building

“We’ve been building infrastructure for humans for 20 years, maybe we have 20 months to rebuild it for agents”

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Companies have embraced the agentic AI boom, to the point that some They are drowning in so many AI agents. Employees are creating uncontrolled agents, triggering token consumption and causing many of those agents to duplicate tasks. But the real underlying problem is something else: the infrastructure on which all this is running is not prepared to support it. Meta’s warning. They tell it in Venture Beat. During the VB Transform 2026 talk, Meta’s vice president of engineering Barak Yagour gave a very powerful figure: queries from agents reaching the Meta system have multiplied by 30 in the last six months. “What happens to the infrastructure we’ve built over years when agents, not humans, become its primary consumers?” Yagour asked the audience. The answer is even more worrying: “We have spent 20 years building infrastructure for humans. Maybe we have 20 months to rebuild everything for a world where humans and agents co-create at scale.” And he adds that “The opportunity is open, but it will not last long.” lthe three problems. The emergence of the agents threatens to break the infrastructure on three fronts: Ability: Until recently, to plan how much computing power, storage or bandwidth was needed to carry out a project, it was enough to count the number of employees working on it. Yagour explains it very graphically: “Now, an engineer generates 10 agents, and each one generates sub-agents. An organization of 1,000 people can generate the load of 100,000 users practically overnight.” Identity: Access control systems are not designed for an AI agent. It is not human, but it moves around the infrastructure and makes decisions on its own. Speed: The third problem is the speed at which the agents move. They can write code faster than any human, but “that code still needs to be compiled, tested, deployed and monitored.” Deep changes. Yagour mentions that reasoning models are changing the way the data layer is processed. Detecting matches from keywords is not the same as reasoning about someone’s intention; That requires a complete history of behavior, not a summary. This requires making changes to how that data is processed and stored. Meta is moving from batch processing, which can take up to 24 hours to update, to real-time processing as it is key when the model is reasoning about what a user wants at that very moment. On the other hand, they are moving from an opaque storage to one that understands its own content, so that it only reads what it needs in each query and thus lightens the load on the GPUs. Setting limits. According to Yagour “Autonomy without governance is nothing more than chaos”, which is why Meta’s solution is to create what they call “trusted data environments.” Here, agents can move freely “but every result is traced back to its source and carefully vetted. This way you can always be sure that the data shared is trusted and controlled.” It is a way of giving freedom to the agents, but in a controlled way and without exposing themselves to the risk of ending up messing up. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | AI agents can destroy jobs. Or they can also save a century-old cheese factory from bankruptcy

Huawei is building a semiconductor empire. And in the middle of the crisis, now it is going for its own DRAM factory

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If Huawei has a message for the United States that tried to ostracize it with the five-year-old vetothat message is “thank you.” It was the same president of the Chinese company who commented a few days ago that, without the pressure from the westChina and Huawei could not have developed their technology at the speed they have. Because Huawei is developing an empire, and the latest reports suggest that they are going for the missing piece: DRAM memory. And they are creating a megafactory so as not to depend on anyone in a market that is far from improving. DRAM factory. It is estimated that SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron have more than 90% of the global DRAM market. With the big three focusing all their production on AI platforms, neither consumers nor companies of consumer products can access components at competitive prices, so they look for alternatives. It is said that Apple would be looking at the Chinese CXMTbut now there are those point that Huawei is creating a DRAM factory with government support. The company Swaysure, from Shenzhen, one of the technological hearts of the country, would be building with Huawei a factory with the capacity to create 12-inch wafers. The planned production would be 140,000 wafers per month and, in charge of all this, would be a former director of TSMC. chip empire. China has one goal: that at least 80% of basic technology that their companies use is supplied by national companies, and Huawei plays a fundamental role there. It is no longer about the huge campuses that they have to promote their own business, but also their presence in all the technological sectors of the country and the importance that they are gaining by becoming one of the pivots of semiconductors in China. With the help of SMIC, they have managed to develop chips with an advanced architecture in record time and, in addition, it is estimated that at least 11 factories throughout the country operate it with the help of allied companies. They create logic chips, have foundry services, and also operate in the DRAM chip segment. With the new company led by Swaysure, they would take another step to achieve greater independence from the big players in the memory and NAND chip sector. In the end, it is about creating an industrial network that allows us to achieve that 80% goal and, above all, be more independent from foreign technology. Images from Planet Labs and Financial Times in which you can see the evolution in the construction of a Huawei and SwaySure plant between 2022 and 2025. parallel reality. To achieve this, Huawei has some of the most impressive technological and R&D campuses on the planet, which has allowed them in a very short time to not only rise from the ashes, but create a parallel reality. In terms of software, HarmonyOS is on more than 1 billion devices, the Huawei Clouyd service is growing outside of China in countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and then there are the chips. They have the Ascend and Kunpeng optimized for both AI and edge computingrecently introduced a supercluster for advanced AI tasks and intend to change the paradigm of the evolution and development of processors with a ‘Tau Law’ under which they will begin to create their new Kirin consumer chips that we can see in devices such as mobile phones and tablets. And that they have the Chinese government support It is a guarantee. Chinese lever. Returning to Huawei’s RAM, this movement is not designed to compete against the big three in the sector, but rather to not depend on them. That is, Huawei should not want to be Samsung in such a short time, but having the capacity to make its DRAM, it could stop depending on Samsung or SK Hynix, for example. Furthermore, these types of movements are part of a more long-term strategy, one in which Huawei has gone from being a large company in China to being one of the lungs of the country’s technological developmentdriving the AI ​​platforms of other companies with its hardware and being the heart of some of the data centers in which China is going to invest 300 billion dollars over the next five years. HE esteemIn fact, Huawei will take over 60% of the Chinese AI chip market in 2026. Now, no matter how much they invest and create new foundries, they still have a hot potato: no one manufactures advanced lithography machines like ASML’s to which Chinese companies have restricted access. They are advancing through alternative techniques and reverse engineeringbut if China wants to be the first technological nation in the short term (an objective that they have marked themselves), at some point they will need those huge, next-generation “printers.” Image | ASML In Xataka | US adds Netherlands to Pax Silica alliance: ASML host nation enters anti-Chinese bloc

Denmark was building the world’s largest wind farm when a 400-year-old sunken ship was found

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Although we have been watching for years how China builds renewable mega-facilities like It is on the Tibetan plateau or this other colossal wind farm with 136 wind turbines 100 kilometers offshoreis not the only country with great ambitions to generate clean energy. Without going any further, Denmark is in the preliminary stages of setting up the largest offshore wind farm in the world, Hornsea 3. But for now this installation will have to wait because in the middle of prospecting work, they have found gold. Or rather, lead: the one reveals the existence of a wreck with a cargo of lead ingots. The discovery. This huge wind farm is being installed by the energy company Ørsted, in the North Sea, off the coast of Yorkshire. There, about 120 kilometers from Norfolk and about 40 meters deep, they were doing safety surveys of the seabed in search of possible unexploded ordnance from the Second World War when they came across a 17th century shipwreck. The curious thing was the trigger for such a discovery: what appeared on the monitors were three lead ingots weighing 70 kilograms each that were still stacked in their original position. There were also some remains of wood and some hull of the ship that transported them. Thanks to the mark that the smelter left on the ingots, it is possible to try to trace their origin, in this case of hypothetically linked to Derbyshire. Why is it important. Because it clearly evidences the early modern English lead trade. In this case, the wreck found is directly on the route that linked Hull with the Netherlands through the North Sea. Context. At that time and as the MSDS Marine explainsEngland produced large quantities of lead, especially in the mines of Derbyshire and the Peak District. From Hull and London it was exported to other locations, such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Before we discovered the toxic effects of lead, this element was commonly used for pipes, cookware, weapons, and other products. Transforming it into ingots made it easier to transport as merchandise. A curiosity: the heritage legislation of the United Kingdom requires archaeological studies to be carried out before the construction of this type of infrastructure and thank goodness, because in British offshore wind farms in recent years a roman anchor has been found. In detail. More specifically, the three recovered lead ingots have three different engraved markings (“IS”, “EB” and “H”). These signs are reminiscent of those found in the Kennemerlanda Dutch East India Company ship sunk in 1664 near the Shetland Islands. For this reason, in this preliminary phase the research team holds that the ship was probably Dutch and was heading back to the Netherlands loaded. Yes, but. At the moment, almost everything is hypothesis: a deeper investigation is needed to determine the origin of the ship and a more precise dating beyond the “17th century.” Furthermore, the geological origin of lead has not been analytically confirmed either. In Xataka | 80 years ago an American destroyer attacked what it believed to be an enemy submarine. We just discovered it was a sunken ship In Xataka | Barcelona started digging to build a parking lot. He ended up discovering a 10 m medieval ship of uncertain origin. Cover | Fredrik Öhlander and MSDS Marine

Making a robotic hand is “100 times more difficult” than building the entire robot. These Chinese companies are determined to solve it

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China has achieved let your humanoid robots run, they fight and even that execute choreographies with astonishing precision. That was the easy part. The key for a humanoid to stop being a fairground attraction and become a useful product is not in its legs, balance or its “brain”, but in something much smaller and much more complicated than it seems: the hands. The challenge of the hands. The human hand has 27 bones, 34 muscles and countless nerve endings. Replicating this in metal and circuits is the biggest bottleneck facing modern robotics. sums it up well Guardian Zhou Yong, founder of LinkerBot, one of the most advanced Chinese startups in this field: manufacturing a robotic hand is “a hundred times more difficult” than manufacturing an entire humanoid. “The dexterity required by a hand is ten times greater than that of any other part of the body, but its volume is only one-tenth the volume,” Zhou says. That is, not only is it the most technically complex element, it is also the smallest. The Chinese advantage. Pan Yunzhe, founder of Wuji Technology, studied in the United States and considered setting up his robotic hands company there, but soon saw that it was unviable. He tells The Guardian that “It was practically impossible to manufacture hardware in the United States due to the enormous limitations of the supply chain.” And China has an unmatched supply chain: it is agile, it is sophisticated and, above all, it is cheaper. This gives them a key advantage in hardware and allows companies like Linkerbot to already manufacture 5,000 robotic hands per month, a figure impossible to match anywhere else in the world. The problem is the software. Making the hand is only half the job, you also have to make it move like a human hand and there is still a long way to go here. Nathan Lepora, professor of robotics and AI at the University of Bristol, sums it up: “the challenge of making these hands is already being solved,” but controlling them “is a completely different game… no one knows how to do it yet.” The scarcity of data is one of the big problems and it is that, while LLMs have been trained with the enormous amounts of data on the Internet, there is hardly any data on how a human hand moves and, above all, what it feels like when touching something. To try to overcome this obstacle, Wuji Technology is testing a glove packed with sensors that captures all the movements of the human hand in everyday tasks. Its founder admits that being able to capture “how a person moves and what they touch or feel” is an “extremely complex and unsolved” task. The robotics market. The Chinese robotic hands sector had a turnover of $7.4 billion last year, almost four times more than in 2024. LinkerBot, one of the leading startups, aspires to a valuation of $6 billion. The case of this startup is just one example of the robotics boom in China, where more than a million companies are already registered, 40% more than last year. This translates into brutal dominance: China already manufactures 90% of the world’s humanoid robots and it is the country with the most industrial robotsby much difference with the rest. Yes, but. Robotics is advancing by leaps and bounds, but there are voices calling for calm, and not just any voice, but that of the International Federation of Robotics. In your report published in September last year were clear: “True multipurpose humanoids are still far away.” We are going to continue seeing more and more amazing demonstrations, but from there until they are sold en masse and we can all have one at home that is truly capable, there is a way to go. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | We still don’t know if humanoid robots will be the next great technological revolution. Yes we know that China will lead it

How China is reinventing building air conditioning without using more electricity

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When the heat hits is when those of us who live in historically cool latitudes seriously consider installing large-scale air conditioners and if not, ask France, in whose capital its underground system It seems not to be enough for what is coming our way. But there are entire cities and countries that are ahead of us in that “historically cool Europe” in terms of air conditioning. This is the case of China: there the air conditioning of their buildings goes beyond the simple air conditioner or passive architecture: there are communities that are already cooling their shared outdoor spaces by spraying mist water from the roofs. The rain in Seville Shanxi it’s a wonder. As explains Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Yuncheng, a city in central China’s Shanxi province, there is a residential area where roofs rain: a water spray cooling system capable of reducing surface temperatures by 5 to 8 ° C in a matter of minutes. This other similar spray system called HY-WSWD report drops of up to 10°C in roof temperature and savings of 20-30% in air conditioning consumption. Although it is a political official who shares the system, it does not seem that it is a state air conditioning policy (for the moment), but rather a solution adopted individually by several sprinkler irrigation communities, as they explain in Sina. The principle of operation is essentially the same as a evaporative air conditioner XXL, so it is neither technically revolutionary nor new. In fact, that HY-WSWD is a product that has been on sale since at least 2025. Why is it important. To begin with, because China is the largest consumer of electricity for air conditioning on the planet and its peaks in electricity demand in summer are directly related to the use of air conditioning, as documented by the International Energy Agencywhich also warns that it will get worse: in Asia the demand for refrigeration in Asia will triple before 2050. Any technology that reduces the temperature of the building before using the air conditioning is good news for the grid. As quantifies scienceevaporative cooling systems reduce energy consumption by 30-40% compared to conventional air conditioning systems. Tap to go to the post and watch the video. x Context. We said that the system is not new, it is actually very old (for this type of technology). In the United States there are a patent from the 70s designed for industrial warehouses and discarded for residential use for aesthetic and another from the late 80’s more discreet that contemplates its application in residential, commercial and industrial buildings. Furthermore, this evaporative misting in urban areas already applied in hot and dry cities like Phoenix or Tempe (Arizona). Although we are mentioning several American initiatives, the paradoxical reality is that China has its own architectural precedent and it is much older: more than a thousand years ago, the Hanliang Hall of Daming Palace from the Tang dynasty used a circulating cooling system: hydraulic wheels propelled cold water to the roof, letting it fall from the four eaves in the form of a curtain of water that cooled the outer perimeter of the room. In detail. What is striking about the case is not so much the technology, but the scale: covering complete roofs of entire residential blocks to cool the building as a whole and the surrounding areas instead of concentrating the misting in specific points of outdoor comfort, as happens in so many bar terraces in the West or does the Madrid City Council itself, which has installed nebulizers in squares and streets of the city. In this sense, it represents a paradigm shift compared to traditional split when it comes to understanding air conditioning: conventional air conditioning units do not eliminate heat, they move it from the inside to the outside through the compressor, and that residual heat is expelled by thousands of individual units. contributes to intensifying the nocturnal urban heat island. This system that is becoming fashionable in China, on the other hand, intervenes in the building’s own thermal environment (the roof exposed to the sun) before that heat generates a load that the compressor has to expel outwards again. Thus, the thermal difference between inside and outside is reduced at the source: the microdroplets expose a lot of surface area to the air, accelerating evaporation, which extracts latent heat from the roof and the surrounding air without the need for refrigerants. Yes, but. The kryptonite of evaporative air conditioners is the humidityor in other words, this system is only effective in locations with dry climates such as Shanxi, which has a semi-arid continental climate. Of course, in cities in humid southern China like Shenzhen it would be much less effective. In humid and hot environments, high temperatures become a real nightmare and evaporative air conditioners do not work: they raise the relative humidity, worsening thermal comfort. On the other hand, this is a system that continuously consumes water, a precious commodity that is scarce in some places, which poses a dilemma between energy savings and water stress. In Xataka | Best quality-price air conditioners 2026. Which one to buy and seven recommended models for less than 800 euros In Xataka | Air conditioning is the new great political weapon in France: why environmentalists and the extreme right are fighting over it Cover | Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China via Twitter

the megatunnel that France and Italy are building under the Alps

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Under the Alps, between France and Italy, one of the largest railway tunnels in history is being excavated. After decades on the table, this mega-construction that involves heavy machinery and thousands of workers began five years ago to materialize the most ambitious cross-border infrastructure work that Europe has in its hands right now. Because it is not just connecting two states, it will be the heart of the Mediterranean Corridor of the trans-European transport network to link southern Europe from east to west. The tunnel. The centerpiece of that corridor is the Mont Cenis base tunnel, which will be one of the longest in the world: 115 kilometers but with small print. Thus, it is made up of two parallel single-track railway tubes, each of them 57.5 kilometers long. In the main tunnel there will be In addition, four access points, 204 security branches and an underground logistics network with ventilation shafts. When in operation, the trains will cross the Alps on a virtually flat track, eliminating the current gradients that require reductions in speed and load. These tunnels join the existing railway infrastructure in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in France and in Sousse for Italy. Currently there are more than 3,300 workers on site, with a predicted peak of 4,000 in the entire cross-border section. At the moment, in February of this year in the French part had already been excavated 29% of the total. Why is it important. That the train trip between both countries is going to be faster and more comfortable is a reality: as details the Quaderno 11 dell’Osservatorio: The Paris-Milan journey will go from the current seven hours to around four and a half hours, so the train wins points over the plane on a tremendously busy route. But the big advantage is in freight logistics: The Alps force a good part of the trade between northern and southern Europe to go by road, with all the environmental cost and congestion that this implies. Context. The history of this tunnel is long and eventful. The occurrence dates back to the 90s, but it has been delayed for decades due to political issues, especially from Italy. In 2021 was when the project was finally unlocked with the signing of the contracts on the French side. Of course, the European Court of Auditors warned at the beginning of the year that the goal of having it ready before 2030 will not happen. In fact, the project promoter points out to 2033 as the date of opening to traffic. More delays. In figures. Some of the data on which the project moves: Cost of the section: 11.1 billion euros, 30% more than the initial estimate of 2015. The financing is distributed: 40% European Union, 35% Italy, 25% France. Reduction in time: Milan-Paris in 4 hours 30 minutes, compared to the current almost seven hours. Turin-Lyon will go from 3h 47 minutes to 1h 47 minutes. Turin-Paris: about 4 hours, almost an hour and a half less. 700,000 fewer trucks on the road per year according to TELTwhich translates into 3 million tons of less carbon dioxide annually. In detail. The design, construction and management of the project is carried out by TELT (Tunnel Euralpin Lyon Turin), a company created expressly for this project and made up of 50% by the Italian State through Ferrovie dello Stato and 50% by the French State. Of course, in the execution there is a consortium of large European companies, among them the German Herrenknecht, an institution in tunnel boring machinery. For excavation, two methods are combined: for long sections, the huge TBMs of the German company180 meters long and 10.4 meters in diameter, 2,300 tons in weight and 8,100 kW in power. For access sections and sections with complex geology, the traditional drill and blast method is used. Yes, but. The first issue has already reared its head in the “In figures” section: the cost is skyrocketing and threatens to continue doing so (without going any further, the neighboring Brenner tunnel increase 40% compared to initial estimates). The environmental impact is also on the table: environmental groups They have been warning for years of damage to the alpine ecosystem and some springs in the area They have already started to dry for the works. Finally, the project has received criticism because rail and road traffic in the corridor was declining when it was approved, calling into question the future profitability of the investment. In Xataka | Spain and Morocco have been dreaming of a tunnel under the Strait for 40 years. The great enemy of the project is called Umbral de Camarinal In Xataka | Norway gives the green light to the construction of the world’s first tunnel for ships: a colossal engineering feat that has been waiting for 150 years Cover | TELT and Nellia Kurme

Satellite images revealed that Russia covered a building with an anti-drone cage. Ukraine turned it into an action movie set

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In World War II, the United Kingdom became camouflage entire factories with nets, fake structures and even fictitious neighborhoods built on rooftops to fool German bombers. The idea it was simple– If you can’t stop the attack, make the target disappear from the air. Eight decades later, that logic has returned. Only now the enemy is no longer looking from a bomber, but from a drone. The giant cage. Satellite images made it clear: Russia had done something that until recently seemed unthinkable, wrapping an entire building in a gigantic anti-drone structure. We are not talking about a tank or an armored vehicle, where “cope cages” are already common, but rather about a strategic factory more than 900 kilometers from the front. The facility, part of the VNIIR Progress plant in Cheboksary, had been protected with that kind of metal skeleton for at least a year. Was the test of the extent to which Moscow assumes that Ukraine can strike very deep inside Russia. But it was also a silent admission: the drone threat has already changed even the industrial architecture of warfare. Shield the rear. VNIIR Progress is not just any factory. Produces essential navigation components for a good part of the Russian arsenal: Shahed-136 type drones, Kalibr cruise missiles, Iskander ballistic missiles and gliding bombs. It is, in essence, a critical piece of the Russian military gear. Protecting it with a cage of that size reveals something important: it is no longer enough to move factories away from the front. Russian strategic depth has been eroded and the war has meant that once safe places now need permanent physical defenses. Ukraine changed the rules (again). The problem for Russia is that Ukraine no longer only strikes with drones. In the most recent attack, kyiv used its new cruise missiles FP-5 Flamingoa nationally manufactured weapon with more than 2,800 kilometers of range and an explosive warhead weighing more than one ton. That detail completely changes the equation. The anti-drone cage could make sense against small kamikaze drones or light munitions. But faced with a missile of that size, the structure becomes practically in decoration. Ukraine, in essence, demonstrated that the Russian solution was designed for yesterday’s war. What the defense gives away. The most interesting thing is not only the damage caused, but what it means the very existence of that cage. Every new anti-drone net, mesh or cover that appears over Russian refineries, air bases or factories is a sign of vulnerability. For decades, the industrial rearguard was a sanctuary. Now Russia is spending resources to fortify even its production centers. In other words, what you see is a clear symptom that the Ukrainian deep strike campaign is working at least on a psychological and operational level, forcing Moscow to redistribute protection and assume additional costs. The invisible climb. The episode also reflects a broader evolution: the industrial war is becoming a war constant adaptation. Ukraine began using long-range drones to overwhelm defenses and hit critical infrastructure. Russia, like we have been countingresponded with networks, interference and physical structures. Now kyiv goes up a notch with missiles heavier and more precise. Each defensive layer generates a higher offensive layer. And that turns the conflict into a technological race where no solution lasts too long. The lesson of the attack. The image is very powerful because summarizes all the logic of modern warfare: an entire building wrapped in steel to protect electronic parts that then guide precision weapons… and still reached. The conclusion is inevitably uncomfortable for Moscow. If a facility hundreds of miles from the front needs a giant cage and not even that guarantees your safetythen the real frontier of war is no longer in the trenches. It is anywhere on the map where the military industry continues to function. Image | Ventor In Xataka | Ukraine has found Russia’s weak point in Crimea. And now there is a line of Russian trucks that cannot move forward In Xataka | The drone war has left a clear lesson for Ukraine: you can’t leave home without a 100-year-old machine gun

Serbia is building the world’s first football stadium that is a garden. China is manufacturing it with surgeon precision

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It will not be ready for the World Cup that is about to begin nor will we be able to see it at that event because the hosts are Canada, Mexico and the United States, but it is the most striking soccer stadium that will open in 2026: it is the first garden soccer stadium in the world and it is being built in Belgrade. In fact, the latest news is that the Chinese company CSCEC has completed recently the first major steel lift of the structure of the future Serbian National Football Stadium, a colossal mass of 139,000 tons. Stadium construction works are large-scale projects per se, but this one takes the cake precisely because of its dual function: it is a sports venue and an urban garden at the same time, which marks a milestone in urban planning and poses an unusual engineering challenge: hanging entire gardens from a cable structure suspended in height. The first garden stadium in the world. This pioneering garden stadium in the world has a total area of ​​about 76,000 square meters and capacity for more than 52,000 spectators. And although it is located in Belgrade (in the Surčin neighborhood), it is built by two Chinese companies and design it the Spanish studio Fenwick Iribarren Architects. The stadium aims to be more than just a sports venue: the idea is for it to be a public space open all year round, with walking areas, cafes and leisure areas in the surrounding area. The Madrid architecture team has created a very particular façade: it is made up of four suspended rings connected by cables and that house garden areas, arranged on three floors that surround the premises. The normal thing for a stadium is for the structure to be supported from below, with columns, but the Serbian National Football Stadium works as if it were a suspension bridge with cables. It is composed of 44 compression ring beams where each joint must fit with almost zero precision, as CSCEC accountthe Chinese company that is building it. However, this structure has to withstand soil, irrigation and vegetation that will grow over the years. Render of the stadium. Fenwick Iribarren Architects Why is it important. For some time now, large sports stadiums have wanted to be more than just the place where these events take place on specific days: it is now common to see them as a venue for concerts. This project takes another twist: the gardens, terraces and commercial areas are designed to function as a permanent public space, integrating the stadium into the daily life of Belgrade. And it does so by incorporating vegetation in a city where liquid trees are already being tested. As explains the European Environment Agencyurban green infrastructure has been shown to reduce heat island, improve climate resilience and public health Regarding the sporting field, when it is completed (predictably at the end of 2026), it will be the only stadium in Serbia that meets the requirements of both FIFA for World Cups and UEFA for Euro Cups. Or what is the same: without this stadium Serbia would not be eligible to organize these tournaments. Render of the interior of the stadium.Fenwick Iribarren Architects Context. Serbia has been working on the construction of its National Stadium for more than a decade: work began in 2024, but the first concrete proposals came in 2013. At that time the Serbian Football Federation with the help of the British consultancy Mace They designed the project roadmap to meet UEFA requirements and standards. Serbia has decided to become a potential host of top-level tournaments in style and without skimping on expenses: the initial budget in 2013 was 250 million and when work begins in 2024 was already around the billion euros. In detail. Behind materializing this engineering challenge are two top-level Chinese companies common in large infrastructure: the main contractor is Power Construction Corporation of China (PowerChina) and the specialized subcontractor is China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), in charge of the design, manufacture and installation of the steel structure. To achieve that brutal precision of just 0.43 millimeters of deviation in 719 meters of beams, they used high-precision laser trackers, 3D digital simulation and a 1:10 scale physical mockup to detect errors before building. Yes, but. The first drawback of this megaproject has already been revealed: so far it has already cost four times more than budgeted. And having a garden stadium is eye-catching, but also more expensive to build and maintain. On the other hand, also there are objections on whether it will be possible to fill the stands of the future venue regularly, something essential to guarantee its profitability. In fact, the Institute for the Study of Urgent Public Procurement and Stadium Affairs of Śrem Kamenica has carried out an analysis which concludes that it will take 420 years to pay off. In Xataka | Real Madrid invested 1,000 million euros in the Bernabéu to host concerts: at the moment it has tennis In Xataka | China begins construction of the largest football stadium in the world: 100,000 people in a gigantic lotus flower Cover | Fenwick Iribarren Architects

A Chinese company has been building AI for years to predict who is going to criticize the government before they do so

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In ‘Minority Report‘, Tom Cruise was the head of the pre-crime police, a department capable of arresting criminals before they could commit the crime in question, all thanks to the powers of mutants or precogs. Well, according to the New York Timesthere is a Chinese company that is trying to build a similar system, but their target will be future political dissidents and instead of mutants with powers they will use AI. what’s happening. The leak reported in the New York Times contains internal documents from the Chinese company Geedge Networks and has been published by a group of researchers at Vanderbilt University. In it they detail how the company is building an AI system capable of predicting which citizens will become political dissidents in the future. Geedge is investigating how to use LLM to synthesize large packets of data (including browsing histories, locations, online activity and contacts) and then infer citizens’ behavior, detecting whether they will present a “political risk” in the future. Like the police precrime, but for political dissidents. What is Geedge?. In September 2025 we learned that a Chinese company was exporting the surveillance system known as “Great Firewall of China” to other countries. It was Geedge Networks. The company, which has one of the creators of the Chinese firewall as a key investor, has already sold its solution to countries such as Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Myanmar. What this great firewall does is analyze the traffic of entire countries, even capturing personal data such as passwords and emails. Why is it important. According to the leak, the system is in the research phase, but it is still a disturbing approach. It is no longer just about using AI to monitor what people do, the next thing is to anticipate what they could do and even think. We see every day that AI models have biases and make many errors, using them as predictors to repress dissent poses a terrifying scenario. Tech authoritarianism as a service. As we said, Geedge is already exporting its solutions to other countries so it is selling technological authoritarianism as a service. The worst thing is that we do not find this only in China, but it is a global trend: the United States too you are delegating critical security functions to private and disreputable corporations like Palantir, and The United Kingdom also wants to follow in their footsteps. The bottleneck. There is good news (if you can call it that) and that is that Geedge has encountered a problem in developing this system: they do not have the power to manage such a volume of data. According to the New York Times, since they cannot access the most powerful chips due to the US blockade, since 2024 they have been forced to use AI models and less powerful chips. In order for the system to be able to manage the enormous amount of data they already collect, they need computing capacity that they currently do not have, always according to US sources. Image | Xataka with Gemini In Xataka | We have been hearing for years that China scans the faces of millions of citizens every day. It’s already happening in Europe

In 1972 Italy wanted to put an entire city in a one kilometer building. Half a century later he is still paying the consequences

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The same year that construction of the Corviale complex began, US authorities began demolition by Pruitt–Igoea gigantic public housing complex that had been presented just two decades earlier as the future of the modern city. The coincidence was almost symbolic: while one country demolished one of its great urban utopias, another began to build a new one. A city within a building. During the 1970s, Italy believed it could solve several urban problems at once. Rome was growing rapidly, peripheral neighborhoods were multiplying and public housing was facing increasing demand. The answer It was the Corvialea gigantic residential structure almost a kilometer long designed to house around 8,500 people. Its architect, Mario Fiorentino, did not simply imagine a block of flats, but a authentic linear city where streets would be corridors, squares would emerge from common spaces and daily services would coexist with homes. That vision was intended to demonstrate that architecture could reorganize urban life from its foundations. A utopia that was never completed. The problem appeared before the project was even finished being built. The company in charge of the works went bankrupt in 1982 and many of the essential elements of the original design never came to fruition. The famous middle floor used for shops, offices, services and community spaces was left empty and ended up being occupied by families looking for a place to live. What was to become the social heart of the complex ended up becoming a housing labyrinth improvised. Many of the planned facilities were also never built, leaving the infrastructure that was to turn the building into a self-sufficient city incomplete. When architecture conditions everyday life. Over the years, Corviale began to demonstrate that buildings are not simple containers where people live. Its long corridors, its few entrances, the complex interior circulation and the enormous scale of the complex began to influence the way in which the residents they were related to each other. The elevators are They broke down constantlyforcing thousands of people to travel long distances to enter or leave their homes. The centralized heating system caused conflicts between residentsirregular occupants and administrations on who should bear the costs. Some researchers even described the building as a small town whose governance problems were directly linked to its physical characteristics. From the symbol of the future to the symbol of failure. As the deterioration progressed, Corviale began to accumulate a reputation increasingly negative. For many he became the perfect example of the excesses of urbanism postwar monumental. Its critics described it as a concrete monster, a residential prison or an example of how certain urban planning ideologies had ignored people’s real needs. Illegal occupations, maintenance problems, the presence of criminal activities and institutional abandonment reinforced this perception. for years proposals arose to tear it down completely and replace it with smaller-scale traditional neighborhoods, connected by streets, squares and buildings closer to human dimensions. Giuditto Miele at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Corviale complex The battle to decide your destiny. However, Corviale was never demolished. Unlike many other large post-war European housing estates, managed to survive to demolition attempts. Part of the explanation lies in its increasing symbolic value. What for some was an urban failure, for others represented an unrepeatable piece of Italian architectural history. The building ended up getting heritage protection and became part of the national debate about what to do with the great utopias of the 20th century. The discussion stopped focusing solely on whether the project had worked or not and became a more complex question: how to transform such a gigantic structure without destroying it. Half a century of reforms to correct an idea. The last decades have been marked by an almost constant succession of regeneration projects. International competitions, neighborhood associations, architects and public administrations have tried adapt the complex to current needs. Some interventions have regularized occupied spaces, others have rehabilitated common areas and several seek to recover the pedestrian scale through new public spaces and green areas. No other residential complex in Rome has received public investment so intense and prolonged. The paradox in this case is more than evident: the building that was born to simplify urban life has become one of the most complex regeneration operations in the city. Consequences of a big bet. The story del Corviale It continues to fascinate because it transcends architecture. It is the story of a time that believed that social problems could be solved through great physical solutions and a city that continues to deal with the consequences of that bet. The building, by the way, still standinginhabited by thousands of people and subjected to continuous transformations. For some it demonstrates the limits of grand urban visions, for others, the ability of a community to adapt to an unfinished project. The truth is that half a century later, Rome continues to dedicate resources, time and energy to managing a structure designed to function as a complete city. And perhaps that is the clearest proof that Corviale never stopped being exactly that: a city enclosed within a building. Image | Wikimedia, Umberto RotundoAlessandro Pace In Xataka | In 1970 Japan built homes of the future where each capsule would be replaceable. Half a century later he discovered that no one knew how to repair them In Xataka | The incredible story of the tallest building on the planet that ended up becoming the largest swimming pool in the Soviet Union

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