world

Google has smelled blood with AI, so it has decided to spend more in 2026 than the GDP of 158 countries in the world

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New year, new budgets. Big tech companies are beginning to detail their roadmap for 2026 and the trend is clear: spend even more on AI. a few days ago, Goal announced that the planned capex (capital expenditure) rose to 135,000 million dollars and Microsoft too pointed to a similar figure. Alphabet (Google) just told everyone to “hold my hands.” May the rhythm not stop. The bomb was announced during the last results conference. Alphabet plans to spend between $175 and $185 billion, doubling 2025 capex, which was $91.4 billion, and almost quadrupling 2024 spending (52.5 billion). To put it in context, it is more than the GDP of Morocco, Kuwait, Bulgaria and up to 158 countries. At the same time, the company announced record results, surpassing 400 billion in revenue for the first time. The net profit stood at 132,000 million. Vertigo. That’s what investors seem to have felt. They count in Financial Times that, in the hours following the news, Alphabet shares fell 7% after the capex announcement, but then the fall was reduced to -1.5%. Microsoft experienced a similar response after its earnings call a few days ago, it is the response of investors to these exorbitant figures. However, as long as the results are good, it seems that the scare will not last long. Everything’s fine. They count in Fortune that Pichai assured that this year’s capital expenditure is “a look at the future” and justified his strategy by highlighting that the demand for his cloud services and DeepMind (Gemini) is extraordinary, so the investment must also be. He also announced that AI searches now surpass traditional searches and that Google Search’s business has grown 17% compared to last year. Additionally, the order book for its cloud has increased by 55% during the last quarter. It still won’t be enough. The CEO of Alphabet admitted that, despite the record results, there are insurmountable bottlenecks such as computing capacity, problems in the chip supply chain and energy limitations. These restrictions make it take a long time to get a data center up and running, or in other words, it was preparing investors not to expect an immediate return. Gemini, full out. The Google chatbot is in its sweet moment. The viral success of Nano Banana, Gemini 3 sweeping its competition in benchmarks and Apple choosing him as the new brain for the new Siri They have given a boost in popularity to Gemini, which already has more than 750 million users. OpenAI is still ahead with ChatGPT, but Google is closing the gap and Altman’s people have reacted going into panic mode. He moat of Gemini. Benchmarks are fine, but there is something much more important. During the conference, Pichai announced that they had reduced Gemini’s service costs by 78% “through model optimizations, efficiency and utilization improvements.” It is no longer that its AI is surpassing its competition, it is that it is cheaper and there OpenAI does have a problem. With its advertising businesses, the cloud and more revenue, Google has plenty of room to skyrocket its capex. In Xataka | OpenAI’s entire financial strategy depended on achieving a monopoly with ChatGPT: the opposite is happening Image | Wikipedia

The world is amazed by Moltbot (formerly Clawdbot). It turns out that China had already invented it almost a year ago

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The phenomenon of the end of January has been Molbotformerly known as Clawdbot. It is one of the AI agents most powerful of the moment, to the point that it warns of its own risks even before being installed. An agent who seemed to have no competitor and to be one of a kind. We were wrong. TARS-1.5. Although it has not made as much noise, in April 2025 it was launched UI-TARS-1.5an open source multimodal agent capable of performing all types of tasks within desktop environments. UI-TARS-1.5 is a multimodal agent designed to interact with the digital world through graphical interfaces, using the screen, mouse and keyboard. It came into the hands of Bytedance, a company behind giants like TikTok and one of the main players in the development of artificial intelligence in China. The difference. 1.5 is an AI agent designed to use a computer as a person would do. See the screen, identify visual elements and act using mouse and keyboard. Unlike Moltbot, it does not execute code or commands directly on the system, but rather interacts with the PC from the outside, at the interface level. It’s safer by design, because you can’t break the system by running arbitrary code. In addition, it reasons before each action, which reduces errors accumulated in long tasks. UI-TARS does not control your computer. He uses it. Moltbot does not use your computer. He controls it. What can you do? UI-TARS interacts “talking” with your computer. It is capable of executing tasks in our interface by analyzing what is in it. Serves as a programming assistant. It can behave like a human to test apps. It works as a tutor to perform complex tasks. You can manage desktop tasks and PC management. Why is it important. The new war for AI will not focus exclusively on models like Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude: the next step is to achieve a local AI capable of acting like a human, but with certain security guarantees. Moltbot, UI-TARS, Kimmi K2.5 (also Chinese)… Although agentic AI sounds distant, the war to make it part of our daily lives has been brewing for years. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Studying with AI without thinking teaches nothing: these tips can help you take advantage of it and really learn

The world had been in love with US technology for 25 years. We are finally unhooking

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We have been living within a digital ecosystem designed in the United States for more than two decades. Big technology companies not only built the dominant social networks, but also built a network of services around them without real substitutes. From Europe we have been talking for years about technological sovereignty and a possible disengagement – even if it is partial. There are more and more proposals, but at the moment it is more of a wish than reality. Difficult, but not impossible. Become completely independent from American technology In software it is complicated, but feasible. Our colleague Jose told it just a few days ago, leaving aside giants like Google, WhatsAppAmazon, or Instagram. The changes made something very clear: the United States has taken over the great pillars of daily technological life: Internet searches Sending messages online shopping Social networks Email accounts Operating systems The dependence is total, and assuming it is uncomfortable. Countries like France have banned to its officials the use of American platforms such as Zoom and Teamsto promote a video conferencing platform developed in France and under the name Visio. The objective is clear: reduce dependence on foreign technology, minimize costs and achieve a communication standard under European legal control. The UpScrolled case. Behind him TikTok ownership changewhich went from being mainly in Chinese hands to being under the lap of large American companies, the use of social networks like Upscrolledan app founded by the Palestinian Issam Hijazi as a challenge to big technology companies. During the last week of January, Upscrolled was the most downloaded social network above Threads, WhatsApp and TikTok in the United States App Store. A paradigmatic case in which Americans themselves opt for alternatives outside their country. The Proton case. Although less recent, the proton case It is one of the most ambitious in the last five years. From being protagonists only for ProtonMail (end-to-end encryption by default, European jurisdiction and independence from the Big Tech model), to a whole suite with calendar, VPN and storage alternatives. According to the company, its apps already have more than 100 million users. Good number, but far from more than 100 thousand millions of users who have Google services. The distance remains enormous, and explains why technological disengagement continues to be, for the moment, more of a political and cultural gesture than an everyday reality. Prepared for the worst. At the end of January, the Wall Street Journal reported a scenario starring even more tension. The Greenland case has been the flame necessary to finish lighting the fuseand the main managers of European strategic sectors want to move both their systems and data to local centers. Thinking about a 100% European software ecosystem does not seem entirely realistic. But imagining a scenario in which the dependency is not complete sounds a little better. Image | Xataka In Xataka | We criticize the EU a lot with its obsession with regulating Big Tech. There are at least two examples that justify this obsession

that of a world without nuclear weapons control

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During the sixties, at the height of the cold warthe United States and the Soviet Union accumulated nuclear weapons without clear limits, trapped in a logic of absolute distrust marked by crises such as that of the missiles in Cuba and by the certainty that a miscalculation could trigger a global catastrophe. It was in that atmosphere of fear when they began to assume that continuing to add warheads did not make the world safer, thus laying the foundations for the first major nuclear control agreement. Today we are four days away from ending to that pact. The end of nuclear control. Yes, because on Thursday of this week New START expiresthe last treaty that legally limited the deployed nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, ending more than fifty years of agreements, inspections and transparency mechanisms that had drastically reduced the number of nuclear warheads since the peak of the Cold War. The agreement, signed in 2010 and extended in 2021, established a cap of 1,550 warheads strategic by country and allowed for data exchanges and on-site inspections designed to avoid dangerous misunderstandings. Its disappearance not only eliminates formal limits, but also the verification system that gave true value to the treaty, in a context marked by the war in Ukraine, unilateral suspension Russian inspections and a climate of mistrust that has not been seen for decades. Indifference and risks. The most striking thing about the end of New START is the little political reaction in Washington, where debate has been minimal even as the world enters an era no nuclear restrictions for the first time since the sixties. The Trump administration has let the treaty die without a clear position, while pressure grows within the security apparatus to increase the number of nuclear weapons rather than reduce them. This emptiness contrasts with the warnings of experts and with the symbolism of the Doomsday Clocknews the last few days because has approached more than ever at midnight, a true reflection of the fear of an uncontrolled arms race that could involve not only Russia and the United States, but also the third party “in contention”: China. Russia, China and a dilemma. If we do a futurology exercise and everything follows the expected course, starting on Thursday and without the treaty, the United States, for example, could return to “load” multiple warheads on missiles that today carry only one, a practice abandoned to comply with New START, while Russia retains the capability to do it quickly because it never stopped deploying missiles with multiple warheads. At this point, many analysts warn that Moscow could react faster than Washington in an escalation scenario, while Beijing continues expanding your arsenal at a pace not seen since the Cold War, although still far from the figures of the two superpowers that started it all. The combination of mistrust, new weapons not covered by previous agreements and emerging systems such as underwater nuclear drones or exotic missiles aggravates the feeling of entering unknown strategic terrain. An opportunity that closes. Despite everything, there is still a small window to avoid the worst scenario, since Russia has hinted that could continue to voluntarily respect the limits and former negotiators defend that accepting a temporary extension with restored inspections would be a pragmatic and cheap gesture to save time. Beyond the technique, the collapse by New START It symbolizes something deeper: the erosion of the idea that nuclear stability is better managed by rules, communication and transparency than by arms accumulation. Whether this moment marks just a blip or the beginning of a new normal will depend on immediate political decisionsalthough the consensus among experts is crystal clear: without some type of control, the world enters a more dangerous, more disturbing, more opaque phase and, of course, with less room for error. Image | Steve Jurvetson In Xataka | The countries with the most nuclear bombs in 2025, gathered in this graph with two protagonists: China and India In Xataka | In 1950 two scientists wondered if a 10 gigaton nuclear bomb was possible. Your results are hidden under lock and key

AEMET prepares for “the highest hydrometeorological impacts in the world”

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As said Kevin Killeen“February is the worst month of the year, but it is an honest month.” And February 2026 is no exception in its honesty: the models gave historic rainfall throughout the Atlantic coast and the south of the peninsula and the rainfall is already here. The jet stream is going to pass over us so “constant and uniform” throughout the week. But it is not just the “concatenation of storms generated” by this, it is that “they are going to be fed with high moisture content” that comes directly from the Gulf of Mexico. What would have been excellent news three years ago has become a huge problem: this succession of storms arrives at a time when the soil cannot absorb even one more drop. A truly exceptional accumulation. To land the data, the latest models accumulated dan for this week of more than 100-150mm and up to 300 in areas of Galicia, Extremadura and Andalusia. In the case of Andalusia, in fact, the situation will be very complicated due to the extension of the Guadalquivir valley and the composition of its soil. More than 200mm are expected at the head of the river and a homogeneous average of 100mm in the basin. That, added to the fact that “The soil is clay and its use is agricultural.“, the filtration is very scarce. This has turned the flooding of the rivers and streams in the Guadalquivir basin and adjacent areas (such as the Guadalete or the Mediterranean basins of Granada) into a ticking bomb. “The highest hydrometeorological impacts in the world”. As Martín León explainedis not a figure of speech, it is an enormous risk: the highest impacts in the world are expected. In fact, as the hours pass, the predictions they seem to get worse and floods, overflows and landslides seem inevitable. The first symptoms of flooding, in fact, have already been detected in Andalusia via satellite. How normal is this? To emphasize that we are not facing a normal situation, it is enough to take a look at the ECMWF EFIthe index that measures how extreme the atmospheric phenomena are: the entire south-southwest of the peninsula is in red, the highest level. Rain on wet. But, as I say, that is not the main problem. The main problem is that, after these days of heavy rain, the soil is extremely saturatedthe reservoirs are being forced to drain and the system’s retention capacity is at minimum levels. In mountain areas, water it’s starting to flow directly from the ground. To this we can add that the Pyrenees and the rest of the northern mountains they have a historic snow pack. We are, as all models show, in the middle of a perfect storm. This means that the Hydrographic Confederations will have a lot of work and the problems have only just begun. Special attention will have to be paid to rivers, streams and areas at risk of land displacement. Complicated hours are approaching and any precaution will be insufficient. Image | WXCharts In Xataka | Spain is preparing for a “festival” of storms in February: with more rain than normal and hardly any cold

For centuries Germany has boasted the oldest abbey beer in the world. The alcohol crisis has forced it to be sold

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Germany is the birthplace of Oktoberfest, the lagerthe saint Hildegard of Bingen and hundreds and hundreds of artisanal wineries dedicated to beer. The refreshing amber liquid is not at its best there, however. As the young lose interest for the drink and consumption falls per national beer capita, Germany finds itself with news like the one that has shaken the sector at the beginning of 2026: the oldest monastic brewery in the world, a 976-year-old icon, just sold suffocated by the economic context. It seems like a simple sale, but it says a lot about the industry. What has happened? That Germany is preparing for one of those business transactions that, due to their enormous symbolic value, transcend the pages of the salmon press to tell us about the cultural and social changes of a country. The Bavarian brewer Schneider Weisse has just reached an agreement to acquire the Bischofshof and Weltenburger brands, linked to Bischofshof GmbH & Co. Said like this, it could seem like a simple commercial procedure, material for the German BORME, but the agreement implies that Schneider Weisse takes charge of the brewery of the Weltenburg Abbey and that is something out of the ordinary. The reason? The brewing history of the monastery dates back to 1050, which is why it is considered the abbey brewery. oldestalthough if we talk about beer in general there is another previous one in Weihenstephan (Freising), brewed since 1040. What have they agreed? The truth is that not too many details have emerged. For example, the companies have not wanted to disclose how much the operation will cost. What yes have slipped is that the agreement will become effective in January 2027 and that Scheneider Weisse will continue to operate the Weltenburg Abbey Brewery. Not only that. He will also take over the logistics part of the Bischofshof, which includes 21 employees. Part of the business, located in Regensburg, will close at the end of this year and the idea is that in the medium term the production of the different brands will be concentrated in the headquarters that Schneider Weisse already has in Kelheim and the Weltenburg Abbey. Are they important companies? At least they are companies with a reputation. Although Weltenburg Abbey beer stands out on the world stage for its long history, which can date back to 1050, in reality the three names involved in the agreement have a long tradition. The Bischofshof brewery was founded mid 17th century in Regensburg and has been in charge of the production of Weltenburg since 1973. As for the house Schneider Weissebased in Kelheim, was also launched more than a century and a half ago, in 1872. “Our goal is to create a portfolio of traditional brands. We combine our brewing tradition of more than 150 years with the almost 380 years of history of the Bischofshof brand and the brewing tradition of the oldest monastic brewery in the world, dating back to 1050,” celebrates Georg SchneiderCEO of Schneider Weisse. “This creates a range of beers steeped in history and tradition, a unique offering from a single global supplier.” Why is it important? Weltenburg is relevant enough for any operation that affects him to generate interest, but if this operation has raised expectations (even beyond Germany) is because of its context. The companies acknowledge that the maneuver attempts to adapt to “the continued weakness” of the German beer market. “The reality is that, on our own and despite all our efforts and the measures adopted in recent months, it was no longer economically viable to continue operating the brands,” recognizes Till Hedrichthe general director of the firm Bischofshof and Weltenburger. “The evolution of the market has marked us too much.” Hedrich has also defended that the operation with Schneider, a firm based in Kelheim (Bavaria) is the most advantageous for the secular Abadian winery. “The looming threat of a total closure or dismantling by an investor with no connection to the region or its history can be avoided with the ‘Bavarian solution’ being implemented with Schneider Weisse.” Has the market changed that much? It seems so. From the collective itself is spoken of a “drastic drop in sales” of German breweries in the country. The BR24 program remember that in the last ten years alone, the German beer industry has lost almost 14 million hectoliters, almost 14% of its sales. And although the complete picture is somewhat more complex (the latest data from the Bavarian sector they are not bad), the overall trend is far from ideal for the industry in its own home. If at the beginning of the 80s the per capita consumption In the country it was around 145.9 liters of beer, right now it is below 90. Is there more data? Yes. Two years ago the Berlin journalist Nicholas Potter I slipped an interesting one in Guardian. “The decline can be seen at the Oktoberfest itself. In 2019, 6.3 million visitors drank 7.3 million liters. Last year attendance was about 7.2 million people, a record number, but they consumed only 6.5 million liters.” As a backdrop, the fall in consumption, the increase of the production of non-alcoholic beer and the loss of interest of members of generation Z for beer or wine. In April the Deursche Welle channel contributed another brushstroke that completes the picture. It is not only that the consumption of German beer has fallen in the country itself, it is that sales abroad have not evolved as the industry would like. According to Destatis data, 1,450 million liters of German beer were exported in 2024, significantly below the 1,540 in 2014. Images | Bernt Rostad (Flickr) 1 and 2 and Frank Mago (Flickr) In Xataka | If the alcohol sector thought it had a problem with Gen Z, it is because it did not see its stock: 22,000 million in bottles that no one wants

There is an island without which the world would not function. This is how Taiwan has become a world technological epicenter: Crossover 1×35

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In February 1974, the Prime Minister of Taiwan met with a small group of experts and together they came to a conclusion: the country had a difficult time with the economic strategy of the time, and they had to make a bet on the future. That bet They were, of course, the semiconductors. That famous meeting marked a before and after for a country that has a very delicate geopolitical situation. China considers it a rogue state, but while they have their own government and currency. Despite this tension, Taiwan has managed to become a strategic partner of countries such as the aforementioned China or the United States, and in both cases for the same reason: chips. Taiwan has managed to become a absolute giant in the semiconductor industry, and this is demonstrated by the company that It is the crown jewel of the country: TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company). Since it was founded in 1987, the company has grown and its alliance with Apple in the early 2010s has proven crucial to its current dominance. But before all that happened, Taiwan went through a complicated process that included wars and dominance by Japan for nearly half a century. In this episode of Crossover we precisely analyze the history of this peculiar island and how it faces a future that, even with its current position, is full of challenges. On YouTube | Crossover In Xataka | TSMC’s only problem was that it was in Taiwan. So the United States has decided to get her out of there

In the middle of World War II, a woman illuminated modern cryptography. The FBI then hid it from us.

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He did not study mathematics, nor did he enlist in the army: Elizabeth FriedmanShe simply fell in love with Shakespeare and that love embarked her on an adventure that led her to uncover Nazi spy networks in World War II, lock up Al Capone’s lackeys, and lay the foundations of the modern NSA. This is the story of how, with the only help of a pencil and paper, a poet from the American Midwest became one of the most important cryptographers in the United States. It is also the story of how they hid their work and we forgot about it for decades. Although she was the youngest of new siblings and grew up in a Quaker family in rural Illinois, Elizebeth graduated in English literature for him Hillsdale College of Michigan. Almost immediately she began working as a teacher. That seemed like it would be his vocation until Shakespeare crossed his path again. The Newberrya Chicago research library, was looking for an assistant. It was nothing too striking except for the fact that, it was said, an original by the Stratford-upon-Avon playwright was kept in the library’s holdings. That was enough for Elizebeth. It was there, working at Newberry, where he met George Fabyana millionaire convinced that Shakespeare’s plays had been written by Francis Bacon. It is not a very strange belief, for centuries the confusing past of the English poet has generated rivers of ink about who William Shakespeare really was. What had not happened until then was that an eccentric billionaire decided to put his fortune at the service of the idea. In 1916, at the age of 23, Elizebeth began working at the Fabyan think tank, a private laboratory, Riverbankwhere things as varied as genetic engineering or they worked on the development of weapons. Now, he would also have a team dedicated to finding the clues that Bacon ‘had left’ in works like ‘Hamlet’ or ‘Romeo and Juliet’. That Riverbank was surely one of the first modern cryptography laboratories. There Elizebeth met her husband, William Friedman. Together, and unintentionally, they would shape modern American cryptography and play a very important role in the next 50 years of American defense. ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers’ It all started because, in the middle of the First World War, the army decided to turn to Riverbank to help them with code breaking. It was such a great success that the Secretary of War signed them and took the couple to Washington, DC. Shortly after arriving, Elizebeth began working for the Treasury: the eighteenth amendment (the famous Prohibition) and alcohol trafficking networks were rampant throughout the United States. Elizebeth was terribly productive. It is estimated that, between 1926 and 1930, he deciphered an average of 20,000 smugglers’ messages a year, dismantling hundreds of ciphers in the process. And the Second World War. The role of American cryptographers “was not very important”, but among them the Friedmans shined especially. Elizebeth’s skills were already known and served to dismantle a complex network of Nazi spies in Latin America that tried to promote fascist revolutions and weaken the “backyard” of the United States. Despite this, resources were very scarce and recognition even less. Surely his most impressive work was the one that led to the arrest and imprisonment of Velvalee Dickinsonthe “doll woman”, a spy arrested in 1942 for passing all kinds of information to Japan (hidden in letters about patent leather dolls) during World War II. “His abilities were so unusual that he became indispensable,” he explained. Jason Fagone who has written a spectacular book on Friedman’The Woman who smashed codes‘. “She was called on repeatedly to solve problems that no one else could solve. A secret weapon.” However, and despite the publicity of these cases, the Friedman surname did not transcend. It was not an forgetfulness. Hoover, the famous and controversial director of the FBI, wiped the Friedmans off the map and awarded the merits of each of the cases to his Agency. Nothing surprising in a figure, that of Hoover, key in much of the American 20th century, capable of creating the largest research office in the world and, at the same time, using it as if it were his ‘private army’. Although Elizebeth’s work and that of her husband were the seed of what would later become the NSA, their figure was forgotten, relegated and, until very few years ago, remained unrescued in the drawer of history. In 1999 he entered the NSA ‘Hall of Fame’ and in 2002 a building was dedicated to him. It’s another one of those ‘hidden figures‘without which we could not understand today’s world. In Xataka | In 1925, procrastination was already a problem and someone found the definitive solution: the isolation helmet. In Xatka | Scotland remains almost a fiefdom in the 21st century: half of its land is owned by 421 owners

The richest people in the world in 2026, grouped in a single graph

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If 2025 has left us anything, it has been a concentration of wealth in a few hands that had never been observed before. a report Oxfam Intemón estimates the growth of these great fortunes at 16% in 2025, this represents growth three times faster than the annual average of the last five years. The joint assets of the 20 largest fortunes in the world adds a total of 3.8 trillion dollarswhich represents a figure higher than GDP of most countries of the planet. That is, the fortune of the people who occupy the top 20 on the Forbes list would equal in wealth what countries like France (with a GDP of 3.36 trillion dollars and 68.6 million inhabitants), Italy (with 2.54 trillion dollars and 59 million inhabitants) produce in a year. To show the dimension of these fortunes in a more visual and easy to understand way, in Visual Capitalist have created a graph of the 20 richest people in the world of 2026 based on data extracted from the Forbes list of millionaires. The graph allows us to see a clear pattern: the AI is making gold to whoever touches it. The unbeatable Musk If there is something that stands out at first glance, it is the enormous wealth difference that separates the largest fortune in the world from the second. As of January 6, 2026, the date on which the “photo finish” was made to create this graph, Elon Musk’s estimated net worth was $714.2 billion. If we go back just five years ago, in 2020 the richest person was Jeff Bezos with a net worth of $145 billion. That is, the Musk’s current fortune is five times what it was in 2020 just five years ago the richest person in the world. That It’s not the only record that has marked Musk’s fortune in 2025. The businessman of South African origin has been the first person to have exceeded 700,000 million dollars, and is among the most likely candidates to become the first billionaire in history. Musk’s fortune in 2020 was “only” $24.6 billion, in a year in which the millionaire began to reap the benefits of the good sales results that the Tesla Model 3 were beginning to give, which had already surpassed your production problems. That represents a capital growth of 2,804% in just five years. Artificial intelligence: King Midas of the 21st century Five years ago, the “Top 10” of the largest fortunes was dominated by the founders of social networks, electronic commerce platforms and, among them, the undaunted Warren Buffett. On the other hand, today, the wealth of the world’s biggest millionaires is determined by their involvement in the development of AI. A good example is found in the leading role in that negotiation of the millionaires who occupy the first six positions. Leaving Musk aside, in second position is Larry Page, co-founder of Google and its parent company Alphabet, which thanks to the latest movements in the industry, have turned Gemini into the Apple native AI and in one of the models most influential in the industry. In 2025, Alphabet shares have appreciated by 63%which has had a favorable impact on the fortunes of the company’s founders. His partner, Sergei Brin, occupies fifth position, although in recent days he has climbed to third position. Given such a wealth boost, Jeff Bezos he had no choice He had to give up positions, leaving his 251.7 billion in third position in the ranking, although the recent boost in the fortune of Google’s founders has dragged him to fourth position, which to date was occupied by Larry Ellison, with an estimated fortune of 242.6 billion dollars. Ellison’s rise to the top of this list as one of the biggest fortunes of 2026 is another example of the level of enrichment and power that has provided AI to these millionaires. To put it in context, in just a few days, the founder of Oracle increased his fortune at 102 billion dollars. The arrival of AI caught Meta immersed in the metaverseand his latest decisions have not been the most applauded by investors. This has caused Mark Zuckerberg’s personal fortune to fall to $226.5 billion in 2026. However, if we look at it with perspective, the founder of Facebook had a net worth of $68.8 billion in 2020, so its increase has been 229% in just five years. Special mention in this section dedicated to AI goes to Jensen Huang, who occupies eighth position on the list of greatest fortunes thanks to the price of NVIDIA shares. However, Huang’s case is especially revealing of the link between AI and wealth growth of its main architects. In 2020, the CEO of NVIDIA declared $4.7 billion. In 2025, That fortune is estimated at 162.5 billion dollars. At the current value of his company, Huang stands to lose the equivalent of his fortune in 2020. in a single morning. There are millionaires beyond AI We have to reach seventh position on the list of the biggest fortunes in the world in 2026 to find the first millionaire who, at least a priori, is not involved with AI. This is Bernard Arnault, who since losing his throne as the richest person in the world in 2023 has lived a real roller coaster of rises and falls in the valuation of his fortune due to the crisis of LVMH’s luxury liquor and spirits divisions and the drop in sales in China of his Louis Vuitton flagship brand. In ninth position we find Warren Buffett, a veteran investor who has been able to read the markets to surf the wave of stock market swings to remain at the top of the list of the greatest fortunes in the world during the years. last 20 years. However, and to the envy of the S&P 500, the profitability of his fortune in the last five years has been 98.5%, going from $73.4 billion in 2020 to the $147.5 billion at which his current fortune … Read more

Until now “software was eating the world.” Now AI is eating software

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For years we repeated an idea that seemed indisputable: “software was eating the world.” It was the most direct way to explain why almost any sector ended up depending on an app, a platform or a cloud service. But something is beginning to change in a silent and, at the same time, tremendously ambitious way.: the artificial intelligence revolution is not only transforming entire industries, it is also putting pressure on the software industry from within. The question that begins to arise is delicate and fascinating at the same time: if AI can build custom tools in a matter of moments, what is the point of continuing to pay for rigid and standardized software that works, yes, but that often forces it to work as the platform dictates. This is the point at which the debate becomes really serious: it is not about incremental improvement, but about questioning the current model as the standard for enterprise software. The logic is aggressive, at least on paper. So we could be looking at a potentially massive change. And yes, “potentially” is the key word: there are reasons to think that this can happen, and equally strong reasons to believe that it can happen with very real limits. Software in times of artificial intelligence This may all revolve around a very earthly question: what are you paying for when you pay for software. Until now, the price included the construction of the tool, its evolution, and the cost of making it generic enough to sell to thousands of companies. If the AI ​​compresses that part and allows generate code fast and cheapthe value migrates to other places: flow design, real integration with business systems, measurable results. Bret Taylorfounder and CEO of Sierra and part of the board of OpenAI, insists that the focus must be on the value that the customer receivesnot in technology for technology’s sake. Until now, for most companies, the map was quite recognizable: either you bought a pre-packaged tool and assumed its rules, or you commissioned a custom development, usually slower and more expensive, but more tailored to what you needed. What AI introduces is an alternative that, on paper, breaks the balance: instead of choosing a piece of software, it would be enough to explain the problem and let an agent build a custom system, deploy it and adjust it as processes change. Bret Taylor describes it from Sierra’s experience with customer service agents: “Our hypothesis is that, if we move forward five years, the vast majority of digital interactions will be through an agent.” If that is true, the dominant interface of many companies would no longer be a traditional platform. Most importantly, this conversation no longer happens only at conferences or investor presentations. There are practical signs that the paradigm is, at the very least, emerging: the so-called “vibe coding” has become a reality for many non-developer users, capable of setting up a website or tools describing what they want with text. Platforms like the European Lovable They have pushed that idea to the general public: fewer technical barriersmore rapid iteration, less “project” and more trial and error. This does not mean that a company is going to replace its ERP by a system generated on the fly, but it does help to understand why the market and the industry are beginning to take the possibility seriously. And this is where enthusiasm often clashes with real enterprise. Corporate software does not live in isolation: it is attached to databases, legacy systems, identities, permissions, audits and integrations that have been working in a specific way for years. Added to this is the most delicate aspect: regulatory compliance, security and internal responsibilities, which in regulated sectors dictate what can be done and what cannot be done. Even if an agent can generate a functional system, it remains to be resolved who maintains it, who supports it, who ensures that it does not break over time, and who responds when something fails. In this area, “customized and fast” software still has many questions ahead. If all this still seems too abstract, Bloomberg provides a fairly clear thermometer: The market is already reacting as if the threat were real, although we still do not know how far it will go. The media explains that the launch of Claude Cowork on the part of Anthropic reactivated the fear of a disruption that puts pressure on traditional software. According to that text, a set of SaaS values ​​followed by Morgan Stanley as an indicator of the sector has fallen 15% so far in 2026 after falling 11% in 2025, the worst start since 2022. In addition to all this, some cited analysts suggest that right now there are no reasons to have shares of software companies in portfolio. Images | Hack Capital | Anthropic In Xataka | Meta was the big loser of the AI ​​race in 2025. She was actually preparing her big move In Xataka | AI has already destroyed the world of programmers as we knew it. Now it’s the turn of the translators

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