00:00The promise was clear: Santa Marta will have one of the popular data centers.
00:05And there will be another one in the banana-growing region.
00:08To build them and other things related to artificial intelligence
00:12There would be 630 billion pesos.
00:16Smart Colombia, infrastructure for the development of artificial intelligence.
00:20That was the name of the competition that won that project
00:23which was going to be financed with public money
00:25and which may be one of those that has generated the most conversation in the last year
00:29in the Colombian science sector.
00:32Not only because the sum was, as someone who knows a lot about these calls for proposals told us,
00:36not the highest ever awarded to a single project, but because it has had a thousand by far.
00:41Who was the winner?
00:43A company that you've probably heard of, Internexa S.A.,
00:46whose owner is CISA, which is partly owned by Ecopetrol.
00:49He appears to be allied with the University of Magdalena and the Mayor's Office of Santa Marta.
00:54and the governor of that department to structure the project
00:57and submit it to that artificial intelligence call for proposals,
01:01whose money came from the royalties we get from oil and mining exploitation.
01:07But wait, before you continue watching the video,
01:10I would like to invite you to read the full report in the Science section of El Espectador.
01:14Comment on the news here in the comments and we'll send it directly to your DM.
01:19I'm not going to bore you with how that application system works,
01:22whose terms are constructed by the Ministry of Science and then presented to a group
01:27which must give them the endorsement made up of representatives from governorships, universities and the government
01:32so that the Ministry of Science can convene it and implement alliances such as the one led by Internexa.
01:38It is enough for them to know that Internexa received the highest rating in a peer review
01:42coordinated by the Ministry of Science.
01:45And in February of this year, that group, called the OCAD for Science, Technology and Innovation,
01:50He gave her the final push.
01:52That process was heavily criticized from the beginning for the little time it gave to institutes and universities to
01:59apply.
01:59The Ministry of Science under Petro's government, as recorded in the minutes of the meeting,
02:05He proposed that it be only 11 days and in the end extended it to a month.
02:09Also because the Attorney General's Office issued a letter with several observations.
02:14But all this story is to tell you something new.
02:17Before that group gave the final approval to the Internexa project,
02:21a key entity in this whole process, the National Planning Department,
02:27He prepared a document that we learned about in El Espectador,
02:29where he warned that Internexa's proposal had many flaws
02:34and did not consider it prudent to approve it.
02:37For example, it said that it does not meet software independence requirements,
02:41future purchases must be made exclusively with IBABA AFSAR.
02:46In evaluating the eight principles that guide digital sovereignty,
02:52He only fully met one requirement, and his rating was 1.6 out of 10.
02:56Furthermore, they warned that the project's highest investment,
03:00which was 337 billion pesos to build the data centers,
03:06I did not have a formal or itemized quote.
03:08There was also no detailed quote for the electrical infrastructure.
03:13In short, several details and still-born representatives of the DNP
03:17They said there were no objections and invited Locat to vote for it.
03:22As we already knew, and as Isa reiterated to us, they had to put a stop to the progress of that idea.
03:27because they identified structural risks that made the initiative unfeasible.
03:32These include the inadequacy of the land to support the energy solution,
03:37serious public order conditions and legal and economic uncertainty.
03:42My colleagues Bonita Vélez and Daniela Amaya went to one of the properties in Santa Marta.
03:47It's called the spring, even though its neighbors don't have constant access to water.
03:53a key ingredient for these water centers to function.
03:57But if you want to know more about who was responsible for this whole process,
04:00Stop by the Science section of El Espectador,
04:03that we reconstruct this very particular case of Colombian science.
04:08And follow us on our social media channels.
04:10Bye.
04:12Bye.
