Alliance

An alliance between Ford and Geely sounds like melodic music for Almussafes. The reality is much more complex

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Ford is looking for a Chinese car. Reason: here. This is the sign that could hang on the door of the Ford factory in Almussafes (Valencia). The American company is looking for partners in China to produce electric cars and Geely seems to be one of the best positioned brands. Nor is it the first that has raised rumors about possible collaborations with the American brand, which, in addition, is already linked to Volkswagen or Renault. But what does Almussafes have to do with all this? Ford and Geely. The last brand with which Ford has been related in recent days has been with Geely. According to Reuters, Ford and Geely, Chinese group that owns Volvo, Polestar or Smart, among othersare holding talks to produce cars in Europe in one of the spaces that the company has on our continent. In addition, collaboration is being studied for the development of shared technologies such as autonomous driving. In Reuters They point to two sources who were aware of this information and the company has not denied that this is happening. “We have conversations with many companies about many things. Some are fruitful and others are not,” the Americans assure the news agency. For its part, Geely has not commented. Ford moves. It is not the first time that the company has been related to a Chinese company. On this occasion, it is said that negotiations have been underway for months and that Ford would have sent workers to the Asian country to advance a hypothetical agreement. Coincidence or not, Jim Farley has been traveling in China recently and He has been complimenting Chinese manufacturers for a long time. One of those companies that he has complimented and with which it has also been related It’s Xiaomi. Farley himself took a Xiaomi SU7 to the United States and has not failed to point out all the good things this product does. The collaboration agreement, it seems evident, would be for Europe since Chinese cars have an almost impossible future in the United States as a consequence of the Government’s own veto. Why Geely? The conversations with Geely seem to have much more substance than the possible collaborations with Xiaomi. The automobile conglomerate has brands that are not unknown to the European public (Volvo, Lotus, Smart…) whose electric cars do not have to break that barrier of entry into the European collective imagination as a “Chinese car.” However, Geely has a problem: they pay a lot of tariffs. As many as 37.6% after The European Union will withdraw in 2024 to try to protect an industry that was threatened by cheaper electric cars. Since then, the impact of the Chinese car has been limited to the lowest priced units. And it doesn’t seem like it’s going to change whether the negotiations between the European Union and China They still don’t get ahead. Collaborating with Ford and using the company’s facilities would allow Geely to produce electric cars without going through the checkout. And although labor costs are higher than the Chinese, they would not have to build new facilities because they would take advantage of those that the company has already built. Almussafes? In the information of Reuters It is assured that “Ford’s plant in Valencia would probably be the factory involved in these talks, said a person familiar with the matter.” However, some details must be taken into account. The factory is running right now at half throttlewith a Ford Kuga that is facing its last days on the market and that is not going to be renewed. The promise is to produce a multi-energy vehicle small size until 2028 when an electric car should arrive. To do this, the plant would need a deep reconversion that Ford is reluctant to carry out because North Americans are obtaining very low sales with their electric cars. A solution, therefore, would be to reach an agreement with Geely so that the Chinese company would take advantage of these facilities by making the appropriate conversions. The only doubt is that, right now, the plan is to produce a small model with a combustion engine. Electrifying space can put in check this multi-energy car that Ford should start producing soon. For now, the newspaper Levant reports that the brand will send a Ford delegation in the coming days to speak with those responsible for the factory. Ford’s mess with the electric car. Little by little, Ford has been falling into a small hole with the electric car which has a complicated solution. The brand has decided that its future lies in two clearly differentiated family lines: one made by themselveswith the Ford seal as quality and names clearly differentiated from the rest of the range (Mustang or Bronco) and lower cost cars manufactured by third parties. Europe is heading towards a future where the electric car seems the only solution. Until now, Ford’s investments have fallen on deaf ears and that is why it has reached a agreement with Volkswagen which has borne fruit electric Ford Explorer and the Ford Capri. And it has also signed an agreement with Renault so that the French can produce them in France. a sort of Renault 5 and Renault 4 with the blue oval. Ford promises that the cars will have their own American essence. At the same time, Ford focuses its own models on high-priced combustion or electric vehicles, such as the Mustang Mach-E. This allows them to achieve higher profit margins and bring combustion models to Europe in dribs and drabs whose high price justifies the increase in the final volume of emissions to be presented to regulators. What are the exits? At the moment, the first information points to different exits in the event that the negotiations between Ford and Geely come to fruition. First, it must be taken into account that what Geely may be most interested in is a car factory capable of producing electric vehicles as quickly as possible. Ford has a … Read more

The alliance with Google and Gemini makes it clear what tactic Apple has chosen for its future: the parasite strategy

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Let’s do a little memory. It was the summer of the year 102 BC. C. and Consul Gaius Mariusde facto ruler of Rome, was facing the invasion of the Germanic tribes of the Teutons and the Ambrones, who three years earlier had annihilated several legions of the Republic in the battle of Arausio. Marius, camped and with abundant provisions, saw how the Teutons did not stop provoking him and his soldiers. The Germanic tribes, superior in number, mocked them and tried to force an immediate battle, but Marius flatly refused. He punished soldiers who responded to provocations, let his troops despair, and endured humiliation by simply following and observing the enemy. He made his troops go up to the palisades in turns and observe the Teutons, their weapons, their movements, their shouts. Forced them to get used to them and to make them go from something scary to something familiar. But all Mario was doing was choosing the battle that was really worth fighting. The Teutons tried to cross the Alps and Marius and his legions followed them until Aquae Sextiae. There, in an advantageous position and highly motivated—among other things, by thirst—the Romans ended up annihilating the Ambroni first, and then the Teutons. Mario didn’t care that they laughed at him, that they provoked him and that his own soldiers distrusted him. He achieved a historic victory that prevented a potential invasion by those and other Germanic tribes. And he did it with a simple tactic: choose the battles to fight. Which is, at least on the surface, what Apple seems to be doing. The parasite strategy For years Apple has boasted of controlling every element of its ecosystem, both hardware and software. And if there was something that he didn’t control, he worked to do it, as we are seeing with the iPhone or the Mac, increasingly less dependent on third-party chips and technologies. However, the alliance with Google and Gemini breaks that trend and represents a disturbing implicit recognition: in the generative AI race, Apple is not only not in the lead, but it seems to have decided to stop running. At least it doesn’t do it like its rivals do. While Google, Microsoft, Meta, xAI or Amazon do not stop investing billions in chips, new AI models and above all new data centers, Apple has not wanted to enter into those battles. He didn’t care about the provocations or that the industry and the media distrusted (we distrusted) that strategy. Apple has gone about its business, and has barely launched new features in an absolutely explosive segment. Its Apple Intelligence platform is comparatively much lower than those of rivalsyour Private Cloud Compute It’s an interesting idea but at the moment without a clear impact and Siri delay last year was the definitive sign that Apple I had missed the AI ​​train. And it is better not to talk about economic investment: its competitors are betting everything on AI while Apple’s capex remains almost symbolic compared to that of others. That has made many of us doubt the future of an Apple that seems to “move on from AI.” But be careful, because Tim Cook may just be adopting that same Mario tactic of choosing which battles to fight. They may not believe it makes sense to spend those billions of dollars developing a foundational model right now, and they may not believe in the need to create their own data centers either. In fact, Apple has been applying the parasite strategy: in those segments in which he did not dominate or was not strong, he delegated: Cloud infrastructure: Apple has never been strong in the cloud and has delegated to other platforms to which it has paid large sums of money for years. Searches: We have the clearest example of this strategy in internet searches. The multi-million dollar alliance with Google has been offering both companies a perfect solution in this area for years That agreement with Google in the search segment now has its sequel with the historic agreement to use Gemini as a fundamental pillar of the reinvention of Siri. Apple’s voice assistant will make use of Google’s AI models and will thus become a critical component of the functioning of its ecosystem. It is an alliance with extraordinary implications and that once again confirms that parasite strategy in which the ultimate goal is clear: achieve benefits without taking risks. Apple as a wrapper for AI In fact, here Apple is once again taking advantage of its leading role in the mobility market—especially in the US—once again. While other companies like Google and OpenAI spend fortunes on servers and energy, Apple it is limited to being the elegant packaging. They provide the screen, the local processor and the user’s trust. Google puts the brain that runs in the cloud. It is (theoretically) a win-win. But it is also the recognition of a pragmatic defeat. Giving in to that reality—we don’t have a foundational AI model, we don’t have cloud infrastructure, we don’t have data centers—is also a tactic that can end up winning the game. AI aims to become a commodityin something that will be accessible to everything and everyone and that loses its differentiating characteristics in the eyes of the consumer. It will be something generic, interchangeable and basic, and what may matter then is not the AI, but how it is distributed and provided. And Apple is changing from being a company that invents all its tools to becoming a company that is the largest distributor of services in the world. They certify it the more than 2.35 billion active devices with their different operating systems around the world, which can clearly become – if they are not already – the gateway to AI for millions of people. This parasite strategy allows Apple to turn that theoretical defeat into a potential victory. Apple is the mandatory tollnot only for billions of users, but for companies like Google, which seems to have … Read more

The strongest Chinese companies in Chips and IA have created a historical alliance

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The future of Nvidia in China is increasingly uncertain. The suspicions of the administration of the Chibespace of China about The safety of your GPU H20 for artificial intelligence (AI) force this company to convince the Chinese government that their chips are reliable. However, this is not the only challenge that Nvidia faces in the country led by Xi Jinping. And it is that a good part of the most relevant Chinese companies in the semiconductor industries and AI have allied to encourage the adoption of chips for the Chinese. During the last fiscal year, which expired on January 26, 2025, China represented approximately 13% of total income of the company led by Jensen Huang with a figure of about 17,000 million dollars. In practice, this Asian country is the third best client of this company only behind the US and Taiwan. In fact, according to TrainingView At the beginning of 2025 Nvidia had a fee in the Chinese chip market for no less than 95%. However, during the last weeks it has dropped to 50%. This abrupt decrease is largely due to the export restrictions of chips for the The US government has imposedalthough it is also caused by the development of competition within China. And, to curl the curl, Stepfun, which belongs to Tencent Holdings; Infinigence ai; Siliconflow, from Huawei; Metax; Biren Technology; Focus me; Iluvatar Corex; Cambricon Technologies and Moore Threads, which are some of the strongest Chinese companies in the development of chips for AI, They have constituted an alliance who seeks to stop Nvidia. For Nvidia it is increasingly difficult to sustain its position in China The Chinese government is urging Chinese companies that are dedicated to the development of large models of the use in their servers integrated circuits of Chinese origin. The alliance for innovation in the model-chips ecosystem, which is what is called the organization that the Chinese companies that I have mentioned a few lines have constituted, represents an important step in this direction. Nvidia has in its favor the mass implementation of CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) In the AI projects that are underway, but the panorama is already beginning to change. This technology brings together the compiler and development profits used by programmers to develop their software for NVIDIA GPUs, and replace it with another option in The projects that are already underway It is a problem. Huawei, who aspires to an important portion From this market in China, it has Cann (Compute Architecture for Neural Networks), which is its alternative to CUDA. However, this is not the only asset in the country governed by Xi Jinping. Nvidia has in its favor the massive implantation of CUDA, but the panorama is already beginning to change Moore Threads It is one of the Chinese companies that are dedicated to the production of hardware for which companies aligned with the interests of the US and its allies cannot sell software or advanced equipment. Although it is very young (it was founded in 2020) it has something very important in its favor: its founder is Zhang Jianzhong, former general manager of the Nvidia subsidiary in China, so it is evident that he knows well what he has in hand. Moore Threads has developed several GPU for AI applications that, on paper, rival some of the advanced solutions that have placed in the Nvidia, AMD or Huawei market. The cards MTT S4000 and MTT S3000 They are its most interesting proposals right now, although, curiously, in its porpholio the MTT S80 card also appears, a proposal for games and content creation that, according to Moore Threads itself, has a calculation capacity of 14.4 Tflops in single -precision floating coma operations. It doesn’t impress, but it’s not bad at all. However, this company has something else: a software package with which the domain of CUDA seeks to break. Muse calls itis compatible with the range of MTT cards that I have mentioned a few lines above and incorporates a compiler, execution libraries, specialized libraries and code purification tools. However, this is not all. On paper its most attractive capacity for China is that it allows to reuse the code written in CUDA, transferring it so that it can be executed on the cards for Moore Threads. It is difficult to predict what reception the hardware and software of this company will have in your country of origin, but there is no doubt that it is worth following the track. Image | Moore Threads More information | SCMP In Xataka | AI is the best thing that is happening to nuclear fusion. It is already accelerating the construction of Iter

Google have been with a problem in the processor of their pixel for years. There is a potential alliance to solve it

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If you buy a Google Pixel you do it for its camera, the clean Software of Google or the years and years of support. But, rarely, you do it for its processor. The tensor google have been showing behind their direct competition in something key in the high range: the power. There are two responsible here: Google, and the company in which it has trusted during these years to develop its processors: Samsung Foundry. The agreement seems to have ended, and rumors about a new Google Tensioner Manufactured by TSMC they have been on the table for months. Reuters He now collects new news in this regard: the company is finalizing an alliance with Mediatek for the next tensioner versions. Specifically, those that will be implemented in the 2026 Google Pixel. The company has not made statements about this decision or (still) official. The reasons for betting on MediaTak is clear: the direct relationship of the Taiwanese giant with TSMC and the tight price relationship against Broadcom, Google’s current partner. The company will not close relations with the American giant yet, since a good part of the hardware used to process functions of AI will remain in charge. MediaTak is one of the strongest manufacturers currently in the semiconductor industry. He has managed to leave the ghosts of the past behind, and offers solutions at height (and even in some cases, above) of Qualcomm. The Samsung semiconductor division, on the contrary, It does not go through its best moment. Years of performance problems with exynos make rumors on the table about a Division restructuring. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, Analysis: A great candidate for Best Android of the Year … with a big pending matter

Hesai was an unknown Chinese giant in Europe. His alliance with Mercedes is about to change everything

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When we talk about large car manufacturers we can fall into the error of thinking about a vehicle as a whole that Renault, BMW, Citroën or any of the Chinese brands that intend to take a place in Europe. But nothing is further from reality. A car is the sum of many small parts. Specific parts of a combustion engine, braking systems, suspensions, seats … Many of those parts, so evident, are not manufactured or produced by large vehicle manufacturers. Bosch, Recaro or Brembo will sound, for example. In fact, Chinese manufacturers who are arriving in Europe or point to it, like Xiaomi, have not hesitated to associate (and show off this) with great more than recognized suppliers in the car market. In their presentations, Byd or Xiaomi have highlighted the role played by companies such as The aforementioned Brembo in the components that ride in their cars. It serves to gain credibility to the most skeptical. But when talking about another type of technology it is Europe that looks at China. Byd, for example, get great prices in its vehicles because It bases its production on verticalitymanufacturing their own batteries but also their own semiconductors or heat pumps. Among that “other type of technology” we can put Hesai. The Chinese company is the largest laser sensor producer. And now he has reached an agreement with Mercedes. From China to your Mercedes As vehicles have gained acting, they have also been growing in complexity. Although Tesla has made it clear that he wants to base all his autonomous driving functions or, as little, for driving in the use of software, at the moment it is still clear that cars armed with laser sensors and other radars are still safer and more effective. To achieve the best result, Mercedes has reached an agreement with Hesai, which triggers its possibilities to grow economically and reach new agreements with other companies explain in South China Morning Post. And it is that Hesai will supply radars lidar to the German company to map with better accuracy what their cars are around. In Reuters They explain that the decision has been weighed for months by the German company but, finally, costs have been imposed on any other value. Keep in mind that the sensors supplied by Hesai may not be used in Mercedes cars that are sold in the United States from 2029 if the intentions of Prohibit the sale of every car with Chinese pieces in the country. The use of Lidar sensors It is especially delicate in vehicles for several reasons. This component is always in operation, mapping everything around. It emits beams of light that bounce in an object and are received again by the vehicle. Next to the GPS positioning and the speed at which they advance, they create a three -dimensional map that takes advantage of thousands or millions of calculations per second. This has several implications that should be remembered. The use of this type of sensor allows a car to map with maximum exactly what it has around, something that they want to limit from the United States and China in the LUCK OF COLD WAR that both countries are freeing. In the United States they intend to Prohibit the sale of every car that uses Chinese software. In China, cars that want to use driving aid functions or Autonomous drivingwhich force the land to map, have to receive the approval of the government. A good that passes, evidently, to associate with a Chinese manufacturer. But, in addition, Lidar sensors are very expensive. The savings obtained in his commission to Hesai would have inclined the balance in favor of the Chinese company by Mercedes, they explain in Reuters. And it is that a vehicle can offer Semi -automated driving systems Without the use of these pieces but it is shown that, for the moment, The use of Lidar makes the difference. Although it may be more unknown in Europe, Hesai Group is a giant that is already present in 37% of vehicles that are assembled in the world, according to South China Morning Post. The company provides this type of giant sensors such as the Geely group (owner of Volvo or Polestar) and Li Auto, one of the great Chinese startups of recent years and employs more than 1,000 people, according to Electrek. But just as it happens to Chinese automotive themselves, Hesai is trying to open up to the rest of the world. With the local market already covered, they need to continue opening new trade agreements and that of Mercedes can be just the first, according to South China Morning Post. In the middle they point out that this agreement opens the door to multiply the current economic performance of the company by 14 times. Despite being present in almost four out of 10 vehicles that are sold worldwide (Only in February They already supplied pieces to 20 different brands and 120 models), the company gave brief benefits last year (14 million yuan, about 1.8 million euros in 2024) and He came out of losses of more than 241 million yuan (30.5 million euros) of the previous year. However, by 2025 they already expect net benefits of between 200 and 350 million yuan (between 25 and 44 million euros) achieved thanks to a scale production that supplies their products to about 15 million vehicles. That scale economy has allowed it Five years ago Each of them cost thousands of dollars. In view of a calculated expansion, the company, indicate in CNEVPOST Study to open its first floor to produce Lidar sensors outside China this year. Although it is not specified what places could be chosen, they do notice that they hope that the production of start in 2026. Photo | Hesai In Xataka | That Byd gives his autonomous driving is the first step: the real business will be to see a Madrid-Osasuna in the car

The worst nightmare of the Atlantic Alliance is more than an investment issue

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That Donald Trump is not a NATO enthusiast is nothing new. He already showed him during His first mandatewhen he slid the possibility that the US took a step back in the Atlantic Alliance, and has underlined it several times since then, like candidate and elected president. But as the relationship It is tense With Europe and within its own team Voices are raised in favor of Washington to break with the Treaty of 1949a question arises, increasingly stronger: what would happen if the US is detached from NATO? To answer it, you need to review a little recent history, geostrategy … and also mathematics. An NATO without the US? Only the fact that The question this On the table It is already significant. Especially since the clouds that overshadow the future of the US in NATO do not arise from speculation or rumors, but from comments from high positions of Washington, including Trump himself, who in December, still as elected president, He complained that the Atlantic Alliance is “taking advantage of the US.” “They take advantage of us in trade, our cars or our foods are not taken. They do not wear anything. It’s a shame. And we defend them, so the blow is double,” Trump charged during An interview In NBC News. And when the journalist asked him if she would consider excluding NATO US in case she concludes that her treatment towards the US is not “fair,” repliedresounding: “Yes, of course.” The continuity in the alliance, he stressed, is conditioned to the whole of its members “pay their bills.” A background rumor. It was not the first time that there was talk of NATO’s departure. It hasn’t been the last. Six years ago The New York Times public that in 2018 Trump already threatened with the withdrawal of NATO. And that was during his first term. The second has started just a month And it is already marked by distancing between Washington and some of its historical allies, such as Canada or the EU. The clearest (and graphic) test was the negotiating table created by the US and Russia to end the Ukraine War without reserving a seat for Ukraine or the Union. The trend seems to also go in Crescendo, without visos that it will break. In the last days We have seen Europe closing rows Around Ukraine, Trump and Zelenski showing Prime Time Your total lack of harmony Already Elon Musk, Trump’s great ally, Chairing the debate on the output of the US USA. Yesterday the businessman shared a tweet that he said “it’s time to leave NATO and UN” next to the next harvest message: “I Agree”. An NATO without the US? The same question of the principle, but with a different sense, that of viability: Is a NATO with Washington in profile or in which the US directly step back? A few days ago, during An interview In the BBC, the NATO general secretary, Mark Rutte, asked if the rest of the allies could replace the US hole in case he withdraws his military support from Ukraine, his response was revealing: that scenario is not raised. Click on the image to go to Tweet. A “100%risk”. After insisting that the US “wants to bring Ukraine to a lasting peace”, the high position of NATO slid: “We go beyond this issue. It is crucial that we all remain together in this: USA, Ukraine, Europe, that we take Ukraine to Peace. That is exactly why Trump struggles, so we all fight.” Zelenski, who It has been ambitioning for some time The adhesion of your country to NATO, a perspective that seems farther today, after contacts between Moscow and Washington, is even clearer. In Another talk Recent with journalists, he warned of the consequences that Trump would have to step back in NATO, not only for his country, but for the whole of the continent: “The risk of Russia from occupying Europe is one hundred percent if the United States withdraws from NATO.” Weight question. The key is the weight that Washington has in NATO. The agency’s estimates by 2024 provided that the US be The third country of the alliance that higher percentage of its GDP allocated to defense, 3.4%, only behind Poland and Estonia. Washington’s commitments go beyond the North Atlantic Treaty and given the size of its economy, it is estimated that US defense spending represents near two thirds of NATO total. As for costs, the body applies A cast Based on national income and the US stands out again as one of the greatest taxpayers, with almost 16%, like Germany. The United Kingdom is in third place with 11% and France occupies fourth place, with just over 10%. Of percentages to dollars. World Population Review has created A map in which the contribution of each country attached to NATO in 2023 is even more graphic, both in the percentage of GDP and in funds dedicated to investment in defense. The US stands out with 3.49% and 860,000 million of dollars, well above From the second country, Germany. As a picture is worth a thousand words, it is good to take a look at the graphic prepared in 2024 by Visual Capitalist to understand the weight of US investment in defense compared to the other 31 countries of the Alliance. The other approach. It matters what the United States contributes, but it also matters to what extent the rest of the countries attached to NATO contribute. Trump has already publicly demanded the rest of the nations that raise their contribution until reaching 5% of his GDP, even above what the US himself allocates. And he does not seem willing to change his strategy. “I told the countries ‘I will not protect them unless you pay,’ and they started paying. That amounted to more than 600,000 million dollars,” He presumed In December. The 5% barrier is well above the 2% that NATO itself has been marked, the latter percentage that probably not to … Read more

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