let humanoid robots work

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An airport can seem like a highly automated machine: screens, boarding gates, belts, controls and processes that advance almost without us realizing it. But it is enough to look a little beyond the passenger journey to find another reality: planes that must be prepared, luggage that must be moved, merchandise that must be loaded and operations that continue to depend on human hands. What we have seen now in Japan starts precisely from that less visible area of ​​the trip, where automating is not as simple as it seems. The test. According to the statement published by Japan AirlinesJAL Ground Service, the group company in charge of ground handling operations at large national airports, and GMO AI & Robotics will begin a demonstration with humanoid robots at Haneda airport in May of this year. The plan includes phased verifications until 2028 and the companies present it as the first demonstration of its kind in Japan. A key point. The commitment is not only to automate a task, but to test machines capable of moving in an environment already designed for people. The airline explains that ground operations are carried out in limited spaces around the planes and with support equipment of very different shapes, something that makes the use of fixed automated installations or single-function robots difficult. The advantage of the humanoid robot, according to the companies, is that it can adapt better without requiring major modifications to airport facilities or aircraft. What robots will do. The first phase does not aim to replace all ground operations at once, but rather to measure very limited use cases. So to begin with, the robots will be deployed in tasks of loading and unloading freight containers. Other possible uses are also contemplated within the project, from baggage and cargo handling to cabin cleaning and the operation of ground handling equipment. The key is in that nuance: these are scenarios that we want to test, not capacities already implemented on a large scale. The bottleneck is on land. We are not facing an isolated test because an airport wants to exhibit technology, but rather a tentative response to a very specific problem. Japan Airlines links the project to a lack of ground handling personnel, a pressure it attributes to the growth of inbound tourism and the decline in the working-age population. Furthermore, these tasks are not just repetitive: the company remembers that they require qualified personnel, involve safety requirements and can involve a considerable physical burden. Testing doesn’t solve everything. The design of the project itself invites you to read it with caution. As we say, the demonstration will advance in phases: first, operations at the airport will be observed, mapped and analyzed to identify where the robots can act safely, and then repeated verifications will be carried out that simulate real environments. The ultimate goal is to build a more sustainable operation through less dependence on manual labor and a reduction in physical workload, but not completely eliminate the human role. Images | Japan Airlines In Xataka | Anthropic is one step away from being worth as much as Samsung. And what the market is buying is not Claude

We know that all things are in crisis due to the closure of Hormuz, but the aluminum thing is truly worrying

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The world economy has come face to face with a scenario that no one wanted to foresee. The global aluminum market is facing what analysts and experts already classify as a “black swan” event. The Third Gulf War has caused a drastic closure in shipping routes, triggering a supply crisis of historic proportions. An unprecedented crisis. “The magnitude of the supply crisis that we are seeing in the aluminum market is probably the largest single supply crisis that a base metals market has suffered in the post-2000 era,” Nick Snowdon, head of metals and mining research at the trading firm Mercuria, summarized it forcefully. in statements collected by the agency Reuters. And the numbers support the alarm: the Persian Gulf region has a smelting capacity of 7 million metric tons annually. That is, almost 9% of this year’s global supply is at the epicenter of a war conflict. A logistical bottleneck. The implications of this blockage go far beyond financial speculation, as aluminum is the backbone of vital industries such as transportation, construction and packaging. Natalie Scott-Gray, Senior Metals Demand Analyst in StoneXfocuses on logistical asphyxiation. According to the expert, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz does not have an easy solution, since “there are no other maritime routes that have a similar capacity.” This disruption, Scott-Gray explains, has the potential to eliminate up to 50% of the Middle East’s aluminum supply, equivalent to a direct 5% hit to global production. In Europe, the impact has already jumped from offices to factories. According to the specialized portal Miningconsumers in the construction and transportation sector are being squeezed. In Rotterdam, the physical premium (the extra cost paid above the market price to ensure delivery) for aluminum extrusion ingots has more than doubled since the start of the war, rising from $530 to $1,100 per metric ton. And the perfect storm arrives. The market has reacted with panic. According to data from Reutersfear of shortages triggered prices on the London Metal Exchange (LME) to a four-year high, reaching $3,672 per ton in mid-April. Since the start of hostilities, the reference price has risen by 14%, how it complements Financial Times. What follows this crisis is an imminent structural deficit. Mercuria estimates that the market will face a minimum deficit of 2 million tons by the end of the year, an alarming figure if we consider that visible global inventories are barely around one and a half million tons. The West is particularly vulnerable. The United States imported almost 22% of its aluminum from the Middle East last year, while Europe relied on the region for 18.5% of its imports. Safety nets are failing: Emirates Global Aluminum (EGA) has been forced to declare status of “force majeure” in several European contracts after suffering an Iranian attack on its foundry in the United Arab Emirates. Simultaneously, Kubal, the only Swedish foundry (owned by the Russian Rusal), has mysteriously stopped its deliveries in Europefurther straining short-term availability. The “kings” of chaos. This aluminum shock does not occur in a vacuum; It is the symptom of a greater illness. Daniel Yergin, vice president of S&P Global, warned in Bloomberg that we are facing “the biggest energy disruption we have ever seen.” The impact transcends oil, affecting natural gas, fertilizers and metals. Aluminum production is extremely energy intensive, so rising fuel prices are driving up the costs of foundries around the world. However, in a troubled river, fishermen gain. While manufacturers suffer, the giants of commodity trading are making a move. He Financial Times reveals that the Swiss firm Mercuria has begun aggressive expansion, investing more than $3 billion in base metals. In a strategic shift, they have gone from simply financing shipments to purchasing real assets, acquiring 25% of an aluminum smelter in Indonesia. “We have both the appetite and the capacity to do more,” he assured the British newspaper Kostas Bintashead of metals at Mercuria, confirming that the company is firmly committed to this metal in the midst of the chaos. The clock is ticking. The current crisis has mutated, In the words of Yergin to Bloombergin a clash between two blockades: American economic pressure versus Tehran’s ability to “wage war on the world economy”. The paradox is that this energy and logistics bottleneck will end up accelerating the transition to electric vehicles and will force countries to redesign their energy security. But in the short term, reality is stubborn. As the analysis concludes ReutersMiddle Eastern aluminum simply cannot be replaced overnight. China, the world’s largest producer, has a strict legal annual production limit of 45 million tonnes, and neither the United States nor Europe have enough idle capacity they can turn on to salvage the situation. The “black swan” has landed, and the global industry will have to learn to survive in a scenario where aluminum, once abundant, has become a treasure caught in the crossfire. Image | Magnificent Xataka | Iran has pulled out a “trick” to sell to China while avoiding the US: turning the ocean into its secret gas station

unlock the mother of all “extra payments”

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Elon Musk is very interested in get to mars to demonstrate humanity’s ability to advance the space race. And also for your pocket, we are not going to fool ourselves. According to the salary package approved by the SpaceX board and recently reviewed by Reutersthe company’s CEO will receive immense incentives if two goals are met: reaching a market value of $7.5 trillion and establishing a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million people. It’s outrageous, but the incentive is worth it. Now that’s extra pay.. If the two aforementioned objectives are met, Elon Musk will receive 200 million in restricted shares with super voting. This means that it is not money as such, but it would give you greater sovereignty over the company’s decisions. In fact, a super vote means that each share counts as several votesinstead of just one. A symbolic salary? Whether he reaches those goals or not, Musk already has what the company describes as a symbolic salary of $54,080 a year. It is true that in the United States this can be a relatively normal salary for qualified people and very low for a CEO. In Spain, on the other hand, the majority of the population might find it offensive that it is classified as symbolic. In any case, in this case it is the sovereignty over the company that really incentivizes the founder of the company. The current situation. As of December 31, the CEO of SpaceX It owned 68.8 million in previously awarded Class B stock options with an exercise price of about $42 that expires in 2031. This means it has a locked-in price per share. If the market value of those shares rises, as expected, you could buy them much cheaper and then sell them, keeping all the profits. Only with 61.8 million shares is already outrageous. If it reaches the promised figure of 200 it would be an immense benefit. Power over the council. Elon Musk he is still the head of the council that made this salary decision. Furthermore, one of its directors is your great friend Antonio Thank you. Logically, the decisions made about Elon Musk’s actions will always be a benefit for him. What you have already earned. According to Bloombergby early 2025 Elon Musk had been able to earn $380 billion thanks to the performance of the stock value of his companies. At the end of 2025, His total fortune had already exceeded $600,000.. With all this, if he achieves his goal of colonizing Mars, this fortune will reach astronomical figures. In every sense of the word. It is true that the objectives are immense; But, since they do not have an agreed deadline, the company expects to achieve it at some point. In fact, according to the research director of EquilateCourtney Yu, are numbers that help set expectations for investors about what the company’s goals really are. Money calls for money and, as it could not be otherwise, Elon Musk is counting on taking a very large piece of the cake. Image | Justin Pacheco/Magnific In Xataka | Carnegie built libraries, Gates sold them on CD-ROM, Musk locked them in an AI: the history of knowledge control

no car is more luxurious than the one no one can buy

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One hundred buyers have paid 3.5 million dollars for a Rolls-Royce that does not exist, that they have not seen and about which they know very little. The most surprising thing is that many other millionaires would have paid much more than those 3.5 million to be among that group of select owners. The British brand has been turning the inaccessible into the highest possible aspiration for a century and has used that FOMO of millionaires to promote their Project Nightingale, the first model of the new Rolls-Royce Coachbuild Collection. A concept of exclusive cars manufactured one by one in an artisanal way in which the first luxury is knowing that no one will be able to buy one like it. Do things like yesterday, with tomorrow’s technology The Nightingale Project is not a car itself, but a collection of fully customized bodies and artisanal manufacturing. The resulting car has the dimensions of a Phantom, but only has room for two people. Its design is inspired by the 16EX and 17EX prototypes that the brand developed in the 1920s. The name of the new model comes from “Le Rossignol”, the house that co-founder Henry Royce had on the French Riviera. Rolls-Royce 17ex from 1928 The new proposal from the British luxury brand is based on a 100% electric platform. According to the official note of Rolls-Royce, “the quiet, effortless delivery of power amplifies every characteristic that has defined the Rolls-Royce experience for more than a century.” The first 100 units of this new electric luxury concept are already sold and deliveries will not begin until well into 2028. Nowadays we see it as an eccentricity to make bodies by hand, but this was normal until Henry Ford generalized mass production of automobiles. However, until the late 1940s, all Rolls-Royces were produced one by one. The Nightingale Project recovers that artisanal and unique essence of the classic Rolls-Royce and adds the latest technology and exclusive luxury finishes of the brand, adapting it to the client’s taste. Although the brand announced this project only a few days ago, in reality the buyers of these first 100 units have been involved in the development since 2024, and this year they will accompany the engineers in tests in extreme climates. As explained CEO Chris Brownridge to Bloomberg: “Customers always ask us for more extraordinary cars. But we know that luxury does not lie only in having the car, but in the experience of knowing that they were present from the beginning,” said the manager. Luxury is no longer measured in money, it is measured in desire Antoine Tessier, CEO of duPont Registry Group and co-author of the report of the Boston Consulting Group on the future of the luxury car, puts it aptly described: “If the automaker tells you that you’re one of 900, that’s one thing. But if they say, ‘We’ll give you access to one of three,’ that’s where it becomes psychological or even egocentric. You can say, ‘I’m different.’ You’re no longer part of the richest 1%, you’re part of the 0.1%, and that makes you feel good.” It has been a long time since horses, cylinders or acceleration stopped being the main argument for selling luxury cars like those manufactured by Rolls-Royce. This already It’s not about cars, it’s about status and exclusivity. Rolls-Royce Project Nightingale According to Felix Stellmaszek, global director of BCG’s automotive practice, he stated in his report that “technical specifications are not even among the main reasons why people buy certain vehicles or certain brands. It is much more about the emotion and the overall experience that a brand offers. Access is essential.” According to data in this report, the US market for vehicles over $100,000 is valued at around $110 billion and could double in the next decade, registering annual growth of between 5% and 7%. For its part, the hyper-luxury segment (vehicles over $500,000) in which Rolls-Royce operates will grow at a rate of 5% over the next decade. The key to this segment is found in the scarcity and exclusivity. For this reason, luxury car manufacturers are investing in their customization “ateliers.” The billing of customization workshop of Ferrari has grown so much that, according to official dataof the 1,525 million euros of profit it obtained in 2024, about 1,300 million euros of those profits were invoiced from units that had gone through the Ferrari Atelier. Porsche is in the same situation, which has stepped on the accelerator at its Sonderwunsch programin which the brand accepts orders from the owners to build exclusive units and 100% handmade of their cars. Lamborghini has also jumped on the bandwagon with the Opera Unica editionsin which unique versions of its series models are created by hand. However, the brand that has best known how to exploit this new need for extreme exclusivity among millionaires has been Bugatti with models like the Tourbillonwith which it does not matter if you have all the money in the world to pay for it, if you have not been selected as a potential owner of one of its few units, you can never have it. In Xataka | Bugatti has found a new vein: its customers spend an average of 500,000 euros on extras to personalize their car Image | Rolls-Royce

The traffic jams in Valencia are hell. And a bridge over the Turia aspires to resolve the chaos between the V-30 and the A-3

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Traffic jams for miles and with a regularity that seems almost infallible. Valencia has a problem with traffic jams and the connection between the V-30 and the A-3 is one of the hot spots every morning. They explain in The Provinces that the growth of the city leaves 800,000 residents inside… surrounded by 800,000 residents of the surrounding towns. With some infrastructure built decades ago For a much smaller number of residents, roads and the main Valencian roads are clogged with an assiduity that punishes the neighbors day after day. But of all the roads, V-30 is the most marked. The road has problems along its entire length. The new port terminal anticipates more complications looking to the future but other hot spots such as the connection with the A-3 is one of the critical steps usually indicated. To begin to alleviate the situation, the Ministry of Transport has given the green light to the construction of a remodeling of the link between both roads to facilitate traffic between the A-3 and the V-30. A new bridge to alleviate the situation The Ministry of Transport has published approval for the action on the link between V-30 and A-3, which includes a lane expansion and the construction of a new bridge. In total, nine structures will be affected, of which six are newly built. The project will have a budget of 56 million euros (VAT included) and will try to unclog an area that is constantly overwhelmed, especially during peak hours. The remodeling, They explain on the ministry’s websitewill have the following interventions: New planned structures: Bridge parallel to the existing one over the Turia riverbed that will also serve to bridge the crossing over the V-30. Underpass at the A-3 junction and the Puerto-Madrid branch (2 structures). Cycle-pedestrian underpass under the Valencia-Puerto branch. Cycle-pedestrian walkway over the Valencia-Barcelona branch. Existing drinking water pipe protection structure. Planned expansions on existing structures: Expansion of the underpass of 9 d’Octubre Avenue. Extension of the pedestrian walkway over the branches: Madrid-Barcelona, ​​Puerto-Madrid and the V-30 service road. Expansion of the pedestrian walkway over the A-3. In the case of the action on the A-3, the road will be expanded to four lanes towards Madrid. These lanes will be available to drivers from the interchange to the airport access. The objective is to facilitate the flow of traffic on a link that, right now, has become a bottleneck. in the diary Levant They explain that the situation is so complicated that, like a domino effect, the traffic jam usually extends to the V-31 highway as drivers try to find some other alternative route to the junction that forms there. In addition, the expansion of the lanes is also good news in order to save the high volume of trucks that begin their journey in the city port and take this road to begin their route to Madrid. Right now, the volume of cars is so high that the traffic jam is not only found on the A-3 towards Madrid. The branch from V-30 requires a long turn that reduces the speed of the cars. Between an A-3 with very dense traffic and slow access, the right lane of the V-30 ends up suffering all the punishment, being completely collapsed during rush hour. In addition, the residents of Xirivella, next to the road, will have acoustic screens and trees installed to reduce the sound of traffic and mitigate the visual impact of the structures. This was a demand that citizens had been demanding for some time and that had not been executed. Photo | Google Maps and Ministry of Transportation In Xataka | The great dream of Tres Cantos and Colmenar Viejo literally passes over El Pardo: “close” the M-50

Birds in cities are more afraid of women than men

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Walking through a park and having a pigeon, a parrot and a sparrow fly away when we approach is quite an everyday occurrence, since they see us as a threat, probably due to our large size in comparison. But the truth is that we now know that this gesture It is more common when the human approaching is a womanas if it were a genre that scared him more. They have investigated it. This curiosity has been the conclusion reached by a published scientific study in British Ecological Society in which it is noted that birds escape sooner when women approach than when men approach. And to get here, the research team did not rely on a few observations, but designed an experiment that grouped 2,701 observations across five European countries and 37 different urban species. The results. If we look at specific figures, it has been seen that when the person approaching the birds is a woman, the flight distance is approximately one meter greater than when a man approaches. And here the question we can ask ourselves is whether this is a simple coincidence, but here the researchers have made it clear that this is not the case, since the conclusion that birds distinguish the sex of the human observer is statistically solid. And to ensure this accuracy, the researchers controlled multiple variables during the approaches, including initial distance, the size of the bird school, and surrounding tree cover. Because? Although the pattern of behavior is undeniable, the exact causes remain largely a mystery, with researchers pointing to a lack of a concrete explanatory mechanism. The theories that are mainly pointed out are related to different factors, such as differences in body shape between the woman and the mobile phone or even movement, since the way of walking can be a warning signal for animals. Furthermore, it is proposed that the smell that each of the genders has is a possible hypothesis to explain this anticipated flight reaction. But the truth is still a great mystery. Survival in evolution. The fact that birds pay so much attention to humans makes sense if we take into account the enormous evolutionary pressure that cities exert, since in a very short time birds have had to adapt to our presence and above all to the pressure of having us literally on top of them in part of their environment. And little by little we are learning that not all human beings have the same effect on them. Images | wirestock at Magnific ArthurHidden on Magnific In Xataka | Spain has a very ugly bird that does not want it to become extinct. And all of Europe depends on you not doing it

a respite for affected services

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There are weekends when the problem does not start when someone tries to watch a game through an unauthorized means, but when a perfectly legitimate website stops loading or a store loses sales because people cannot access its website. This is what several companies and platforms have been denouncing in recent months: IP blocks associated with the strategy LaLiga against unauthorized emissions that many times end up reaching services that had no relationship with that content. And that is the bottom line: protecting rights should not turn third parties into collateral damage. Now Congress has taken a first step to try to put order in this scenario. The Economy, Commerce and Digital Transformation Commission approved yesterday April 29, 2026 a non-legal Proposition promoted by ERC that, as published by Democratwas agreed with the PSOE to request more proportionality in the face of judicially ordered IP blocks. In practice, NLP serves to record of a parliamentary position and forward a petition to the Government. It is not a small thing, especially when the debate had been accumulating complaints from affected companies and users for months, but it is not equivalent to changing the legal framework quickly. The next step, if there is one, will have to come through regulatory means. One initiative, several specific requests The initiative converts this general idea into several requests to the Government, with a common axis: that the response to illegal content does not end up affecting unrelated third parties. From the published text we can extract these points: Review, with the competent ministries, the protocols for the execution of sentences on IP blocking to prevent them from affecting legitimate digital platforms or essential services Create an inter-ministerial mechanism that evaluates the impact of these orders on legitimate services and applications, and that promotes alternative technical solutions. Promote regulatory changes in the Digital Services Law and the Intellectual Property Law to incorporate technological proportionality and reinforce the responsibility of rights holders in the direct control of illegal content, avoiding massive blocks on unrelated third parties Protect rights such as information, freedom of expression and digital social innovation against indiscriminate technological measures, especially when they affect free, non-profit or public service services Open a space for dialogue with affected platforms, operators, LaLiga and digital rights protection organizations to define good practices Take an active position before the judiciary so that blocking orders respect proportionality and reduce their impact on citizens, in line with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights The important difference is that we are not dealing with an abstract statement. Among its points, as we can see, the document expressly mentions the Digital Services Law and the Intellectual Property Law as frameworks in which to promote a reform to incorporate technological proportionality. In other words: the text does not change the law today, but it does draw a fairly clear route to try to do so. That is the context that turns the discussion into something broader than a dispute between LaLiga and those who try to access unauthorized broadcasts.As we have seen in Xatakaamong those affected there are examples from very different areas: online sporting goods stores, services managed by technical agencies, digital communities and even public law corporations such as the Seville Bar Association. Each case suffers it in a different way: commercial activity that drops, payments that are not recorded, traffic that drops or users who cannot access when they need to do so. The vote also leaves an interesting political picture. Democrat also details that the initiative went ahead with the support of PSOE, ERC, Sumar, Bildu, PNV and Compromís, while PP and Vox voted against and Junts was absent. The same medium also includes a relevant nuance: despite rejecting this NLP, the PP stated that it will present its own amendments to the Digital Services Law in a line aimed at avoiding damages to legitimate services. Images | Xataka with Nano Bana | LaLiga In Xataka | LaLiga has been at war with Cloudflare for years over piracy. It has just joined forces with its main competitor

Anthropic is one step away from being worth as much as Samsung. And what the market is buying is not Claude

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Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is exploring a new round of financing that would value it at more than 900,000 million dollars. If it closes, it would surpass OpenAI as the world’s most valuable AI startup. Altman’s company set its needle at 862 million last month. The figure more than doubles the 350,000 million it had in February. In just two months. Why is it important. The valuation no longer reflects Anthropic’s sales. It responds to a bet on what the company can become in five years or a decade: a provider of something resembling an essential service. Anthropic bills Claude for subscriptions and accesses to its API. That business exists, grows quickly and has reasonable margins. But it does not by itself justify a valuation that is close to that of Samsung, the Korean megalodon that manufactures everything from the chips we carry in our pockets to the ships that cross the ocean. The context. What the market is buying with Anthropic, and as often happens in the stock market, is not the present, but a hypothesis: that a very small handful of laboratories will control the foundational layer on which the software of the next decade will be built. And that Anthropic will be one of those few. And it will do so in a very profitable way. The logic, on the other hand, is the same that led to overvaluing telecos during the bubble dotcom or to the electric companies at the beginning of electrification. Whoever owns the basic infrastructure sets the rules. Google has already committed 10 billion to the previous valuation, with another 30 billion conditional on objectives. Amazon has put in 5 billion and plans to inject 20,000 more. An IPO could come before the end of the year, around October. Between the lines. That Google and Amazon, two of the largest cloud companies in the world along with Microsoft, finance a company that also sells through them says a lot about how they understand the moment. They are ensuring supply, it is not just an investment in a supplier. It is the difference between buying shares in an oil company and buying a field. Anthropic is, for these hyperscalersa deposit. Yes, but. The hypothesis has its cracks. The models are commoditizing faster than it seemed a year ago. The technical difference between Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini It is measured in nuances, not in generational leaps. If foundational AI ends up being a commodity (something like electricity or water coming out of the tap), current valuations are unsustainable. If it ends up being an infrastructure with network effects and high barriers to entry (something like an operating system), they may even fall short. The market is paying for the second hypothesis. Time will tell. The money trail. Anthropic recently announced, with restrained fanfare, Mythosa model capable of detecting and exploiting vulnerabilities in critical software. The company deemed it “too dangerous” to release and has only given it to a closed group of companies for internal testing. Even so, it has been accessed by unauthorized users. That is exactly the reason why some investors pay these figures: such a model is not sold but granted. And whoever decides to whom it is granted has regulatory power de facto that not even a Samsung, at least outside of South Korea, has ever had. The big question. What happens if the bet goes wrong? A valuation of 900 billion means that Anthropic has to generate, at some reasonable point, revenues in the order of tens of billions a year with very high margins. It is possible. But it was also important for Cisco to maintain its 2000 valuation, and it has needed 26 years to tie. The difference is that this time the buyers of the bet are the companies themselves that depend on the result. This reduces the risk of a sharp correction. And he postpones it. In Xataka | There is a thing called “Ornn price index”, it is out of control and it is bad news for everyone Featured image | Xataka

BYD promised them very happy by putting very advanced ADAS in very cheap cars. Until the RAM crisis came

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In recent years, BYD had turned its brand new advanced driving system into one of the biggest arguments to confront Tesla. And having this type of technology in affordable cars can be attractive to the consumer, but it has a cost that other companies can hardly absorb. BYD thought so, but the RAM crisis It has stopped him, and the context is now much more complicated. Prices go up. BYD just announced in China a 21% increase in the price of the ‘DiPilot 300’ option (basically its “God’s Eye” in its version with LiDAR), which goes from 9,900 to 12,000 yuan (about 1,560 euros). The company justifies the measure by the “significant increase in global storage hardware costs.” In other words, DRAM memory and storage have become so expensive that they can no longer absorb the cost without passing it on to the customer. Until now, no major manufacturer had so explicitly linked a price increase to the memory market, according to collect South China Morning Post. In detail. The ADAS Modern ones (and especially those that integrate LiDAR like those from BYD) are very demanding on memory. They need high-performance chips to process LiDAR point clouds in real time, run driving models, and store route data. The problem is that this same type of memory is being absorbed en masse by artificial intelligence data centers, which account for most of the global production of DRAM and NAND. The prices of these chips have entered what analysts call a “supercycle,” with increases that according to TrendForce are around 55-60% in conventional DRAM this year, but that in premium automotive segments (which also use DDR5) have reached up to 300% in free market price. A problem of scale. BYD’s colossal deployment makes the problem especially bulging in its case. The company has installed your “God’s Eye” system in more than 2.85 million vehicles as of March 2026, generating approximately 180 million kilometers of driving data per day, according to own data of the signature. At that scale, every extra cent in memory multiplies into millions. On the other hand, BYD closed the first quarter of 2026 with its worst net profit in three years: 4.08 billion yuan, a drop of 55% compared to the same period of the previous year, according to figures published by the company. In this context, maintaining prices without making a move has become unsustainable for the company. They are not alone. Chery, Xiaomi and the Huawei Aito brand prices have also increased on models with similar advanced driving systems in recent months. William Li, founder and CEO of Nio, counted in January that the biggest cost pressure of the year would not come from raw materials, but from memory. What changes for the buyer. The founding promise of “God’s Eye” was that autonomous driving would no longer be an expensive privilege. As we counted almost a year agothe experience of the system on the highway (even in the most economical model, the Dolphin Surf/Seagull, which sells for around 9,000 euros in China at the exchange rate) was genuinely impressive. Lane keeping was impeccable, autonomous lane changes were well executed and traffic management rivaled other premium range systems. BYD even planned to distribute it as standard in all its models, regardless of the price. Although that narrative is not dead, it is beginning to have nuances. At the moment, the version with LiDAR (the most capable) is already a payment option that has just become 21% more expensive. And now what. From Counterpoint Research they point that the blow will be uneven: low-end models simply will not carry this technology, and high-end ones have less price-sensitive buyers. The greatest impact falls on the mid-segment, where BYD’s value proposition was most disruptive. As the markets are, we will have to wait to find out what direction the company finally takes. Cover image | BYD In Xataka | Cuba is experiencing a brutal energy crisis, so a Cuban has used ingenuity to fuel his car: charcoal

China has launched its hypersonic missile against the US and Japan

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During the Falklands War, British naval officers they later recognized that one of the most tense moments was not a big attack, but the simple missile warning that no one saw arriving clearly on the radars. In a matter of seconds, the uncertainty was enough to disrupt maneuvers, communications and critical decisions across the fleet. The scene left an idea that is difficult to forget: at sea, sometimes the decisive factor is not firepower, but the speed at which everything happens. A missile, three speeds and a dashboard change. The appearance of YJ-20 missile marks a qualitative leap in the military competition between great powers, and it does so because it places China in a position of advantage in the development of hypersonic weapons capable of altering the naval balance in a matter of minutes. This system, designed specifically to attack large surface ships, introduces a threat difficult to neutralize due to his extreme speed and ability to overwhelm defenses. In other words, the difference no longer lies only in who has more ships, but in who can hit first without giving any room for reaction. The problem of extreme speed. Several analysts said weeks ago that the YJ-20 moves in a range that redefine the times naval combat, with cruising speeds around Mach 6 and a final descent that can reach Mach 10. This means that the interval between launch and impact is drastically reduced, seriously limiting the ability of current defensive systems to detect, track and intercept the projectile. For example, in scenarios close to China, this margin narrows even moreto the point of compromising any effective attempt at a response. missile launch Aircraft carrier in the spotlight. The Scmp analysts They recalled that the priority target of this type of missile is aircraft carriers, considered the core of US naval power. Although these operate within complex battle groups with multiple defensive layers, the nature YJ-20 hypersonic calls into question the effectiveness of that model. There is no doubt, we always talk about deterrence, but the possibility of launching multiple missiles against the same target increases the risk of saturationopening the door for even advanced systems to be overwhelmed. A sea as a scene of tension. And it is at this point where the missile has been in the news this week. The tests and demonstrations of the YJ-20 that have taken place do not occur in a vacuum, but in a context of increasing friction in the South China Sea. The reason? As the United States, the Philippines and Japan carry out joint exercises like Balikatan 2026China has responded showing its offensive capacity in exactly the same region. Geographic proximity, especially in areas such as Luzon or the Taiwan Strait, turns each maneuver into a strategic message with direct implications on regional balance. Technology versus technology: the emerging gap. Yes, because the comparison with systems like Japanese Type 88 missile highlights the technological leap that hypersonic systems represent. While the latter multiply speed and reduce reaction times, many of the allied systems continue to operate with subsonic capabilities or, at best, supersonic. This gap forces to rethink doctrinesinvestments and priorities in defense, since current tools may not be sufficient against this new generation of threats. A career that moves to space. They explained from IE that the American response points to large-scale solutions, such as the development of space-based interception systems. Here proposals arise such as the so-called “Golden Dome” announced by Trump that reflect the magnitude of the challenge, with projected investments of hundreds of billions of dollars and deadlines that extend for years. The problem is not only technological, but strategic: how to adapt to an environment in which speed and surprise can decide a confrontation before it even fully develops. A debut at the worst possible time. The entrance on scene of the YJ-20 matches one of the voltage spikes more visible in the region, just when forces from the United States, Japan and their allies deploy their largest joint exercise in waters near China. In that context, the public demonstration of this missile is not an isolated gesture, but rather a calculated message that takes advantage of the moment of maximum military exhibition rival. If you will, the result is a particularly delicate combination: one with a new weapon, tested against potential direct adversaries, in a scenario where each movement has an immediate strategic reading and increases the risk of possible escalation. Image | CCTV In Xataka | China is beating the US with a simple strategy: manufacturing hypersonic missiles at the price of a Tesla In Xataka | China has revealed a new naval military strategy: civilian ships that can become missile launchers

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