TechPulse USA

By Daniel Rao Spain blinked. Three weeks after its draft data-centre decree sent developers scrambling, Madrid unveiled a softer version on Monday — and the message to the world's biggest tech companies is unmistakable: the investment matters more than the sermon. The rules are still tough by any global standard, but the sharpest edges have been filed down, the deadlines stretched, and the smallest facilities let off the hook entirely. It is a retreat, but a calculated one. Spain is not abandoning its green conditions for the AI building boom; it is haggling over them in public, with tens of billions of euros on the table and a snap election looming on November 29. That combination — a government that wants both the factories and the moral high ground — explains almost everything about what changed on Monday, and what did not. According to officials at the energy ministry, speaking to Reuters, the revised proposal raises the threshold for the rules to apply, extends the time fr...

Update, Oct. 20: Europe's telcos just answered — with a pact The European answer to Puzder's threat did not come from Brussels — it came from the boardrooms. On Monday, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone signed a letter of intent to pursue Europe's 2GHz direct-to-device spectrum jointly, as wholesale partners, without building their own constellation (joint statement via Telefónica and Orange newsrooms, 19 Oct; reported by Light Reading and Mobile World Live). It is the first organised European counter-move in the dispute this post describes: sovereignty by commercial coalition rather than by regulation. Note the caution from our sister coverage: the carriers' letter never names Starlink as a target — the "rival to Starlink" reading is the press's, not the letter's language. The sequel arrived within 24 hours: four European telcos signed a pact to build a homegrown satellite-to-phone alternative and bid for the very 2GHz band Brussels ...