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One study said that trees “sense” eclipses 14 hours in advance. The real explanation is much more boring

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In 2025, a team of Italian scientists discovered something surprising regarding eclipses. According to a study carried out in a coniferous forest of the Dolomitestrees can predict solar eclipses through changes in their internal electrical activity. Does this have any scientific use? Logically not, since there are other, much simpler and more proven ways to predict an eclipse. There are eclipses predicted a thousand years from now. Even so, the study was very well received, since it is a great example of curious science. The problem is that, according to the analysis of scientists Ariel Novoplansky and Hezi Yizhaq published this year in Trends in Plant Sciencethe results of that study were purely speculative, since there are other reasons why these changes in the electrical activity of the trees could have occurred. Changes in the electrome. Italian scientists detected changes in the electrome. That is, the set of electrical impulses that are transmitted through plant tissues in response to external stimuli, such as water stress or temperature changes. It is something like the electrical activity that is transmitted through our neurons. These researchers placed electricity sensors in conifers of the species Picea abies during a partial eclipse that could be seen in the Dolomites in 2022. They observed that, fourteen hours before the eclipse began, older trees experienced a large increase in their electrical activity. Furthermore, they then spread it to younger trees. Little sense. If you think about it, this doesn’t make much sense. We have seen that changes in the electrome are usually in response to external stimuli. It is true that during a solar eclipse decreases the temperaturebut two factors must be taken into account. The first is that they do it just when the eclipse begins, not fourteen hours before. On the other hand, in this particular partial eclipse, in the Dolomites area, sunlight was barely reduced by 10% for a couple of hours. The temperature should not have dropped slightly and the changes in luminosity should not have caused stress for the trees either. Lightning and sparks. For the scientists who published the 2026 counteranalysis, the explanation for what happened in the Dolomites is much simpler. It is known that, just 14 hours before the eclipse, there was a large storm in the vicinity of the Dolomites, with intense rain and abundant lightning strikes. That, precisely, could have caused a drop in temperatures and, of course, a powerful electrical activity in the atmosphere. Trees act as electromagnetic antennas, capable of capturing the electrical activity of the atmosphere and transforming it into changes in their own electrome. The larger an antenna is, the more powerful its activity in this regard. That’s why changes in the electrome may have been greater in older trees. Simply because they are bigger. That gives even more weight to the hypothesis of the role of lightning. Just three trees. Another limitation of the study is that it only analyzed three trees and five stumps. We cannot get much idea of ​​the behavior of the entire forest. Collective memory of trees to predict solar eclipses? The Italian authors also point out that the intense activity of older trees may be due to the fact that they “remember” the effects of past eclipses, so that they respond in advance to the temperature changes that are to come. However, Novoplansky and Yizhaq recall that it is very difficult for an eclipse to be seen in exactly the same place in a relatively short period of time. In Spain, for example, we will have three eclipses in three yearsbut the totality, in the case of the two totals, will be in very different regions. It is true that two partial eclipses in a row can be seen, like the one in the Dolomites, but experts insist that the environmental changes with a partial eclipse are minimal. More experts. Although the publication of the Italian study represented a great wave of acceptance, the 2026 counteranalysis went somewhat unnoticed by the press. But not to scientists. For example, was picked up by Science Media Center Spanishin which the statements of two experts were published. On the one hand, astrophysicist Javier Armentia pointed out that “there are no mechanisms by which a pine forest can react to small drops in light that do not occur regularly nor do they interfere with vegetative processes, nor were the measurements of this anticipatory behavior explained by the eclipse but by, probably, a cold night suffered a few hours before.” For his part, professor of Earth physics José Manuel Vaquero explained that a small partial eclipse, like the one studied in the Dolomites, “generates smaller environmental variations than those produced by the passage of a dense cloud or a front.” That great activity that was mentioned in the 2025 study would not make sense. In short, it seems that no, trees do not predict solar eclipses. The good thing is that we don’t care, because, as we saw at the beginning, we already know how to predict them. Image | Wikimedia Commons In Xataka | A third of Spain will be completely dark for a minute or two. The astronomical event of the century is approaching

A group of astronauts without medical training has taken the world’s first X-ray in orbit: it is a brutal advance

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For more than sixty years, astronauts have only had one tool to diagnose possible injuries in orbit: the ultrasound machine. Now, for the first time, a crew has managed to take diagnostic X-rays of their own bodies while orbiting Earth, a milestone that completely changes what will be possible on future missions to the Moon and Mars. We tell you all the details. Why it is important. Until now, if an astronaut suffered a fracture or internal injury in space, ultrasound was the only option available, a technology that requires a lot of prior training and depends on a physical medium to transmit sound waves. The problem is that as the duration and distance of space missions increase, so does the risk of serious medical problems occurring. For this reason, having X-rays in space would allow, for example, to confirm a fracture in a matter of minutes, something that until now was not possible, according to explained to ScienceAlert Dr. Sheyna Gifford, aerospace medicine researcher at the Mayo Clinic and promoter of the project. In detail. The experiment was carried out during Fram2a private SpaceX mission that in March 2025 took four first-time astronauts to circle the Earth above the poles for three and a half days aboard a Crew Dragon capsule. None of them were medical personnel, since They received only four hours of training before takeoff to learn how to operate a portable, commercial X-ray machine, about the size of a beach cooler. Before leaving they took x-rays of a hand, forearm, chest, abdomen and pelvis for reference. In orbit they repeated those same images, and also added another of a smart watch. The test was a success. Back on Earth, three independent radiologists compared the images taken in orbit with those before the flight, according to the study. published in Radiology magazine. The verdict was positive, because although the x-rays captured in Earth’s gravity had somewhat higher quality, those taken in space were perfectly valid for diagnosing injuries such as fractures. The images of hands and arms, which are easier to keep still, came out better than those of the chest, abdomen or pelvis, areas where it was more difficult to achieve a good body position. The device also survived the trip with only superficial damage to its exterior after landing, and the entire crew agreed that it was easy to use despite the little training received. And now what. The next step, according to Giffordinvolves further reducing the size of this equipment and making it more resistant for future missions, since although it may be compact in itself on Earth, as long as the technology can be miniaturized in space missions, the better. Portable X-rays would not only be used to diagnose astronauts. And they could also be used to check hidden damage in space suits, electronics or damaged satellites, and even be installed in future vehicles that explore the lunar surface. The researcher herself also aims to bring this technology to rural areas far from large hospitals, where an autonomous and low-cost system could improve access to rapid diagnoses. Images | Radiology In Xataka | Julia de Marines, astrobiologist: “Any planet that has developed intelligence should have noosignatures, a physical history of cognitive activity”

Predicting Alzheimer’s 10 years in advance is now a scientific reality. The challenge now is to prevent healthcare from collapsing

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Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease that is undoubtedly a true ghost, since it only It becomes visible when the damage is already irreparable and that, despite trying to stop it, it is becoming difficult to control it. And historically, the medical diagnosis comes when memory begins to fail, but by then the brain has been suffering in silence for years, even decades. Now science focuses on the need for early diagnosis so that treatments can work. A new analysis. One of the ways to detect this disease before it begins to show the classic symptoms such as memory loss is through a blood test. This is the milestone that has been collected in The Lancet magazine recently thanks to research from the University of California, and that could generate a large population screening that is not free of controversy. What they did. The researchers followed 1,350 people aged between 56 and 69, without any type of dementia, for more than 35 years. And here the key was to look for specific proteins circulating in the blood that increased in the earliest phases of Alzheimer’s, as occurs with others marked in other diseases such as PSA in prostate cancer. And they found two biomarkers. The first of them is Aβ42/40, which is an early indicator that warns of the accumulation of hateful beta-amyloid plaques in the brain. But they also found the protein p-tau217, which is considered today the most precise marker for the pathology. The results. The 6% of participants who tested positive for these biomarkers showed a four-fold increased risk of developing verbal memory problems and a decline in their cognitive speed a decade later. But science has been trying to refine this tool for years, looking for markers such as GFAP, which rises about ten years before symptoms appear. See the invisible. The blood test does not walk alone in this diagnostic revolution, since on the same day, The Lancet published a second study based on nearly 800 participants from the US and Canada that tests a new and sophisticated neuroimaging technology: the MK6240 PET plotter. Until now, visualizing the tau protein, which is one of those responsible for Alzheimer’s by accumulating in neurons, was a great challenge. But this new tracer promises to be much more sensitive, detecting twice as many positive cases in healthy people with amyloid accumulation compared to the standard used today. You have to wait. Before throwing the bells in the air, it should be noted that experts point out that this test not ready to be used as general population screening. The reason lies in mathematics, since the prevalence of asymptomatic Alzheimer’s in healthy middle-aged people remains low in absolute terms, so applying this test to everyone would generate a very high volume of false positives. That is, an increase in this protein that is not actually related to early Alzheimer’s. But logically, the fear, anxiety and the resulting cascade of confirmatory tests would collapse the health services that are already stressed, and furthermore, the drugs we have, despite the fact that they stop the effects of the disease in its earliest phases, are not yet definitive. That is why we must remain on the right path, but there is still a long way to go to get this disease under control. Images | Robina Weermeijer Testalize.me In Xataka | Alzheimer’s no longer seems irreversible: science allows brains with advanced damage to recover for the first time in animals

Predicting a drought six months in advance was a utopia. The UPV has achieved this with a system that uses AI

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In recent years drought episodes have intensified in some regions and fear of a global drought flies over the environment. In this scenario, a team of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia have created a system that can predict whether there will be a drought six months in advance. The system. The work has been carried out by the team from the Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering (IIAMA) of the UPV and has been published in the journal Earth Systems and Environment. The method integrates predictions from four reference climate systems (ECMWF-SEAS5, Météo-France System8, DWD-GCF2.1 and CMCC-SPSv3.5) and are processed using artificial intelligence techniques. From this data, the team calculated two of the most important international drought indices (the Standardized Precipitation Index and the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index), using data windows of 6, 12, 18 and 24 months. The method has been applied in the Júcar River basin, which usually goes through stages of recurrent and quite intense droughts. Why is it important. The novelty of this system is that it is not limited to using a single climate model or index, but rather it merges three pieces that are usually used separately and adds AI processing to correct biases and adapt the models to a regional scale. This allows the prediction to be more reliable since it does not depend on a single model. Furthermore, all of this has been integrated into an operational web toolintended to be used in water management and not only as an academic exercise. Results. The system is correct with a reliability of 90% when the prediction is made for that same month. If they want to obtain predictions three months in advance, the reliability is 60%, while for longer periods (12, 18 and 24 months) they do not give a percentage, but they affirm that the model is still useful for predicting what will happen up to six months in advance. Héctor Macián, co-author of the study, states that “The results confirm that the system is especially effective in reinforcing early warning of droughts, a fundamental aspect to anticipate management measures, reduce socioeconomic impacts and increase resilience to climate change.” Action window. As we said, the methodology has been developed in the Júcar river basin, which is a semi-arid area with long, dry and very hot summers, although researchers highlight that it is transferable to other drought-prone areas. Being able to foresee these episodes with up to six months of margin opens a window to implement the drought management plans much more in advance and thus be able to mitigate the effects. Image | UPV In Xataka | The remains of an ancient Mayan city leave us lessons for the future: an amazing system against drought

Predicting dementia seven years in advance seemed impossible. An AI with Spanish participation has just achieved it

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The diagnosis of the neurodegenerative diseases You face a problem at the time the diagnosis is made, since in many cases it is diagnosed when the symptoms are already evident and this makes the brain damage irreversible. But… What if we could peer into the future of the brain years before the disease shows its face? This is precisely what a Spanish team has done with a new biomarker. The study. The future of medicine involves making increasingly earlier diagnoses so that the success of treatments is much greater, and now in a recent published article in Science Report The door opens for this to be a reality in dementia. To get here, what the researchers propose, where have you participated Rubén Armañanzas, from the DATAI Institute of the University of Navarra, is the use of a test such as the electroencephalogram together with artificial intelligence to develop a biomarker capable of predicting the risk of dementia with up to seven years in advance. Your methodology. To understand the magnitude of this advance, we must look at the population on which the study was carried out, which are people with subjective cognitive impairment. These are patients who go to the doctor because they notice that their memory is failing, but when they undergo standard cognitive tests, the results are completely normal, so they cannot be given a clear diagnosis even though it seems that something is not right. Until now, medicine found a blind spot in this phase as there was no way to know if these ‘complaints’ in memory were the prelude to Alzheimer’s or simply confusion. But now, the study with 88 older adults with this situation has shown that the brain emits alarm signals long before psychological tests detected them. You just had to know how to ‘read’ them. A new method. Here the research has unified different metrics to be able to read these warning signs. The first thing of all is to use an electroencephalogram to measure brain activity, which is a cheap, quick and non-invasive test. From here, the BrainScope technology platform analyzes this data by looking for 14 specific features related to neuronal connectivity and brain wave behavior. Once these characteristics are ‘found’, an AI algorithm comes in that processes the patterns and determines whether the patient analyzed can progress towards mild cognitive impairment or dementia such as Alzheimer’s. And the results are spectacular, since it has demonstrated outstanding precision when separating patients who develop the disease from those who do not. The future. The great value of this biomarker is not only technological, but also clinical, since the most reliable current tests to predict pathologies such as Alzheimer’s require painful lumbar punctures or scans that are not cheap. A system based on EEG and AI could be easily integrated into primary care clinical protocols or routine neurological consultations as it does not have a very high cost and, above all, is not invasive. The important thing here is to detect neurodegeneration in the earliest phases in order to gain golden time so that new drugs can act at the beginning of the disease and gain years of quality of life. Images | Robina Weermeijer In Xataka | We have a new “theory of everything” to understand Alzheimer’s. Its key is in some small granules

China already dominates the screen market. The US and Japan have decided to draw up a plan to stop their advance

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China currently accounts for almost 60% of the LCD panel market which are used in the manufacture of monitors, televisions and other display devices. The growth of Chinese companies BOE and TCL has caused South Korean panel manufacturers, such as LG Display or Samsung Display, gradually abandon LCD technology to dedicate their resources to other, more profitable innovations, like OLED technology. South Korea produces most of the organic matrices (OLED) that we can find in our televisions and mobile phones, among other devices, but China’s market share in this segment does not stop growing. In fact, It is already close to 40% in OLED panels for smartphones, and presumably little by little it will also grow in the segment of large-format OLED matrices for televisions and monitors. However, South Korea is not the only country that is suffering from China’s monumental onslaught. Japan, Taiwan and the US also fear that their display device manufacturers will end up in the hands of Chinese suppliers, something that is essentially already happening to a large extent if we stick to LCD technology. This dependency also acquires a critical nature in the field of screens used in military systems. Japan Display will be the great beneficiary of the very probable agreement between the US and Japan During the 80s, 90s and the first decade of the 2000s, Japan led the screen market with its cathode ray tube televisions, and later with its first LCD and plasma panels. However, in the early 2000s, Japanese companies made a strategic mistake: they bet everything on plasma technology because they believed that it would end up taking over LCD technology. South Korea, however, opted for the production of these latest matrices, and finally Samsung and LG won this war. The state-of-the-art plant that Japan Display plans to build in the US will cost about $13 billion Japan paid a very high price for this strategic mistake: it lost a large part of its share in the market for the production of panels for display devices. Twenty years later, the US and Japanese governments are determined to amend it to compete with the solutions coming from China. And they plan to do it by investing, according to Reutersa package of 550 billion dollars coming from Japanese funds. Some of this money will presumably be used to build a state-of-the-art display manufacturing plant in the US. It will cost about $13 billion and will be managed by Japan Display, a consortium created in 2012 as the result of the merger of the panel production divisions of Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba. This plan seeks to limit the dependence that American and Japanese manufacturers have on matrices from China, especially in the field of technology militaryrbut they are not going to have it easy. And it is that the consulting firm Counterpoint Research It predicts that China will expand its share of the display market to reach 75% in 2028. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | Reuters In Xataka | LG and Samsung have a new pact that no one expected, according to Reuters. One who wants to shake up the television market In Xataka | China is devouring the television market. So much so that Panasonic is considering abandoning it

Xataka will launch something new and very big soon. We are looking for xatakeros who want to try it in advance

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We can’t tell you much at the moment, but xatakero, xatakera, we are looking for you (yes, to you). At Xataka we have a huge project in the works, one of the largest and most important we have done to date, and we would love to have your help to put it to the test and polish what needs to be polished. In short, volunteers wanted to try something totally new. If you are interested, are active in the Xataka community or are curious, you simply have to sign up in this form. If you cannot access it under these lines, you can also find it at this link. If you don’t see the form well, you can fill it out from here. From among all those who fill out the form, we will choose a small group to carry out this process of beta testing and give us your feedback and opinion. Thank you in advance to all of you who signed up. See you at the testing ground! Image | Philipp Katzenberger edited by Xataka

NVIDIA fears that China will hinder the sale of H200 chips, so it is asking for advance payment without exchanges or returns

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The fact that NVIDIA can market H200 chips in China It’s going around a lot these days and it’s no wonder. And after the Government’s uncertainty about whether it ends up allowing them in the country or not, the company has imposed unusually strict payment conditions for customers who want to buy these chips in China. According to information According to Reuters, the company now requires full payment up front, with no cancellation, refund or configuration changes options once the order is placed. Why it matters. NVIDIA has billions at stake in China, the world’s largest semiconductor market. Chinese technology companies have placed orders for more than 2 million H200 chips valued at about $27,000 each, well above the company’s available inventory of 700,000 units, according to account the middle. But the regulatory situation is a powder keg: the United States has just authorized the sale with a 25% tariff, while China has not yet confirmed whether it will allow imports. Regulation. The Biden administration had banned the export of chips advanced AI to China, but Donald Trump reversed that policy last month allowing H200 sales with the aforementioned 25% tariff that goes directly to the US government. However, China has not yet given the official approval. According to BloombergBeijing plans to approve some imports this quarter, but only for select commercial uses. The military, sensitive government agencies, critical infrastructure and state-owned companies would be left out for security reasons. Protection. The payment terms transfer all of NVIDIA’s financial risk to its customers, who must commit capital without certainty that Beijing will approve the imports or that they will be able to deploy the technology as planned. According to account The average, although NVIDIA has always required advance payments from Chinese customers, deposits were sometimes allowed in lieu of full payment. Now the company is especially strict due to the lack of regulatory clarity. A recent scar. NVIDIA has reason to be cautious. Last year it had to write down $5.5 billion in inventory after the Trump administration abruptly banned the sale of the H20 chip to Chinathe most powerful product that it could then offer there. Although the United States has reversed that decision, China has since banned H20 shipments. This experience explains why the company prefers to ensure collection before any unforeseen regulatory event. Overwhelming demand. Chinese tech giants like ByteDance and Alibaba see the H200 as a significant improvement. This chip, currently NVIDIA’s second most powerful, offers approximately six times the performance of the now locked H20. According to Bloombergboth Alibaba and ByteDance have privately communicated to NVIDIA their interest in ordering more than 200,000 units each. Delivery times. NVIDIA plans to fill initial orders with existing stock, with the first batch of H200 chips expected to arrive before the Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February, according to account Reuters. The company has also approached TSMC to increase H200 production to meet demand in China, with additional manufacturing planned for the second quarter of 2026. The local competition. Meanwhile, NVIDIA’s Chinese rivals are gaining ground. And just as inform Bloomberg, local manufacturers such as Huawei have developed AI processors, including the Ascend 910Calthough its performance still lags behind the H200 for large-scale training of advanced models. On the other hand, Cambricon Technologies It also plans to significantly increase its production of AI chips in 2026, thus expanding its market share and filling the gap left by NVIDIA. What’s coming now. In the coming days it will be known if China makes a final decision on H200 imports. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, declared at CES this week that customer demand for H200 chips is “quite high” and that the company has “activated its supply chain” to increase production. Huang also noted that he doesn’t expect the Chinese government to make a formal statement about approval, but rather that “if purchase orders come in, it’s because they can make them.” Cover image | NVIDIA and Arthur Wang In Xataka | There is a new player in the race for the autonomous car and it is one that should worry Tesla a lot: NVIDIA

eight original tech (and non-tech) gifts to advance Christmas shopping

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There is very little left until the arrival of Christmas, so it is a good time to buy gifts. If this year you have to give a good gift, in this article we are going to review eight original ideas of tech and entertainment with which you can hit the nail on the head. Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite by 53.99 eurosa TV accessory with which to have a very different experience when watching movies and series. Ember 2 by 148.95 eurosa smart cup with temperature control. Sofa strip pro 34.43 eurosa power strip with several sockets. OutIn Nano by 119.99 eurosa portable coffee maker to make coffee anywhere. Rocketbook Core by 30.64 eurosa reusable notebook in A5 size. Playmobil from ‘The Fantastic Car’ by 59.97 eurosincludes three figures and lights and sounds. LEGO from ‘Home Alone’ by 299.99 eurosa set with many traps hidden inside. Donkey Kong Game & Watch by 125 eurosa second-hand console of the iconic character. Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite Philips Ambilight technology can offer a very different experience when watching movies and series, which is why some brands have tried to get closer to it through their devices. He Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite It is a pack that includes a strip of LED lights that is placed behind the television and a camera that captures the colors of the TV to reproduce them on the LED strip. It can be found for different prices depending on the size of the television: Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite for TVs 32 inches by 42.49 euros. Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite for TVs 40 – 50 inches by 45.49 euros. Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite for TVs 55 – 65 inches by 53.99 euros. Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite for TVs 75 – 65 inches by 72.99 euros. Govee TV Backlight 3 Lite The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Ember 2 The Ember 2 It is a curious smart cup that is capable of maintaining the temperature for a long time. Costs 148.95 eurosYeah; but it is very interesting for everything it offers: up to 90 minutes of constant heat (from 50 to 62.5 ºC) and is capable of maintaining the temperature. In addition, it can be paired to the mobile phone through the app to set the ideal temperature, personalize the settings or receive notifications. Of course, it can only be washed by hand. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Sofa strip Not everyone has an electrical outlet next to the sofa, so a good power strip can be very useful. The one of Brennenstuhl Not only is it beautiful thanks to its textile surface, but it can be placed on the sofa and has a good price of 34.43 euros. Furthermore, it incorporates two USB-A ports and an electrical outlet (European) and includes a three-meter long cable. Brennenstuhl power strip The price could vary. We earn commission from these links OutIn Nano For the most coffee lovers, on Amazon we can find the OutIn Nanoa portable coffee maker with which you can prepare coffee anywhere. By 119.99 euroswe are talking about a travel coffee maker that weighs only 670 grams and that, according to the brand, is capable of preparing coffee in 200 seconds. On the other hand, it incorporates a battery, it can be recharged in the car through a USB port and You can prepare ground coffee or capsules. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Rocketbook Core Beyond traditional notebooks, there are some very practical smart notebooks. He Rocketbook Corefor example, has a price of 30.64 euros and it is reusable, so using the erasable gel pen that is included we can erase what we have written to continue writing. Through your app we can send the written pages and view them on the mobileits cover is waterproof and the pages are A5 in size. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Playmobil from The Fantastic Car Playmobil has a good catalog of sets based on movies or series and the ‘The fantastic car It is now on sale for 59.97 euros. Includes lights and sounds, plus three character figures Michael Knight, Devon Miles and Bonnie Barstow. In addition, it is also worth mentioning that it comes with scenery in case we want to display it. Playmobil The Fantastic Car The price could vary. We earn commission from these links LEGO Home Alone Now that Christmas is coming it’s a good time to watch some movies like ‘Home Alone’. And what better than to do it together with him Home Alone LEGO set. Its price in the official store is 299.99 eurosconsists of 3,955 pieces, comes with five minifigures and can be opened to see the many traps inside. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Game & Watch If you want a good dose of nostalgia, be careful because on eBay we can find the Donkey Kong Game & Watch by 125 euros. It is expensive and not new (used, works and sold by TodoConsolas), but it is one of the few ways that can currently be purchased. It can be folded and has a similar format to the Nintendo DS. If you are interested, you can also find the Green House Game & Watch for a price of 135 euros. This is also a used console which, as mentioned in the store, may show signs of use. Nintendo Game & Watch Donkey Kong The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Image | Govee, Ember, Brennenstuhl, OutIn, Rocketbook, Playmobil, LEGO, Nintendo In Xataka | Capsules, automatic or manual. The best coffee makers according to your tastes and needs In Xataka | Ambilight technology and alternatives: buying guide for LED systems to create ambient lighting on the … Read more

Amazon’s nuclear dream for AI continues to advance. This will be one of its first plants with modular reactors

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artificial intelligence electricity demand is multiplying of data centers, and with it, the interest of large technology companies in energy sources capable of keeping them running 24 hours a day. Amazon has gone one step further with Cascade, a new generation nuclear plant that aims to change the way the company powers its digital infrastructure. It is not a simple energy installation: it is the symbol of an ambition that combines autonomy and energy security in the midst of the AI ​​revolution. This industry is not only transforming the labor marketis also testing the global energy infrastructure. Large data centers that process millions of operations per second need a constant supply, and renewable sources, although clean, do not always guarantee that stability. Hence, nuclear energy is once again gaining prominence as a strong and carbon-free option. For companies like Amazon, the challenge is no longer just to innovate in algorithms, but to guarantee the energy that keeps them running without interruptions. What we know about the plant. Named Cascade Advanced Energy Facility, Amazon’s new nuclear plant will be built near Richland, Washington state. Over there, the company will work with Energy Northwest and X-energyresponsible for the design of the reactors. Cascade will be located near the current Columbia Generating Station. Amazon defines it as a key step to reduce emissions and provide constant electricity to the network that supports its global digital infrastructure. Cascade will rely on X-energy’s Xe-100 design, a next-generation modular reactor designed to be more efficient and safer than conventional models. The first phase adds 320 MW with four SMRs, and the plant can be expanded by up to 12 units to reach 960 MW. The scheme includes three 320 MW sections that will occupy only a few blocks. This modularity is one of the keys to the project: it allows production to be scaled according to demand and takes up much less space than a classic nuclear power plant, which can extend over more than 2.5 km². A different ‘campus’. Unlike traditional power plants, the Cascade plant will be organized as a small energy campus. Its modules will include reactor buildings, service areas, turbines, condensers and a space for temporary fuel storage. The complex, according to X-energy projections, will occupy a compact area that is more similar to an industrial estate than a classic nuclear facility. This modular approach allows you to build in phases and maintain operation without major interruptions in future expansions. Amazon’s schedule for Cascade moves forward in stages. The company plans to begin construction before the end of this decade and reach the operational phase in the 2030s. These are tentative goals, which depend on both the licensing process and the industrial development of the Xe-100 reactors. A project that needs labor. According to Amazon, Cascade will create more than 1,000 construction jobs and at least 100 permanent positions in areas such as engineering and operations. In parallel, Columbia Basin College will open the Energy Learning Center, funded by the Department of Energy, with a simulator that reproduces the control of the Xe-100 reactor. This program will allow young people in the region to access qualified jobs and reinforce Washington’s role in the transition to clean energy. More initiatives. Amazon is not the only technology company that sees nuclear energy as an ally for artificial intelligence. Microsoft has signed an agreement to reopen a plant and, in parallel, is studying long-term contracts with nuclear fusion projects, still in the experimental phase. Google, for its part, collaborates with companies in the sector to integrate small modular reactors (SMR) into its supply network. Although the paths differ, they all share the same challenge: powering a digital infrastructure that consumes more electricity every year. Although Amazon has shared many of the details of Cascade, the project is still in an early phase. There are no definitive dates for the start of construction or for the commissioning of the reactors. It has also not been specified what volume of energy will be allocated to its data centers and what part will be integrated into the local network. Everything indicates that the coming years will be decisive in testing whether modular nuclear energy can respond to the pace demanded by artificial intelligence. In Xataka | An open secret: far from being in decline, oil companies are doing business thanks to AI

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