea: to renovate wasted spaces in convents in the city to convert them into homes. And not just any type of housing. Their objective is to move them to the long-term rental market, the one that has the most difficulties in the historic center and more pressured It is seen through tourism. For that purpose, in November The organization gave the green light to the tender for the renovation of two properties: one located in the convent of the Discalced Carmelites and the other in the Immaculate Conception (Nasturtiums). Between them there will be four homes. “New opportunities”. The objective, explains the manager of the Consortium, Jesús Corroto, is to advance in the recovery of the disused heritage of the historic center and in the process generate “new residential opportunities”, especially for young people. The idea is to rehabilitate a building attached to the Discalced Carmelites convent with 131,000 euros to provide it with two new homes with a total constructed area of ​​130 m2. Investments will be made in the Capuchinas property. 130,000 euros to open two new residences in what was once the Priestly House, built at the end of the 16th century. In any case, the organization wants to go further and not stay in those four apartments. The SER chain indicates that it aspires to enable at least a dozen of housing and has already transferred more proposals to other convents. Whether they go ahead or not will basically depend on the budget and what the religious decide. After all, the buildings are private, non-segregable and considered BIC. The initiative would allow the creation between 20 and 30 housesto which other services can be added, such as parking. “Rental ethics”. In the case of the new homes set up in convents, a peculiar circumstance will occur: the Consortium is in charge of the works, but unlike what happens with other accommodation promoted by the Municipal Housing Company, its price will not be limited by a maximum limit. Since these are private properties, it is the religious who must decide what rents they charge to their future tenants, although Corroto already advances in The Country that a “rental ethic” will govern. What the organization he directs has done is put an inflexible condition on the friars and monks of Toledo: the new homes must be dedicated to residential rentals, not become tourist apartments, a business that has already attracted other religious of Spain who have seen the need to take advantage of their buildings. In Seville, for example, not long ago some cloistered nuns agreed to offer a part of their convent to tourists through Airbnb. The reason: selling candy is no longer enough to pay bills. Between 37 and 60 m2. In the case of Toledo, the objective is for the new homes to be available in about a year. To make it possible, the religious orders will assume part of the works and furniture. Once the project is completed, the city will have new apartments with a useful area of between 37 and 60 m2. The residences will have to comply with the regulations that govern the Historic Center of Toledo and will have between one and two rooms. Images | Suraya_M (Flickr) and Wikipedia (Antonio Velez) In Xataka | Toledo has had enough of the mass tourism that saturates the city center. His plan to change it: China

Self-consumption is no longer a marginal option to conquer half of Spain

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The spring of 2025 marked a before and after in the psyche of the Spanish consumer. The so-called “Great Blackout”which left millions of homes without power on the Peninsula, transformed the perception of solar panels. What was previously seen mainly as a way to reduce the monthly bill, is today perceived as a guarantee of resilience and energy independence. in the face of market volatility. The consolidation data. According to the “Solar Report 2025: X-ray of self-consumption in Spain”, prepared by SotySolar in collaboration with the Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF)the market has entered a phase of maturity after years of accelerated expansion. Spain closed the 2024 financial year with an accumulated installed capacity of 8,137 GW. These figures closely coincide with the records of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition (MITECO), which places the power at 8,255 GW. However, Red Eléctrica raises the total estimate current at 8.7 GW, integrating data from the Electrical Measurements System (SIMEL) and estimates from the System Operator (OS). The end of “refundable” subsidies. After the closure of the European Next Generation funds, the sector has stopped depending on direct aid to embrace more structural profitability. This change is reflected on the national map: Catalonia has become the benchmark for success, with an increase of 20.6% in the volume of interested parties thanks to agile management of its local incentives. Despite the accumulated strength, the beginning of 2025 presented a slight cooling: the residential sector suffered a drop of 14% in the first quarter compared to the average for 2024. Even so, self-consumption has maintained sustained growth since 2021 and demonstrates greater stability than the large plant market (utility scale). The profile of the new consumer. The user profile has evolved towards a more informed and demanding one. Although financial savings continue to be the main driving force for 65% of users, factors such as sustainability (12%) and energy independence (8%) have gained unprecedented weight. As José Donoso, CEO of UNEF, explains, self-consumption has gone from being a minority technology to an “everyday, reliable and essential appliance.” This maturity is reflected in the choice of the installer: the price continues to matter (45%), but trust based on recommendations (25%) and support in procedures and aid (20%) are now decisive factors. The new standard. The acquisition model has undergone a radical transformation. Financing has gone from being a barrier to a driving force: between 60% and 70% of households opt for flexible payment formulas, a figure that rises to 80% in projects that exceed €10,000 or include batteries. In fact, strategic partners like Pontio They project to exceed 10,000 funded installations in 2026. This financial boost facilitates the integration of aerothermal energy, which has established itself as the ideal companion to photovoltaics. 66% of solar system owners plan to install aerothermal in the next three years. However, as experts in Xataka warn80% of Spanish houses have technical deficiencies in their electrical installation, which requires a prior evaluation of the insulation to prevent the investment from becoming an expense that is difficult to amortize. Roadmap. To prevent progress from slowing down, UNEF has proposed in its presentation urgent measures that strengthen the structural profitability of the sector: Tax incentives: Apply a reduced VAT for both installations with and without batteries. Network expansion: Extend the distance of shared self-consumption from the current 2 km to 5 km. Administrative simplification: Extend the exemption from requesting access and connection permits to all facilities that inject less than 15kW into the grid. Review of tolls: Modify the distribution between the fixed and variable part (target 25% fixed and 75% variable) to encourage savings. For its part, Red Eléctrica has reinforced the “maximum observability” of the system, publishing detailed information on self-consumption on all its platforms from the end of 2025, including a new demand curve (“Total Scheduled”) that integrates the impact of this energy on the national grid, where it already represents close to 4% of demand. An irreversible path. Self-consumption in Spain has come of age. It is no longer a specific response to a price crisis, but a strategic decision. As José Carlos Díaz Lacaci, CEO of SotySolar, points out, the path towards electrification is now “irreversible.” The challenge for 2026 will be to modernize the real estate stock and consolidate an intelligent management model that guarantees that every ray of sunlight captured becomes energy freedom for the citizen. Image | Unsplash Xataka | Landing at an airport full of solar panels had become a drama. Until Malaga had an idea

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

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

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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

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