Street

There is a city that has scanned the faces of more than 3 million people on the street and it is not in China, but in Europe

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A few days ago a man was walking down the street when, without realizing it, a camera scanned his face. As he continued walking, a sophisticated system compared his face to a police database, sent the alert, and within minutes he was arrested. It happened in London. The city of cameras. London is one of the most surveilled cities in the world; according to some sourcesin its streets there are more than 600,000 cameras controlling everything that happens. For some years now, in addition, they have a real-time facial recognition system to identify dangerous criminals, and it seems that the system is being as effective as it is controversial. In numbers. London’s Metropolitan Police say that since the beginning of 2024 they have made 2,500 arrests, of which 2,100 are related to violent and sexual crimes against women and girls. The system scanned more than 3 million faces in one year and only generated ten false positives. During a pilot in the Croydon district at least 470,000 passers-by were scanned with only one false positive. According to the police, the result of this test was a 10.5% crime reduction. How it works. The facial recognition cameras they have installed are capable of scanning up to 5,000 faces per hour. What they do is send the data to a police operations room where an AI system, signed by the Japanese company NEC, is dedicated to compare them with the police databasewhere there are more than 17,000 registered suspects. When there is a match, an alert is issued to officers in the area so they can make the arrest. Opposition. Organizations like Big Brother Watch has carried out campaigns against this systemarguing that it risks normalizing mass surveillance in public spaces and calling the technology ‘Orwellian’. Furthermore, they strongly question its true operational profitability since, while the police boast of making an arrest every 35 minutes, they warn that these statistics hide the enormous number of hours of the agents and the immense logistical resources that the system requires on the streets, diverting efforts from traditional and more proportionate police work. The debate has intensified after the unprecedented use of the system in a political protest in London. Big Brother Watch took the case to the High Court, but it ruled in favor of the legality of the technology, paving the way for its expansion. In favor. Despite opposition from some organizations, according to Police Director Lindsey Chiswick, the technology is “revolutionary” and completely secure, stressing that the biometric data of those who do not match the list of suspects are immediately destroyed. There are also fears that the algorithm discriminates based on race, but the police hide behind the fact that the tests carried out concluded that the system is accurate and does not present ethnic or gender biases. According to Chiswick, citizen support is around 80% in surveys. Image | Levi Meir ClancyUnsplash In Xataka | Concern over mass video surveillance has created a new product: anti-facial recognition glasses

The banks didn’t want anything to do with oil. Wall Street has solved it with the 2008 mortgage strategy

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Oil and gas producers in the United States are turning to the financial magic of Wall Street to fuel their acquisitions in a frenetic race for growth. To achieve this, they are packaging thousands of pots into investment vehicles and selling stakes to American investors, replicating the exact same model that has long been used for mortgages, auto loans and other sources of securitized income. Away from the spotlight, the number of these operations has grown rapidly in recent years. Industry experts consulted by Financial Times They estimate that the total amount of debt issued through this format already ranges between 20,000 and 30,000 million dollars. It is a fundamentally opaque market, where most transactions are closed privately. Historically, independent oil and gas producers financed its operations through loans reserve-based (RBL) and high-yield debt. However, the situation has changed drastically. Some commercial banks have reduced their exposure to the extractive sector to meet their sustainability strategies under environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies, or in response to public concern over climate change. Added to this is the fear of traditional investors of “stranded assets” and the general uncertainty about the long-term viability of the sector in the midst of the energy transition. In addition, rising interest rates have raised costs, making high-yield debt too expensive or inaccessible for many producers. To survive, companies They have found an alternative way: They transfer their mature wells, known as proven, developed and producing (PDP) reserves, to a newly created Special Purpose Entity (SPE). This entity operates independently and is structured to be “bankruptcy-remote”, ensuring that the transferred assets are completely separate from the balance sheet of the producing company and safe in the event of its bankruptcy. Attracting conservative money By isolating these high-quality assets, the bonds issued by the SPE manage to achieve an “investment grade” rating. This seal of quality attracts a new class of investors who would normally avoid oil risk: pension funds, insurance companies and large asset managers looking for structured financial products with stable returns. For the oil companies, business is great. The securitization allows them to obtain advance rates (advance rates) of between 55% and 75% of the value of the reserves, figures significantly higher than those available in traditional RBL loans. To convince credit rating agencies, the secret lies in diversification and insurance. On the one hand, thousands of assets are grouped together; for example, Raisa Energy closed an operation combining more than 3,000 wells operated by more than 50 companies in more than 20 counties. On the other hand, long-term hedges are contracted to protect investors from oil fluctuations, reaching up to 85% of the entity’s production for a period of five to seven years. The “time bomb” and the cracks in private credit But financial engineering sometimes hides structural cracks. Brandon Davis, founder of energy intelligence company AFE Leaks, describes in FT These price hedges act as a “ticking time bomb” in case other production costs increase. If the price of oil rises, the company’s income is capped because the difference goes to the hedging counterparty (usually a bank). However, if at the same time there is inflation in operating costs, such as field services or water treatment, the profit margin backing the bonds could be seriously eroded. The cracks in this engineering are not an isolated case in the energy sector, but a symptom of a greater malaise in the opaque world of private credit on Wall Street, where patience (and money) is beginning to run out. This risk is framed at a time of growing tension for the entire private credit ecosystem on Wall Street. Investors are starting to demand their money back. In Cliffwater’s $33 billion fund, clients requested to withdraw 14% of their capital in a single quarter, but the firm said it only I would pay around 50% of those requests, forcing the other half to wait. If the panic spreads, traditional banks will not escape unscathed either. Lending by US banks to non-depository financial institutions, which includes private credit, reached 1.2 trillion dollars in the middle of last year, almost tripling its share compared to a decade ago. Furthermore, as with oil wells, the securitization market as a whole is extremely sensitive to external regulatory or macroeconomic shocks. A clear example occurred recently in another sector: Mpower Financing had to postpone the sale of almost $250 million in bonds backed by loans to international students. The cause was investors’ fear of the new restrictive visa policies of the Donald Trump administration. If regulatory changes or geopolitical crises hit the energy sector unexpectedly, oil securitization could face a similar collapse in demand. The danger of forgetting the nature of the business Wall Street has packaged a high-risk industry into a tame-looking product, but geology and the global market are difficult to tame. “The trick has always been to convince the rating agencies that measures have been put in place to mitigate the risk,” warns Olivier Darmounieconomist specialized in credit markets at HEC Paris. “But that’s the inherent thing about oil and gas, it’s an inherently volatile business.” Darmouni points out the ultimate risk: “If something goes wrong, the main problem will be that oil and gas will run out of capital” if producers start defaulting on bond payments. As long as the money keeps flowing, the machine will not stop. But as Laura Parrott warnshead of private fixed income at Nuveen, the market is experiencing a lot of effervescence. In scenarios of such investment fever, he concludes, “people are going to be trapped.” Image | Photo by David Vives on Unsplash Xataka | Climate change is no longer profitable: WallStreet and large investors abandon green policies

This space company has designed the suit for astronauts that you would also want to wear on the street

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The private space company Vast has presented at the 46th Space Symposium the suits that its team will wear both in training on Earth and in missions in space. These are aesthetically appealing clothes, but above all they have been manufactured with careful consideration of the needs of astronauts. on the International Space Station. Thus, the aim is to facilitate both their movements and their ability to work. Both with and without gravity. As explained in a Vast statement former astronaut and company advisor Megan McArthur, in space the body takes on positions that it does not take on Earth. Additionally, when working in microgravity, it is necessary to always have your hands free and tools within reach. They may be necessary at any time. For this reason, spacesuits must put comfort and operability above all things. Pockets, zippers and hooks. Vast’s spacesuit consists of two pieces, which can be worn separately or as a jumpsuit, joining both parts with a zipper. It has a multitude of pockets, like cargo pants. The main difference with any garment with pockets that can be worn on Earth is that each of them is intentionally placed to squeeze out their use in microgravity. They are right where they are needed. On the other hand, astronauts may need to access tools quickly, so opening and closing the zipper of the pocket takes up too much of their time. That’s why spacesuits also have hook-and-loop closures on the pants legs. Mobility comes first. The suits are made from a lightweight, breathable and flexible material with rear vents and shoulder gussets, allowing full range of motion. In addition, it is tailored to each astronaut, so that the fit is completely personalized. Many tests ahead. Vast has just signed its first contract with NASA to take its astronauts to the International Space Station in 2027. During all that time, just as the hardware necessary for the mission is thoroughly tested, the relevant tests will be carried out on the spacesuit. Above all, it must be confirmed that the materials are safe, durable and compatible with the space station environment. There is no washing machine in space. Both the Vast suit and the rest of the uniforms used by astronauts on the International Space Station, They must be dirt resistant and quick drying. Thus, crew members can wear the same clothes for several days without problem. Clothes that get dirty faster, such as underwear, are changed more often. They are placed in airtight bags and, when enough accumulates, they are added along with other waste in a cargo vehicle that is sent to Earth, so that all of these waste products are burned as they pass through the atmosphere. Not to be confused with the extravehicular suit. What Vast has just presented is the uniform of its astronauts. This should not be confused with the extravehicular suit, which is used on flights and spacewalks to protect astronauts from radiation, fire, or extreme temperatures. The uniforms They are something much simplerwhich can even be worn on Earth to attend events. Still, these are not random garments. There is also a lot of technology behind it. Vast Seasons. Vast’s goal is to support continued human presence in space in the future, with an eye toward space research, industry and tourism. To this end, this company has several space station projects, both single module and multimodular. They also plan to build a station with artificial gravity in the future, something that has not yet been achieved. But first they must gain experience and hours in space. Therefore, the first step will be to take its astronauts to the International Space Station. Now, thanks to NASAhave their first private mission in these facilities on the horizon. If all goes well, the launch window will open in summer 2027. Images | Vast In Xataka | This woman has been accused for years of committing the only crime that has taken place in space. It was all a lie

The Nothing Phone (4a) Pro wants to be different in the mid-range. We have tried it on the street and not everything is so simple

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If you are thinking of buying a mid-range mobile phone and are looking for something different, with personality and that design point that sets it apart from the rest, the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro It may have easily slipped onto your list. It is no coincidence: its proposal plays precisely in that field, that of offering something recognizable in an increasingly homogeneous segment. The question, as always, is whether this difference is accompanied by a good day-to-day experience. This is where our usual approach comes in. While Ivan Linares has been in charge of analyze the device in depth, Ana Boria has taken it one step further: it has been taken out of the controlled environment for a real test. The result is the latest video from Xataka’s YouTube channelwhere he tests the terminal in everyday situations and draws conclusions with context. Let’s get to it. When the cell phone takes to the streets: a real test in Lisbon The chosen scenario is not coincidental. Lisbon serves as a perfect test bed for evaluate a mobile phone in real conditions: outdoor photos, intensive use during the day, navigation, content consumption… This is where a device stops being a technical sheet and starts to show what it is made of. And in this case, as usually happens in the mid-range, there are lights and shadows. In the performance section, the approach is clear from the beginning. We are not looking at the latest Qualcomm processor, but that does not imply a bad experience. The Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 complies with solvency in daily use, something that Ana sums up bluntly: “I have not noticed any type of problem or performance, fluidity or anything.” A statement that points directly to what matters most in this range: stability and consistency. The software is another point that makes the difference. Nothing OS 4.1 is committed to a clean experience, without unnecessary additions, and that is noticeable from the first power on. “You don’t know how much pleasure it gave me to turn on the phone for the first time and not see anything at all. no bloodwarenot a single social media advertising app that I wouldn’t be interested in being there.” In a market where bloated software is still common, this approach carries weight. When we move to the camera, the analysis becomes more nuanced. The main sensor offers solid results, especially in favorable conditions, with “photos with adequate sharpness” and where “in general the white balance is correct.” It is not a revolution, but it is a reliable foundation. Of course, there is also room for improvement in certain scenarios, something that Ana hints at during the video. Beyond the camera, there are two elements that define the experience: battery and screen. They are the ones that accompany the user throughout the day and those that, ultimately, determine whether the mobile phone convinces or not. In the video they are put to real use that allows us to better understand how far the device goes in this area. And, of course, there is the most recognizable element of the phone. The rear with Glyph Matrix is ​​not only an aesthetic issue, it also introduces a customization component that is unusual in this segment. “There are different types of light designs to assign to different applications, but you can even upload images to create custom designs.” It is, in a way, the materialization of that initial idea: to offer something different. The complete analysis of the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro It is now available on the Xataka YouTube channel. If you want to understand how it behaves beyond the technical sheet and keep Ana’s final assessment, it is worth watching it calmly. Remember that you can also leave us your comments both on this article and on the video. Images | Xataka In Xataka | Poco X8 Pro Max, analysis: one of the largest batteries on the market arrives with a SoC that also has a lot to say

This is the US city that does not exist on Google Street View

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Of the more than 9.8 billion square kilometers of the United States, only a small area of ​​just over 22 square kilometers does not appear in Google Street View. Welcome to North Oaks, where the streets are private property and no, we are not talking about the typical gated community, but rather open streets, although with a big ‘but’. North Oaks. Located northwest of Minneapolis, North Oaks is a small residential town with a population of 5,212 inhabitantsthe vast majority upper class. The average household income is more than $230,000 per year, which places it between the richest cities in the entire country. In North Oaks there is no barrier that prevents access to people who do not reside there, but if you access you are committing trespass. How is it possible? There are signs like this at every entrance to North Oaks. Everything is private property. In North Oaks, homeowners not only own their plot, but the property extends to half the road (the other half is owned by the neighbor across the street). This means that there is hardly any public land, but everything is private property and is managed by the homeowners association or NOHOA. The streets of North Oaks are open, but they are lined with “no trespassing” signs and there are automatic license plate readers at the entrances. The unmappable city. In 2008, North Oaks could normally be visited via Google Street View. However, the homeowners association threatened Google with a lawsuit because his Street View cars had trespassed on his property. As a consequence, Google removed all the images and it remained that way for years, until someone tried to map it again with a curious trick. Remapping North Oaks. They count in 404media that a couple of months ago Chris Parr, documentary filmmakerit was proposed to correct this anomaly. The streets are private property, but in the sky this rule does not apply, so armed with a drone and a 360 camera, he dedicated himself to photographing all the streets, as shown in your video on YouTube. For a few days, North Oaks was back on the map, but it suddenly disappeared and Parr received a letter from a law firm on behalf of NOHOA basically telling him to never come back. Image | Google Maps In Xataka | The rich neighborhoods of Madrid and Barcelona have changed their accent: millionaires from the US and Mexico invest their fortunes in Spain

China manufactures 90% of the world’s humanoid robots and the reason is not its industrial policy: it is crossing the street

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On Chinese New Year, 16 Unitree humanoid robots danced a folk dance before almost a billion viewers. The West reacted as always: some with panic, others with disdain, others with an undisguised admiration that sometimes tends to concoct theories with more clichés regarding China than real analysis. None of those answers is entirely true and that blindness has a cost. The context. China manufactures about 90% of the humanoid robots sold in the world. In 2025, about 13,000 units were shipped, with Chinese companies (AgiBot, Unitree, UBTech…) dominating the ranking by volume, according to Omdia data collected by Bloomberg. Tesla, with all its brand reputation and all its industrial apparatus, internally deployed around 800 units of the Optimus that same year. The figure. He Unitree G1 It costs $13,500. He Tesla Optimus will exceed 20,000. That gap is the difference between being able to iterate ten times with the same budget or staying at one. Between the lines. The story circulating in the West has two versions, equally lazy: The first: all this is the five-year plan, the hand of the State, industrial policy made robot. The second, reserved for the most condescending: it is because they copy. Neither of them explains what is really happening. China’s advantage in robotics does not come from the Communist Party. It comes from the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze Delta: the two densest manufacturing ecosystems on the planet. Motors, actuators, sensors, custom PCBs… everything is available within walking distance. Is what it describes Rui Xuan engineer who has worked in robotics startups in China and Silicon Valley. When Unitree wants to test a new joint design, it crosses the street and comes back with the right component. A team in San Francisco has to wait weeks to receive the same component from China. The background. That difference in iteration speed changes everything in hardware engineering. It stops being a problem of talent, because Chinese and American engineers are equally capable, and becomes a problem of infrastructure. Breaking a robot, learning, replacing it, and trying again: that’s what builds cumulative technical advantage. If breaking a robot costs three weeks of logistics, learning stops and times become longer. Yes, but. China does have state support, and it is completely legitimate to point this out. The government has injected a lot of money into that sector and has set production targets. But it’s not that Silicon Valley is an impoverished region: it has more capital, investors with more experience and resources, and more decades of experience financing high-risk bets. If this were a war to see who has the fattest checkbook, the United States would win handily. But it is not. Furthermore, Chinese state money comes with strings attached: it is classified as “state asset” and founders assume personal liability if the company fails. That pushes capital toward politically safe bets, not necessarily toward the most innovative ones. The question. Can the West make up ground in robotics? Yes, but not like he’s trying. Attracting foreign talent helps on the margin, but does not solve the underlying problem. The equalization involves building local supply chains capable of delivering a spare part in two days, not two weeks. And that is not an immigration or R&D problem. It is an industrial-based problem, and solving it takes many years of work. And of thankless work, from which those who arrive later may reap the fruits. Until then we are going to see many more viral videos of Chinese robots doing pirouettes with increasing naturalness. And it’s because they’ve built the best environment in the world to break things and try again. In engineering, that explains almost everything. Featured image | CCTV In Xataka | Folding clothes or taking apart LEGOs has always been a tedious task. Xiaomi’s new AI for robots has put an end to it

We believed Amazon was already spending too much on AI. Your answer to Wall Street: spend even more

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The honeymoon between AI and Wall Street is over. Amazon knows this very well, having just received that dreaded “we have to talk” message from investors with a drop of more than 10% in its shares yesterday. It seemed that the stock markets rewarded the fact that companies They invested absurd amounts of money in AI. It is just what Amazon announced yesterday, but that strategy has had a totally negative response in the markets. what has happened. Amazon presented yesterday financial results for the last quarter of 2025. Revenue grew by 14% and net profit by 6%, modest figures that were not very popular. But above all, I did not like that Amazon announced that it estimated a capex (capital expenditure) of $200 billion in 2026 in AI. Amazing. Wall Street used to reward, now it punishes. In 2025, that capex was $131 billion, and Amazon is determined to continue betting everything on AI. Before, investors rewarded that audacity. Now they are punishing her: the shares plummeted 11% “after hours“, and it will be today when those actions start with that reflected fall. We want return on investment. That market reaction is not an isolated event. Amazon’s fall comes just hours after Microsoft or Google suffered similar falls. The market before valued the potential of AIbut now he demands return on investment more than ever and has become impatient. Big Tech had operated with a blank check, but when revenue forecasts fall short of estimates, optimism evaporates. Income grows, yes, but not that much. The real problem is the imbalance between capex and revenue growth. AWS grew a spectacular 24% in revenue, but spending is growing at an even greater rate. Google, Amazon and Microsoft are trapped in a kind of infrastructure “arms race”: the first one to stop spending loses, and that is a big problem. He who does not risk, does not gain. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy explained that “this is an extraordinarily rare opportunity to forever change the size of AWS and Amazon as a whole. (…) We are going to invest aggressively to be the leaders.” It is a speech identical to that Mark Zuckerberg said a few months ago when he said he was willing to lose hundreds of billions on AI: not investing them would be worse for Meta. But Amazon is much more than AI. There is another disturbing element in this huge bet by Amazon. The reality is that the company has many expensive fronts. From the Kuiper satellite network to compete with Starlink to the robotization of its Whole Foods logistics and other areas. When adding AI to the equation, the math doesn’t seem to work out. Optimism ends. Historically, large technology companies have taken advantage of the optimism of the market and investors to justify spending forecasts completely unrelated to their income. In 2026, with the macroeconomic situation of “we no longer like risk” —tell it to bitcoin— and the pressure for profitability, “free optimism” has disappeared. If you are going to spend like crazy, you have to raise like crazy too. Amazon is doing well, AI is not. This total commitment to AI is preventing us from seeing that the rest of Amazon’s businesses are doing very well. Online sales grew by 10% and advertising grew by a notable 23%. E-commerce, the cornerstone on which Amazon was built and operates, is funding the AI ​​party, but it is turning into a bottomless pit. Like Qatar’s GDP. According to the world bankQatar’s GDP in 2024 was $219 billion. That Amazon invests almost the same in AI data centers alone is dizzying. It is the same thing that we said yesterday about Google, which also projected a capex of 135 billion dollars by 2026. The figures are no longer dizzying: they are crazy. Beware, obsolescence. And all that investment can end up wasted, especially because there is an implicit risk in the data centers that are built: in three or five years they could become obsolete if the architecture of AI chips changes radically. It is bread for today, and hunger for tomorrow… without counting the energy factor or the water consumption. Xataka | While Silicon Valley seeks electricity, China subsidizes it: this is how it wants to win the AI ​​war

How to add the Three Wise Men to any photo of your street using artificial intelligence

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Let’s tell you how to add the Three Wise Men to your photographsso that you can create images full of illusion. The idea is that if you have a photo of your street or a place you usually walk through, you can add these characters to it without altering anything else. We are going to tell you two ways to do this, both with artificial intelligence. First we will go to a website designed exclusively for this, which is the easiest alternative to use. And then we will tell you how to use the most popular artificial intelligence chatbots, such as ChatGPT either Gemini. Use a third party page If you want to do things as easily as possiblethere are pages like fotoalosreyesmagos.comcreated especially to add the Three Wise Men to your photos, and which allows you to see the photos shared by other users from all over Spain. The website offers consistency in designs, although the results are a little less refined. To use it, go to fotoalosreyesmagos.com and click on Upload your photo. Now you will go to a screen where you have to upload the photo you want to use to insert the Three Wise Men. Click on the box or drag the photo to it if you are on the computer. Remember that they must be photos of a street or landscape so that the AI ​​can insert the characters into it. Now you’ll have to choose how to customize your resulting photo. To do this, you just have to decide if you want to include the camels or only to the Kings. Additionally, you have to choose if you want the photo to be public indicating your location or if you want to keep it private and not publish it in the gallery. Now, after deciding whether or not to accept or not give the website a donation of one euro, the photo will be generated. When the photo is generated you can download or share itin addition to publishing it if you want in the public gallery. Add the Three Wise Men with ChatGPT or Gemini The other option is use ChatGPT or Geminiin both cases you will be able to use the same prompt, although today ChatGPT Images offers better results. But you can try both options and stick with the one that suits you best. What you have to do in both options is upload a photograph of your neighborhood, and add the following prompt: I want you to add the three Wise Men in this photo. They should be walking down the street, and you should make them realistic, make them look like real people. Look at the proportions so that they have a realistic size within the photograph, that they have the size of a real person. Don’t touch anything else in the photo, just add to the characters. That’s it, with this the AI ​​will generate a fairly realistic image of these characters. The advantage of this option is that you can add and specify things at the prompt you use, adding objects, specifying sizes, and similar. In Xataka Basics | How to create a character in ChatGPT and Gemini to use it in all the images you make with artificial intelligence

Telefónica leaves Wall Street through the back door. Goodbye to almost four decades in the largest market in the world

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Telefónica has started the procedures to delist your shares from the New York Stock Exchangewhere it has been listed since 1987. The securities will stop trading on Wall Street in a matter of days once the documentation is filed with the SEC. The telecom will only maintain its listing in Madrid, in the Spanish continuous market. Why is it important. The movement closes a symbolic chapter that began when Telefónica became the first Spanish company to be listed on the largest market in the world. But the symbolism was left behind: today maintaining that presence involves high administrative costs and regulatory demands that no longer compensate. The trading volume in New York is residual and investor interest is practically non-existent. The context. Telefónica’s stock has fallen more than 90% in the last fifteen years. Its current valuation is on the floor, very far from that giant that in the nineties became the most valuable company in Spain. The dividend, which for years was the main attraction for conservative investors, has been successively cut, the last time this quarter. Buying in Madrid is more direct, cheaper and with the same liquidity as in New York, where securities are hardly traded. Between the lines. This decision fits into the strategic plan presented in November by Marc Murtra, focused on aggressively reducing costs. Telefónica has been lowering its blinds on all fronts: Sold subsidiaries throughout Latin America except Brazil. Reduced the dividend. Presented an ERE which is ending its negotiation phase. And now it is abandoning stock markets where being present no longer adds value. Also will stop trading in Lima. The figure. 4,554 departures are contemplated by the ERE that was agreed this Wednesday with the unions, 26% of the workforce in Spain. Cost savings are the obsession of the new management: 3 billion annually until 2030. Yes, but. Investors who have ADR certificates (American Depositary Receipts) will be able to exchange them for common shares in Spain or hold and trade them in US over-the-counter markets. Telefónica will provide both options, although it is evident that it prefers the first. The background. The exit from Wall Street is not an isolated or recent decision: The telecommunications sector has lost interest from investors, especially in Europe. It is a mature business, highly regulated, with tight margins and little ability to surprise. Telefónica today is a very different company from the one that debuted on Wall Street: smaller, more regional, more European. Its new strategy focuses on four markets (Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom and Brazil) and on consolidating itself as a reference operator with profitable scale, in addition to increasing its focus on technological solutions. Marking agenda. Wednesday’s day at the Distrito Telefónica offices north of Madrid was hectic. The contrast. When Telefónica went public in New York in 1987, it placed certificates worth $375 million, the largest influx of European capital on Wall Street up to that time. The telecom was then majority owned by the State and its debut was seen as a milestone of internationalization. Today it leaves unnoticed, recognizing that the regulatory burden and administrative costs of the SEC outweigh any benefits. Go deeper. The obligation to report detailed information to the SEC was useful at the time: thanks to it, data such as the price that STC or SEPI paid to enter the capital were known, information that the Spanish CNMV would never have required to reveal. But that level of transparency also has a cost, and Telefónica has decided that it is no longer worth paying for. In Xataka | The Government has had an idea so that the next blackout does not leave us without mobile data: let the operators pay Featured image | Telefónica, Lo Lo

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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