Mobile Tech & Gadgets

Ryanair will cut 1.2 million seats in Spain but there is one region that will suffer more than the rest: Galicia

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Ryanair will reduce seats, cancel routes and raise ticket prices. That is the strategy that the company envisions for Spain during next summer. And Eddie Wilson has confirmed a strategy that has been talked about since last October when the CEO of Ryanair already threatened to take more flights from Spain if the situation did not change with Aena’s rates. And one autonomous community is feeling it more than the rest. 1.2 million seats. That will be the cut that Ryanair has prepared for our country next summer. It is something that was already reported in October and was confirmed last Monday. Counterscheduling the distribution of Aena dividends among its partners, Eddie Wilson has taken the opportunity to point out that its activity will be reduced in Spain in just a few months. They do so because the Government takes advantage of “(Aena’s) monopoly position in Spain’s main airports, obtaining excessive margins of 60% at the expense of local economies, which depend on affordable air travel for tourism and employment.” Without a change in airport taxesRyanair confirms that it is withdrawing flights in our country and that it will replace seats in larger airports. The reason is the repeated one in the last months of this Government-Ryanair battle: They consider that Aena’s rates at regional airports are too high. Once again, regional airports. According to the company, Aena’s airport taxes in regional spaces are uncompetitive and a burden on tourism and the economy of these cities. This has caused, according to the company, its departure from the airports of Asturias, Valladolid, Jerez, Tenerife North and Vigo and its activity to be reduced by 79% in Santiago compared to the summer 2024 figures. Not only that, in addition to this cut in seats, Wilson has not hesitated to warn that if the price of jet fuel becomes scarce, the first victims will be the regional airports, prioritizing the large seats. What about Galicia? Although Ryanair claims that its departure is fatally damaging the less frequented Spanish airports, the truth is that not all of them are suffering the same fate. A good example is Zaragoza. Compared to 2024, it will have 45% fewer seats, three routes canceled and two others cut. Despite this, Aena data They say that in 2025 the number of passengers grew by 1.9% (especially on domestic routes) and that in 2026 it is growing by 2.6%. Photography is very different in Galicia. So far this year, A Coruña airport is the only one that has grown. Without Ryanair, Vigo is falling 3.4% this year but the most worrying thing is in Santiago. At this airport, Ryanair has cut its activity by almost 80% compared to the summer of two years ago. In 2025 it has already fallen by 14.3% and this year it is falling by 29.6%. The lower activity at this airport has caused flights in the region to fall by 6.9% last year and so far this year this has worsened to 15.5%. There is only one worse fact. From all regions, Galicia is the one with the worst figures. And so far this year, only Castilla y León has lost more travelers, with a drop of 18.6%. However, its volume of travelers is much lower than that of Galicia. In the first three months of 2025, 40,051 people moved by plane in the region, while this year 32,613 passengers did so. That’s a drop of less than 8,000 seats filled. In Galicia, however, so far this year 987,812 passengers have taken a plane, while in 2025 a total of 1,168,745 people had taken a plane. That is, in the first quarter of the year, 180,933 passengers have been lost in the first quarter of 2026. And more than 200,000 passengers compared to 2024 when more than 1,194,032 people moved by plane in the first three months of the year. Not only the rates. When Ryanair announces that it is leaving an airport, it usually points to airport taxes, but the reality is more complex. The truth is that the company has maintained some commercial routes with low demand because it had advertising contracts that supported its routes. Contracts that he has not hesitated to break, as in Vigowhen you have found more juicy economic incentives like those that have arrived from Morocco. It must be taken into account thatthe launch of the AVE to Galicia It has also been a hard blow for airline companies that have seen how part of their customers move to the train since it offers more affordable rates and travel times that, adding the waits at airports, are similar to those of the plane. In fact, companies like Iberia have also reduced their supply because demand did not compensate for the effort. Photo | Left Victorian and Simone Muzzi In Xataka | The new EU border system is leaving people without flights. Ryanair has a solution: close check-in early

The US remains committed to stopping China. Now it has targeted the second largest Chinese chip manufacturer

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SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp) is the largest Chinese semiconductor manufacturer with a global market share 5.32%. Only TSMC and Samsung surpass it. Currently this is the only Chinese company that has the necessary technology to manufacture 7nm integrated circuitsbut Hua Hong Semiconductor, China’s second largest chip producer, is developing the technology necessary to manufacture this class of semiconductors. The US Department of Commerce has confirmed without intending it that Hua Hong Semiconductor is very serious with its 7nm photolithography. And it has done so because, according to Reutershas notified the most important lithography and wafer processing equipment manufacturers in the US that they no longer have permission to deliver their most advanced machines to this Chinese company. The purpose of this US entity is clear: it aims to make it difficult for Hua Hong Semiconductor to conclude the development of its 7nm lithography. Lam Research, Applied Materials and KLA already have one more obstacle in China Department of Commerce technicians analyze export requests within the framework established by current regulations and approve or deny the sale of integrated circuits and wafer processing equipment to China. The current regulation is the most effective tool at the disposal of the US Government to try to slow down the development of China’s semiconductor industry and prevent it from acquiring the capacity to manufacture cutting-edge integrated circuits in the short or medium term. Hua Hong is preparing to start production of 7nm chips at its Shanghai plant Hua Hong Semiconductor’s division specializing in third-party chip manufacturing is called Huali Microelectronics, and it is preparing to launch the production of 7nm integrated circuits at its Shanghai plant. The sources that have revealed this information assure that Huawei has collaborated with Huali Microelectronics on this project, which invites us to reach two reasonable conclusions. The first is that Huali’s 7nm lithography is likely to play an essential role in GPU production capacity for artificial intelligence (AI) from both Huawei and other Chinese companies. And the second conclusion is actually a plausible hypothesis. And, like SMIC, Huali does not have access to ASML SVU teams. For this reason, it is very likely that with the help of Huawei it has developed security techniques. multiple patterning to be able to manufacture 7nm chips with the UVP machines in its possession. Lam Research, Applied Materials and KLA are three of the US companies that the Commerce Department has notified that they can no longer provide Hua Hong Semiconductor with their most advanced wafer processing equipment. China is a very important market for these companies, so presumably they are going to lose several billions of dollars in sales. Lin Jian, the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has declared that his country expects the United States to stabilize global industrial and supply chains and keep trade functioning normally. Image | TSMC More information | Reuters In Xataka | TSMC is already the highest-earning chipmaker on the planet. It has beaten two semiconductor giants

This European alternative gives you 1 TB of storage for 15 euros per year

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I say it a lot lately: the 256 GB of storage on my phone is no longer enough. If it happens to you like it did to me, it is very likely because you have it full of photos and videos. There, cloud storage can be a good relief, but, which one to choose? For anyone looking an alternative to the main US cloudsInternxt presents itself as a great option: it is a European cloud that now, with its 87% discountleaves us 1 TB of storage per 15 euros per year. Of course, you only have a few days left to take advantage of this promo. 1 TB of cloud storage (annual subscription) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Good capacity, security and even includes a VPN Without the current offer, this Internxt plan has a price of 120 euros per year. That’s a huge discount for secure cloud storage that also comes with VPN and antivirus. The ‘Lifetime’ option also has the same discount, that is, that you pay only once and forget. This is great because it eliminates a monthly subscription and avoids possible future price increases. It has a price of 247 euros. Internxt is a company of Spanish origin that offers, as we say, a good European alternative to services like Google Drive or Dropbox. This cloud has a very high level of security and uses, in addition to end-to-end encryption, what is known as ‘Zero-Knowledge’. That implies two things: that your data is encrypted before uploading (which prevents anyone from intercepting them along the way) and that not even Internxt itself can access them. Another highlight of the Internxt cloud is that it is open source. This means that any person or entity can audit it and verify that there is no type of security hole or way for our files to be extracted. It should be noted that this cloud has a two-factor authentication service, which increases its security even further. Are you short on 1TB of storage? Internxt also has its other two plans with the same 87% discount. Below we leave you what they include and their price, both in its annual and ‘Lifetime’ modality: Premium Plan: 3 TB of storage, VPN, antivirus and cleaner per 31 euros per year (or 377 euros lifelong). Ultimate Plan: 5 TB of storage, VPN, antivirus, cleaner and meet per 46 euros per year (or 507 euros lifelong). Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Internxt In Xataka | 61 European alternatives to Google, X, Gmail, Chrome, Maps, DropBox, Google Drive, WhatsApp and other popular services In Xataka | Google Drive alternatives: the best cloud storage services for your files

“Some people expend tremendous energy just being normal.”

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If modern philosophy had its pantheon of rockstars, Albert Camus It would probably be one of the most popular. And not only because he is one of the key figures of the absurdism and existentialism, the latter label he rejected throughout his life. As if that were not enough, Camus was a prominent political activist, a brilliant novelist, and one of the youngest writers to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He picked it up when he was 44 years old, just three years before he died prematurely in a traffic accident in Villeblevin, France. We also remember Camus for something else: his deep reflections on the human condition, something that connects with the quote with which we opened this post. Pill Philosophy. We have discussed it many times: The Internet is full of philosophical quotes of dubious attribution and authorship that is impossible to verify, if not outright false. This is sometimes a problem because the quotes clash with the way of thinking of the philosopher to whom they are assigned, as happens with the most famous phrase (and false) by Marcus Aurelius. Other times the quotes are simply paraphrases that try to make complex ideas digestible. Hidden in a notebook. The phrase that concerns us today is not neither one thing nor the other. It is not by Camus, although the Internet is full of pages that point to him as its author. However, it did come out of his own handwriting and is included among his works. How do you explain that? Simple. In addition to writing his own reflections, Camus was fond of recording other people’s comments that, for one reason or another, he found interesting. one of those quotesnoted in one of his notebooks between 1942 and 1945, is the one that concerns us today: “No one realizes that some people expend tremendous energy simply to be normal.” The comment is attributed to “BB”, the actress’s initials Blanche Balainwho was probably heard during a meeting in Saint-Étienne. Isn’t it your work then? No. And yes. Perhaps Camus is not its author in the strict sense, but (ironies of life) that phrase has ended up becoming one of the most popular of the Nobel Prize in Literature. And it is understandable. In addition to being suggestive, the phrase connects with the way Camus looked at the world and the human condition. It is difficult to know why he decided to write down Alain’s comment in his notebook, but what is clear is that he was the one who popularized it. Not only that. Over time, the actress’s words have become a door through which to access Camus’ philosophical legacy. “Just be normal”. The phrase in question leaves behind a suggestive, almost challenging idea: there are people investing energy in something seemingly as simple and simple as “being normal.” But… What is ‘being normal’? Does it require an effort? If something is ‘normal’, shouldn’t it come naturally to us by definition? Balain-Camus’s reflection dynamites that idea and introduces another, much more suggestive one: the ‘normal’ can actually be an artifice, a mask that we put on to avoid going against the current and whose use, furthermore, is exhausting. “The most important thing”. Camus is not the first to point out the clash between social pressure and authenticity, an idea that already had expressed centuries before the philosopher Michel Montaigne in ‘About loneliness’: “The most important thing in the world is knowing how to be yourself.” What Camus does stand out for is his radical nonconformity and his defense of the rebellion as a form of dignity. Hence many people interpreter Camus’ annotation as a wake-up call, a way to remind us of the price often paid by those who deviate from ‘normality’ or do not meet society’s expectations. The (no) meaning of life. Camus’s phrase has a deeper reading level that connects directly with his ideas about the human condition. Like other authors who embraced philosophy of the absurdCamus believed that our existence is meaningless and does not respond to any higher purpose. That does not mean that it has no value or that we should abandon ourselves to death. On the contrary, the French writer believed that the meaninglessness of existence forces us to pursue a lofty goal: be the ones who give it our own meaning and do so while being fully aware of its futility. Remembering Sisyphus. The clearest example (used by Camus) is left by classical mythology with the character of Sisyphus, the king of Ephyra condemned to push a huge rock up a mountain day after day only to see that, just before reaching the top, the stone always rolled down the mountain. That of Sisyphus is an absurd purpose, just as is the determination of men to search for meaning in a universe that lacks purpose. Still, Sisyphus presses on, carving out his own courage. Just like we do, facing day to day. “The very struggle to reach the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. You have to imagine Sisyphus happy,” Camus concludes. Image | Wikipedia In Xataka | “A place of joy with pain”: the phrase that summarizes the Aztec philosophy to be happier in this life

The business of AI is not AI, it is renting its infrastructure

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We have been a few years since the AI ​​boom and doubts about its profitability continue to loom large. We are witnessing a change in strategy by numerous AI companies such as Claude or Github that points in a clear direction: the end of the free model. Chatbots and other AI tools cost more money than they generate, what really makes money is something else and that thing is having data centers. The real business of AI. The results of the big technology companies for the first quarter of 2026 have just been published and they make something very clear: the real business of AI is not the AI ​​tools, it is being the one who rents the data centers to those AI companies. Amazon, Google and Microsoft have all posted strong revenues, largely driven by their cloud divisions. For its part, Meta has managed to raise revenue forecasts thanks to its advertising business. In other words, none of them are making money directly from their AI tools. In figures. These are the most notable data for each company in this first quarter: Alphabet: has been the big winner, entering $109.9 billion22% more year-on-year and well above forecasts. Google Cloud grows 63% year-on-year with revenues of $20 billion. amazon: Amazon’s total turnover stands at $181.5 billion, of which 37,600 come from Amazon Web Serviceswhich represents an increase of 28% year-on-year and exceeds analysts’ forecasts. Microsoft: has entered $82.9 billion18% more than last year. Regarding Azure, the year-on-year growth is 40%. Goal: Revenues for this first quarter exceed analysts’ forecasts and reach $56.3 billion, which represents a 33% year-on-year increase driven by the advertising business in its family of apps. More wood. Big tech companies are making a lot of money, but they are also spending a lot. We recently talked about how the capex (capital expenditure) of big tech companies by 2026 was already 25% of all world military spendingabout $650 billion combined. Well, if that already seemed crazy to us, Alphabet and Meta have announced that they are going to raise it even more. In the case of Alphabet, 5,000 million more than expected (they said 185,000 and now 190,000), while Meta increases to 10,000 million (it was 135,000 and now 145,000). The reason, of course, is to continue funding AI infrastructure. Amazon and Microsoft have not said anything about increasing spending, which was already very high, with 200,000 and 140,000 million respectively. The market response. During the after hours, Meta was the most affected, with a 6% drop in the stock market. Microsoft was also punished with a 2% drop. In the case of Meta, the reaction of investors is what we have already seen in previous earnings conferences, mainly due to distrust regarding the increase in investment and doubts about whether this AI boom is sustainable in the long term. Instead, investors rewarded Alphabet with a 6% rise and Amazon with 4%. Its commitment to AI is also stratospheric, but it is translating into more visible cloud revenue growth. The strategic gap. There is a clear advantage between those who master more pieces of the AI ​​chain (own chips, cloud, models and applications) and those who depend most on third parties. Here, Amazon and Alphabet are the best positioned companies and it is reflected very clearly in the results. Furthermore, as mentioned in the Wall Street Journalwidespread shortages of both chips and electricity are accelerating the formation of this fork. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Google is the big technology company that is doing the best thanks to AI: so it is going to spend another million

The world has an insoluble problem with coal. China has found the solution and it does not involve burning it

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Decades ago, the world embarked on the decarbonization race. Each country has gone at a pace with nuclear, but gas, hydrogen research and the rise of renewables They aimed to be the impetus to close coal plants. That’s when artificial intelligence arrived and turned the plan upside down. The data centers They need a lot of electricity and, at peak computing, the demand is for immediate energy. This is where coal burning comes in, but in China they believe they have found a solution to avoid definitively bury the coal. Extract energy without burning it. ZC-DCFC. That is the not-so-friendly name that a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shenzhen University has used. baptized what they call as zero carbon direct carbon fuel cell. The group, led by Xie Heping, has been since 2018 developing This concept is not so much a new way of using coal as a primary energy element, but rather a technique to exploit reserves in deep mines. How it works. To achieve this, carbon is pulverized, purified and introduced into the anode chamber of a fuel cell. On the other hand, oxygen is introduced through the cathode, which causes a reaction in the carbon: an electrochemical oxidation. This process generates electricity directly without combustion, without turbines and without emissions. According to those responsible, the efficiency in energy generation is notably greater than that obtained in conventional energy generation with coal and another advantage is that the system is silent, which also solves the problem of noise pollution that comes with the use of coal. Solving the big problem. The ZC-DCFC also works without CO2 emissions because the high-purity carbon dioxide generated at the anode outlet is captured on site and converted by catalysis into chemical feedstocks such as syngas or compounds such as sodium bicarbonate. But the system has not been made thinking about processing coal in a better way. For that we already have the response in the form of renewables and the green hydrogen. What Xie Heping’s team is creating is a solution to the big problem of harnessing coal from deep underground deposits. not so fast. The idea is to create systems that generate electricity, directly, in the depths of these mines. This way there is no need to launch the very expensive industrial network to bring the coal to the surface and then process it. Electricity would be generated two kilometers deep and it is that energy that is directly transmitted to the surface. Now, they have been investigating since 2018 and are already testing it, but although the project is framed within China’s great plan for the Deep Exploration of Earth and Mineral Resources, there is still a long way to go. This is a long-term plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 and it is already point that these carbon cells are unlikely to come into operation on a large scale before 2045. Either way, if it makes sense for anyone to research alternatives to coal using coal, it’s… China. Despite being the power of renewables and be on top of the nuclear raceit is estimated that 60% of the nation’s electricity comes from coal. They have enormous reserves and somehow they have to be used. Image | Ministry of Energy of Chile In Xataka | To survive the end of oil, China has resurrected an old German technology from World War II: turning coal into plastic

There are meteorologists who are already comparing El Niño of 2027 with that of 1877, a catastrophic event that wiped out 4% of the population

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We have been worried about El Niño for weeks and rightly so. One by one, the main weather forecasters have been warning us that curves are coming. It is true that on April 24, 2026, the World Meteorological Organization refused to call it “super”, but its refusal is purely terminological: what is clear is that everything indicates that “it could be strong or very strong.” Even Ryan Maue, one of the most controversial meteorologists of the moment (for his criticism of “climate alarmism”), has become nervous and has linked what is coming directly to the El Niño of 1877-78. That event wiped out 4% of the planet’s population. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and remember what El Niño is. By ‘El Niño’ we refer to a cyclical (although very irregular) climate phenomenon that has great effects on the global climate. Huge, in fact. If we exclude the stations, it is the most important source of annual climate variability from all over the planet. During the warm phase (that is, during El Niño), the absence of strong trade winds that cool the surface of the equatorial Pacific causes the temperature of that area of ​​the ocean to skyrocket. It is this, through different atmospheric teleconnectionswhich disrupts all the weather systems in the world. The effects are varied and change depending on the region (“drier conditions than normal in certain parts of the world; while in others it causes more precipitation. Some countries have to deal with major droughts and others with torrential rains”, says AEMET); But when we talk about temperatures there is no doubt: El Niño is synonymous with heat and, in many places in the world, hunger. That’s what happened in 1877. According to modern reconstructionsEl Niño of 1877-78 was the most intense since 1850: sea surface temperatures remained high for 16 months and, as if that were not enough, that coincided with two warm phenomena (in the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic). That triggered a drought of unusual magnitude. However, the 4% figure is problematic. Not because it’s not realbut because (firstly) it corresponds to a longer period that begins in 1877, but lasts until 1902. And, secondly, because the demographic catastrophe was not a direct effect of the climate, but the result of colonial policies: in many areas of the world they were forced to export grain to the metropolises despite famines. In this sense, transferring the mortality figures from that year to today (even if El Niño reached a similar intensity) is not serious. Although it can be expensive. We must not forget that the super El Niño of 97-98, one of the strongest ENSOs in recent years, caused numerous consequences that lasted for years: the estimates say which caused damage to global economic growth of around 5.7 trillion dollars. That is, we are not talking about an episode from 100 years ago, but something that happened 30 years ago and that draws the framework in which state policies have to work. Above all, because although Spain is not in the first row, the consequences can be global. We are no longer talking about diffuse teleconnections (more rain in some areas), we are talking about enormous economic pressure in international markets that have been having a hard time for years. Nobody is very clear what is going to happen, but we do know that we have to prepare for it. Image | Xataka In Xataka | “It is so extreme that it is difficult to believe”: El Niño forecasts depict an event of unprecedented intensity.

cost savings are becoming very expensive for big tech

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Large technology companies have been in a dynamic for months that is difficult to understand if the current technological context is not taken into account. Companies that, according to your tax results of the first quarter of 2026, record historic profits close to 80%they are cutting jobs at the same time. What is happening in their workforce has nothing to do with a financial crisis, but rather responds to a strategic decision regarding AI. According to the records from the portal Layoffs.fyiSo far in 2026, more than 92,000 employees in the technology sector they have lost their job throughout the world due to layoff rounds that the main technology companies have launched. The main argument for these layoffs is AIbut not because this technology is going to do the work that programmers used to do, but rather it responds to a restructuring of companies to lighten their workforce and focus only on developing AI. The measure is not coming cheap. The big bet of AI that must be paid. By chance (and the proximity to the presentation of their first quarter results) Microsoft and Meta announced, on the same day, layoffs that will affect more than 16,000 employees between the two. Meta will lay off 8,000 workers, 10% of its global workforce, and will leave another 6,000 vacancies unfilled. The goal of both companies is to improve efficiency and offset investment in artificial intelligence. Microsoft will face investments close to 145 billion dollars only in this fiscal year, thus adding to investments in AI what are they doing each and every one of the big technology companies. Maintaining that bet without margins suffering forces cuts, and personnel is the expense that investors like it less. Altogether, investments worth 700,000 million will be accumulated among all large technology companies during 2026. These estimates also include compensation expenses that are associated with these personnel cuts. Oracle, for example, reserved 2.1 billion dollars only for this game in your round of 30,000 layoffs. Microsoft launches a different formula: voluntary dismissal. Instead of announcing collective layoffs, Microsoft has chosen a path that the company had never used in its 51-year history: making voluntary exit offers to encourage its employees to leave by their own decision. Google already applied this formula of voluntary dismissals in its 2025 personnel cuts, not without the risk of losing its best employees by opening the exit door for them. This initiative is aimed at employees with a very specific profile who, in theory, would be more complicated to relocate to a new internal position within the framework of this workforce restructuring. In total, this offer has been made to 7% of its workforce in the US, more than 8,500 people. Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s chief people officer, announced the move in an internal memo. In that statement to which had access CNBCColeman wrote: “Our hope is that this program gives those eligible the option to take that next step on their own terms, with the company’s generous support.” Why an incentive instead of a layoff. Both voluntary departure and conventional dismissal have the same outcome: the workforce is reduced. However, as as highlighted to Fortune Domenique Camacho Moran, lawyer and partner at the Farrell Fritz law firm, specialized in labor law for Fortune 500 companies, traditional layoffs are legally more complex because they require evaluating the performance of each worker and argue his dismissal to avoid legal risks. “The voluntary exit option gives the employer the ability to say that it’s not that we don’t think you’re doing a good job, but that if you’re thinking it’s time to move on, I’m going to encourage you to do so because we need to downsize.” Incidentally, since it is an initiative of the employee, the company does not have to look for arguments for dismissal, which simplifies the process and avoids future legal claims. A risky bet for talent. However, as we already mentioned, the voluntary dismissal formula is risky since it leaves the decision in the hands of the employee. possibility of resigning. In a context of shortage of specialized talent (especially in AI), companies run the risk that their best swords will accept the incentive, paying a double cost for it. Last year, Google offered voluntary departures across several teams, including its search and advertising division. Vice President Nick Fox was blunt in his memo: “I want to be very clear: If you are excited about your job, energized by the opportunity ahead of you, and performing well, I really (really!) hope you don’t take it.” as collected CNBC. In Xataka | While technology companies dispense with juniors to replace them with AI, IBM is doing the opposite: catching bargains Image | Unsplash (Compagnons, Sam Torres)

the true enemy has the face of a “friend”

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Tas the downing of the flight Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 In 2014, international investigators analyzed the remains of the missile involved and discovered that many of its parts came from production lines distributed in different countriessome originally designed for completely different uses. That analysis left an idea that is difficult to ignore, and in Ukraine hasn’t stopped to repeat again and again. A new missile, a “new” surprise. When Ukraine has been able analyze in detail one of the latest models of missiles used by Russia has happened to him like with dronesthe surprise has not come only because of its design or its capabilities, but because of what it had inside. The S-71Kone of Moscow’s most recent bets to sustain its offensive, has revealed an uncomfortable reality that is repeated on the front: beyond direct confrontation, part of the technology that makes it possible does not apply only from Russia. This realization introduces a different dimension to the conflict, one in which the origin of the components becomes a key clue to understanding how current weapons are being built. A weapon to mass produce. The S-71K is part of a new generation of air-to-ground missiles designed with a clear objective: reduce costs and facilitate volume production. Integrating existing elementslike a Cold War bomb adapted to a structure with discrete shapes to reduce its detection, the system combines relatively simple solutions with specific improvements in range and survivability. With a compact engine, a basic guide and an optimized design, it fits into a strategy that prioritize quantity available on the battlefield versus the extreme sophistication of previous models. The air intake of the S-71K engine Global and “friendly” technology. However, the most striking aspect is not in its architecture, but in its bowels. He ukrainian analysis indicates that the vast majority of its electronic components come from abroadincluding countries in Europe, especially Germany, but also in Asia and the United States. As we have been countingthis pattern is not isolated, but that repeats in other Russian systems, suggesting that, despite sanctions, Moscow continues accessing international technology through civil markets, intermediaries or indirect routes. The paradox is more than evident: in the middle of a war, part of the operation of these weapons depends on parts manufactured in countries that, in theory, seek to limit that same capacity. The real challenge. He findFurthermore, it focuses on the real difficulties of controlling the global flow of technology. Sanctions, although broad, do not always completely block access to critical components, especially when these They have civil uses and circulate in complex supply chains. For Ukraine and its allies, the problem is no longer just stopping Russian production at source, but identify and close those cracks that allow key pieces to continue arriving. In that sense, the battlefield extends far beyond the front, reaching factories, distributors and international markets. A war in supply chains. If you will also, the S-71K case illustrates how modern conflicts depend as much on global logistics as on direct military capability. As Russia seeks cheaper, more scalable solutions to keep up the pressure, Ukraine faces not only new weapons, but a system that continues to feed on distributed technology all over the world. The image that remains at the end is, to say the least, complex: the visible adversary launches the missile, but part of its effectiveness is built with pieces that travel much wider routes and are sometimes difficult to control. from “allied” territoriesturning the global economy into an indirect actor in the conflict. Image | GUR In Xataka | The war in Ukraine continues to make science fiction useless: we already have drones that kill like a hunter In Xataka | Russia has an unprecedented enemy in the Ukrainian war: Japan has just landed with a weapon to take down its shaheds

China is preparing the most powerful and rare exascale supercomputer on the planet. No GPU: only Chinese CPUs

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An exascale supercomputer is one capable of performing at least 1 exaflop (10¹⁸) of floating point operations per second. These machines are the most powerful currently available if we stick to classic computers and leave aside the prototypes of quantum computers. The classification TOP500 identifies the most capable supercomputers on the planetand, as expected, four exascale machines appear at the top of this list: The Captain, FrontierAurora and Jupiter. The first three reside in the United States and the fourth in Germany. Curiously, no Chinese supercomputer appears in the top ten positions of this classification, although we know that some of its most powerful machines are not officially reported to the TOP500 for geopolitical reasons. Be that as it may, the Government led by Xi Jinping is determined to change this scenario. And the Shenzhen National Supercomputing Center has announced that is going to build a supercomputer called Lingshen that, according to this institution, will have a sustained performance of more than 2 exaflops and will integrate only components designed and manufactured in China. Lingshen supercomputer architecture is very unusual The supercomputer ‘The Captain’ from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA) is a real beast. This machine exceeds 1.8 exaflops, making it currently the most powerful on the planet. The APUs are responsible for its brute force. Instinct MI300A from AMD, which work hand in hand with the EPYC 9005 processors. However, the most surprising thing is that it brings together no less than 11,340,000 cores and delivers 1,809 PFlops/s Rmax and 2,821.10 PFlops/s Rpeak. Lingshen will bring together 47,000 processors of Chinese origin that will be distributed in Huawei Kunpeng servers The architecture of ‘El Capitan’ is very similar to that of the other supercomputers in the TOP500 classification, but the machine being prepared by the Shenzhen National Supercomputing Center is going to take different paths. And it is that according to Lu Yutongthe director of this center, the Lingshen supercomputer will use only general purpose processors (CPU), and will not use GPU. Not a single one. It is a very unusual decision, and it is surprising that in theory it will exceed 2 exaflops only with this type of chips. Be that as it may, this is not the only thing we know. Lingshen will bring together 47,000 processors of Chinese origin that will be distributed in servers Huawei Kunpeng equipped with Taishan cores with ARM architecture. Lu Yutong has also confirmed that this machine will have 650PB of storage and a million-port interconnection. Everything that the Shenzhen National Supercomputing Center has announced sounds great, but this project also leaves us with some very reasonable doubts. The most obvious is that Lingshen is just a project at the moment. It has not yet been built, so its theoretical maximum performance comes from an estimate and not from a measurement provided by a real test bench. On the other hand, it is very surprising that the Shenzhen National Supercomputing Center has chosen to integrate only CPU. Huawei, Moore Threads and Cambricon Technologies are three of the chinese companies which have domestically made GPUs that could presumably fit into this machine. In any case, it is worth keeping track of this project to see if Lingshen finally lives up to the expectations it has raised. Image | TOP500.org More information | Shenzhen National Supercomputing Center In Xataka | The Frontier supercomputer is the second most powerful exascale machine on the planet. And it has a mission: nuclear fusion

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