building

The US spent $600 billion building its highway network. It’s less than what big tech companies are going to spend on AI this year

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The irruption of ChatGPT in the technological panorama in 2022 marked the starting signal in the AI ​​race; a race in which, year after year, large technology companies continue to increase their spending without stopping. 2026 has just begun and, far from letting it go, the big tech They have put their foot even further on the accelerator. All but one. walk or bust. We already know the planned capex for 2026 of the main technology companies, that is, what they plan to invest in capital expenditures. amazon: 200,000 million Alphabet: 175-185 billion Goal: 115-135 billion Microsoft: 140,000 million Apple: 13,000 million If we add it up taking the highest figures they have given, it is 673,000 million dollars, if we take the lowest figures it would be 643,000 million. In any case it is outrageous. In 2025 the figures were already dizzying and we are talking about an increase of around 60%. There has come a point where we have to stop and ask ourselves: How many zeros does that have? (yes twelve). Context of this madness. Here are a few comparisons to put this figure in context. It is superior to Sweden GDP in 2025 (662,000 million), that of Israel (610,000 million) and that of Singapore (574,000 million). As pointed out this user in Xexceeds what it cost to build the entire US interstate highway system (about 634,000 million) and is a quarter of the entire global military spending in a whole year. It’s like spending $1.2 million per minute for an entire year. It doesn’t make any sense. The market response. The fear of a bubble was noted after the announcements of the different companies, causing sharp falls in the stock market despite the fact that all of them have made profits (some breaking records). amazon fell 12% after announcing a capex of 200,000 millionmuch higher than forecasts Alphabet (Google) achieved record revenues, but it was not enough to convince the markets and its shares fell 10% in the following days Goal also announced record revenue and they had a 10% increase. However, days later things changed and they fell 8%. Microsoft fit the strongest blow, with a drop of 18%. Additionally, they revealed that 45% of their cloud business contracts are for OpenAI and the market does not reward dependency. Apple was the winner, with an increase of more than 7% since they announced results. The declines have been corrected in recent days and all companies have seen their value stabilize, but the message was clear: investors fear that this level of capex is far ahead of the ability of AI to generate profits in the short term. Where are they going to get the money from? It’s the big question. As stated in Financial Timescompanies must choose between reducing shareholder returns, using their cash reserves, or borrowing more money. In the case of Amazon, estimates point to a cash flow of 180 billion, Alphabet 195 billion and Meta 130 billion. The threat of free cash flow falling into negative territory is there, so we can expect them to issue more debt and stop share buybacks. Think different. Then we have Apple, which announced revenues of 144 billion in the last quarter, boosted by sales of the iPhone 17 during the Christmas campaign. Its capex is a fraction of what other companies have spent because Apple doesn’t build data centers, it outsources them. He agreement with Google to use Gemini can be interpreted as They have lost the AI ​​racebut in the context of a possible bubble it is a masterstroke: Google is the one who assumes the brutal spending on infrastructure and who is exposed to the bubble, while they benefit from their technology and see how the market rewards them for spending less. In Xataka | What have Apple and Google agreed on for the new Siri? Nobody knows because Google doesn’t even want to mention it. Image | Photo of Adam Nir in Unsplashedited

more and more states are opposed to building them

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The US is finding increasing resistance ahead of the construction of new data centers to feed AI, and New York has been the last state in joining it. Two Democratic legislators have presented a bill that would suspend the construction of new facilities in the state for three years, becoming the sixth territory to consider this type of measure in just a few weeks. Why is this happening? The bipartisan rejection of data centers has spread like wildfire across the country. In December, Bernie Sanders became the first national politician to ask for a general moratoriumarguing that it was necessary to “ensure that the benefits of technology work for everyone, not just the 1%.” Now, from Florida to Vermont, lawmakers from both parties are pushing for temporary pauses. According to Wired, more than 200 environmental organizations they signed a letter calling data center expansion “one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation.” In detail. The proposal, introduced by state Sen. Liz Krueger and Assemblywoman Anna Kelles, establishes a minimum three-year moratorium on issuing construction permits. During that period, the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Public Utilities Commission would evaluate the impact of these infrastructures to suggest new regulations. Just like share In the middle, the state currently has more than 130 data centers, and electricity demand linked to new projects has reached 10 gigawatts, triple what it was just a year ago. Among the developments underway is a 450-megawatt center built on a former coal plant. Where else is it happening. Georgia, Maryland, Oklahoma, Vermont and Virginia have also introduced bills this year to temporarily pause data center development. Although Georgia, Vermont and Virginia are Democratic initiatives, in Oklahoma and Maryland they have been led by Republicans. According to share Wired, as of late December at least 14 states had cities or counties that had suspended building permits. And Virginia, with more than 60 related bills introduced this year, has become the legislative epicenter of this battle. The hidden cost. data centers consume massive amounts of energy and waterand local communities fear an increase in your electric bills greater than what they have had to face until now. Just like account In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul last month launched an initiative to force data centers to “pay their fair share.” “I don’t think there are many people who want to have higher energy bills just so some chatbot can corrupt a 13-year-old boy online,” declared Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Resistance from below. Beyond the legislators, there is also citizen opposition that is pausing multimillion-dollar projects. According to Data Center Watch, between March and June 2025 they were delayed or canceled developments valued at 98 billion dollars. In Monterey Park, California, a six week campaign has achieved a 45-day moratorium and a commitment from the city council to explore a permanent ban. Between the lines. What is happening in the United States with data centers is a reflection of the problem that the evolution of AI brings with it: that it is generating a physical infrastructure the costs of which the communities where it is installed are not willing to assume. Many companies promise jobs with their construction, but once operational they hardly require personnel. They promise fiscal investment, but they skyrocket energy consumption and pollute with noise and emissions. A Morning Consult survey revealed that a majority of voters support banning the construction of data centers near where they live and believe they are partially responsible for rising electricity prices. And now what. The industry has begun to react. Just like share Wired, Microsoft presented last month, with support from the White House, a series of commitments to be a “good neighbor” in the communities where it builds. Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, assured the outlet that the industry “recognizes the importance of continued efforts to better educate and inform the public about the industry.” The needs of Big Tech to advance their operations collide more than ever with public opinion, and it does not look like the gap is going to narrow anytime soon. Cover image | Tim Mossholder and Kevin Ache In Xataka | Something is changing in the markets and AI: Amazon’s exaggerated spending announcement has been followed by a stock market crash

a 10-story building in 29 hours

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There are those who think that a solution to housing problem is to build more (although the Polytechnic of Catalunya don’t think the same), but that inevitably takes time. Faced with this need, there are those who have resorted to the prefabricated housingwhose acquisition and assembly is more agile compared to traditional constructions. In fact, in Madrid They have already opted for them to build public flats quickly. But China is simply on another level. A skyscraper against the clock. Because if the work to remove the gotelé, change the floor and assemble the kitchen has cost me a long month in my new apartment, in the Asian country they are revolutionizing architecture with express constructions quite far from the modest prefabricated modules to which we are accustomed. However, in Changsha they have built a 10-story residential building in less than 29 hours. But don’t let the final result fool you: it is still a prefabricated construction. An XXL LEGO. This building of broad It is not new, in fact it dates back to 2021, but five years later it still leaves people speechless due to the synchronization and speed of execution. Furthermore, this project did turn out well, unlike the Sky City that he wanted to build in 90 days. Obviously having more personnel and the three cranes helps, but what is truly different is that we are dealing with a modular off-site construction. Come on, a large part of the work comes from the factory (the manufacturing there It was 15 days) and then it’s time to assemble the pieces. Moving a project of this magnitude to a factory has its advantages in that we are in a controlled environment and not out in the open. The Chinese company has been working on prefabricated steel structures for years. ISO size of a standard shipping container (12.19 meters x 2.44 meters x 3 meters), so they can be transported to the facility without problem by truck. In addition, they can be assembled in height and width as appropriate. The entire building could be dismantled for transportation if necessary. Their secret: B-core steel. These containers are manufactured in B-Core steelwhich consists of two outer stainless steel plates that wrap a core of steel tubes like a sandwich. The structure is joined by fusion by brazing with a copper sheet. In this video From Broad Group you can see the step by step of its manufacture. More important than the technical details is what is gained with this material. To begin with, the carbon footprint drops considerably by minimizing the use of cement (one of the biggest polluters on the planet), so we are facing a more sustainable construction. But it also offers high resistance to corrosion and since it has high ductility, it better supports seismic movements. According to the corporation, it is an earthquake- and typhoon-proof material. Finally, it is ten times lighter than concrete and assembly is faster, so costs, time and labor are reduced. Almost everything comes from the factory. The modules arrive by truck to the building construction site in standard trucks, the finishing and plumbing and electrical assembly already completed. There, the cranes are responsible for lifting them to place them exactly where previously planned, the walls and slabs are deployed in situ and finally, they are fixed with high-strength bolts. All that remains is to connect the supplies. The video is in timelapse. You don’t need it. The Broad group has documented the project in a video which looks like an authentic dance of synchronized choreography where the industrialization of the process on the one hand and the careful planning on the other show in fast motion a process that in real time was equally dizzying: three hours per floor. In Xataka | China opens a new paradigm in road construction: 157 kilometers, 10 machines and a total of zero humans In Xataka | Spain’s obsession with black and white: all new construction buildings are becoming the same building Cover | Broad Group

It is now possible to book a hotel stay on the Moon for $250,000. Building it is still the complicated part

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The Moon has returned to the center of the board and, this time, not only as a symbol of the past. The conversation is no longer just about missions and flags, but also what kind of activity could be sustained there if access becomes more frequent. On that horizon a broader idea begins to appear, that of a future lunar economy, with services and infrastructure yet to be invented. And among all these possibilities there is one that is disconcerting from the start: tourism, the promise of changing traditional vacations for a stay away from Earth. Landing the proposal. What has been put on the table is not a ticket or a travel date, but the option of entering into a process to reserve a future place in something that does not yet exist. GRU Space has opened an early access application program to participate in its first lunar missions, a pre-filter that, if passed, allows you to move to the deposit phase and maintain a position in the queue. There are still no assigned rooms or a closed calendar for guests, and the company presents the process as a way to select participants and check their ability to travel, not as a direct purchase of a stay on the Moon. Money rules. Booking is not cheap, nor is it definitive. The first step is a non-refundable $1,000 application fee. If the applicant is selected, GRU Space offers two deposit options, $250,000 or one million dollars, which can be recovered at any time from the first 30 days and which would be applied to the final price if the hotel accepts guests. That price, the company itself warns, has not yet been set and will probably exceed ten million dollars, a useful reminder that here the easy thing is to sign up and the difficult thing is to materialize the trip. A huge ambition with a minimal structure. GRU Space is, for now, a small company with a very big speech. Its founder, Skyler Chanrecently graduated from Berkeley and has explained that for much of 2025 he was practically the only full-time employee, a context that helps understand the early nature of this initiative. The company has secured seed funding, but its current scale does not correspond to that of a consolidated industrial organization. It rather fits a startup trying to turn a long-term vision into an executable plan. The Moon as a destination, not as a simple stop. In GRU Space’s approach there is a recurring idea: space transportation is necessary, but insufficient. The company defends that the bottleneck is in habitability, in having structures where people can stay without continually depending on the ship that took them there. Under this approach, the hotel is not presented only as a tourist whim, but as a use case that would force us to solve problems of daily life outside of Earth. His argument is that such learning, if it comes, would serve as a basis for broader infrastructures. The calendar that the company publishes is carefully staggered and full of conditionals. In 2026, it plans to review applications and profile the first participants, and then, in 2027, assign invitations linked to missions and stays through a selection mechanism and private bidding. The next milestone is in 2029, with the sending of a construction load to the lunar surface as a demonstration of preparation for subsequent phases. In its technical roadmap, the deployment of habitat and systems arrives in 2031 and the “first hotel”, as such, remains for 2032, leaving the tourist premiere for the end of a chain of steps that, on paper, should go well consecutively. From inflatable habitat to lunar construction. The project does not start with a permanent hotel, but with progressive technical demonstrations. GRU Space first proposes validating the deployment of inflatable structures and their behavior on the Moon, a way of testing without carrying the weight of a traditional construction from minute one. If that phase works, the next step would be to manufacture construction materials directly there, using the lunar soil itself as raw material, through geopolymer processes that, at least in their early stages, depend on activators brought from Earth. The idea is to reduce dependence on mass shipments and move towards more solid structures, designed for a more stable occupation. The target audience for GRU Space is not limited to the eccentric traveler with a huge bank account. In his approach, tourism acts as a catalyst for the broader economy, a way of introducing private clients into an environment dominated until now by state programs. The idea is that these first users help pay for infrastructure that can later be used for logistical, scientific or industrial activities. It is a bet to create demand where it does not yet exist, with the risk that the market will not materialize as they hope. The project leaves a clear feeling: the simple part is measuring interest and capturing early commitments, the complex part begins later. Turning an idea into functional infrastructure on the Moon means depending on launchers, technologies still in testing, and impeccable execution for years. In this context, talking about reserves serves to test the market, but it does not clear up the central doubts. The question is no longer whether there are people willing to pay, but whether everything else will arrive on time and as promised. Images | GRU Space In Xataka | We already have an official date for the United States’ return to the Moon: it is imminent and mired in a sea of ​​doubts

Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, is building a huge space telescope. The question is not how, but why

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If someone today wanted to build something like a new Hubble, it would make sense to think of years of reports, reviews and committees before the first piece of hardware is even manufactured. However, that logic has just been broken with an unexpected announcement: Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, and his wife Wendy have put on the table his own money to power not one, but four telescopes, including a large-scale space observatory. The move not only challenges the sector’s inertia, but raises a question deeper than budget or technology: what exactly is a former Silicon Valley executive pursuing by wading into the heart of modern astronomy. This is a project promoted by the Schmidt Observatory System, it seeks to cover everything from the deep sky to the detailed study of transient phenomena. A change of model. Currently, telescopes are generally in the hands of public agencies and academic consortia. Building ever-larger mirrors and then putting instruments into orbit turned astronomy into a matter of national budgets. The Schmidts’ entry into this arena suggests that, with new technologies and another way to finance risk, that historic balance could be starting to shift again. Risk, speed and open science. The approach behind the observatory system is not to compete with space agencies, but to cover the space left by their own processes, which are long, conservative and highly conditioned by public budgets. The Schmidts seek to finance concepts that have already been imagined by the scientific community, but that rarely overcome the barrier of official financing due to their level of risk or the deadlines they require. The piece that gives meaning to the whole and that really makes the difference is Lazulithe only one of the four projects that will leave Earth. It aims to cover a wide range of science, from transient events lasting minutes or hours to the detailed study of exoplanets, with a level of flexibility that large public observatories cannot always offer. Further, more agile. One of the clearest breaks between Lazuli and Hubble is where it will operate and how. While NASA’s telescope orbits about 500 kilometers from Earth, Lazuli will be placed much further away, in an elliptical orbit that should give it a clearer view and allow for fast and continuous data linking. Lazuli Space Observatory In the official description, Schmidt Sciences frames this operation in a “lunar-resonant” orbit. Added to this is a larger mirror, 3.1 meters compared to Hubble’s 2.4 meters, and an observation philosophy designed to react quickly to unexpected phenomena. One platform, several instruments. Lazuli is designed as a unique platform that integrates three instruments designed to cover everything from wide-field observations to the detailed study of exoplanets and transient phenomena. Wide-field optical imager with high cadence for photometric time series, 30′×15′ field of view and filters between 300 and 1000 nm Integral field spectrograph continuously covering 400–1700 nm, optimized for stable spectrophotometry and rapid sorting High contrast coronagraph to directly observe exoplanets and circumstellar environments, with contrasts of 10⁻⁸ and up to 10⁻⁹ after processing The era of array telescopes. Argus, DSA and LFAST They are not traditional telescopes, but rather distributed systems that take advantage of recent advances in computing, storage, and automated analysis. Instead of concentrating everything in a single structure, they distribute the collection of light or radio signals among tens or thousands of modules that are then digitally synchronized. This modularity aims to accelerate deployments and opens the door to observing the sky almost in real time, something fundamental for the astronomy of fleeting events. Render of the Argus Array (left), Deep Synoptic Array (right) Argus Array will bring together 1,200 optical telescopes in Texas to observe the northern sky almost continuously, with the idea of ​​being able to “rewind” what happened minutes or hours before an event such as a supernova. DSA, in Nevada and under the direction of Caltech, will deploy 1,600 radio antennas to map more than a billion sources and update its view of the sky every fifteen minutes. LFAST, for its part, will be installed in Arizona as a system of 20 80-centimeter mirrors aimed at large-aperture spectroscopy and the search for biosignatures, with a prototype planned for mid-2026. What the Schmidts have launched is, at its core, an experiment on the scientific system itself. Lazuli and his three colleagues on land aim to show that it is possible to build large-scale observatories more quickly and with an openness of data that does not always fit into traditional models. Whether that vision materializes will depend on factors yet to be determined, such as the final contractors, real costs or the feasibility of the schedules, but if it goes well, the impact will not only be measured in new discoveries, but in a new way of deciding what science is done. Images | Village Global | Schmidt Observatory System In Xataka | China has just resolved one of the biggest doubts about going to Mars with the birth of six space mice

four months at sea, kilometers of celluloid and a Trojan horse the size of a building

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We already have here the first trailer for ‘The Odyssey’ by Christopher Nolan, which, as expected, offers us an adventure that moves away from the environments that the director has frequented until now, but which nevertheless has a good part of the house’s trademarks: musical fanfare, impactful images and dense and solemn atmosphere. a genuine deli for devotees of the director. After releasing a six-minute prologue a week ago Exclusive to 70mm IMAX theaters, this new trailer takes us to the immediate aftermath of the Trojan War: a devastated battlefield where Odysseus, played by Matt Damon, kneels before a fully armored Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) and which some critics have already pointed out as unequivocal proof that historical rigor is clearly not going to be one of the film’s priorities. From there, pure icons of classic adventure: the hero and his soldiers crossing forests, navigating rough seas and entering dark caves. Damon’s voiceover tells that “after years of war, no one could come between my men and home. Not even me.” Significantly, we barely see Odysseus on screen. The trailer gives a good account of Nolan’s visual ambition: we see the Trojan horse being dragged from the sea by hundreds of unsuspecting Trojans, and how the warriors inside the gigantic structure experience it. We see a giant creature at the entrance to a cave, perhaps the cyclops Polyphemus. We see ships suffocatingly tossed about by real waves. An ambitious odyssey ‘The Odyssey’ represents an unprecedented leap in the use of the IMAX format. It is the first film in history shot entirely with IMAX cameras.something Nolan has pursued since he began incorporating the format into action sequences with ‘The Dark Knight’ in 2008. Until ‘Oppenheimer’, technical limitations (excessive noise, prohibitive weight, difficulty capturing dialogue) prevented its continued use. But for ‘The Odyssey’, IMAX developed a new generation of cameras 30% quieter and considerably lighter, making full filming viable. Principal photography lasted 91 days between February and August 2025touring Morocco (Aït Benhaddou to recreate Troy), Greece, Italy, Scotland and Iceland. The most reckless: Nolan spent four months in the open seawith the entire cast rolling on real waves. The budget amounts to $250 million, making it the most expensive film of his career. Nolan explained. that sought to identify absences in contemporary film culture. He concluded that Greek mythology had never received the big-budget Hollywood treatment with full dramatic credibility. Furthermore, he states, The Odyssey by Homer contains elements of horror, mystery, romance and thriller simultaneously. It is not a genre, it is the matrix of all genres. It is clear that Nolan wanted to put the emphasis on the physical: real ships almost submerged in the sea, armies of extras, the Trojan horse… at the moment we do not see the abundant mythological creatures that the story has (the Cyclops, the mermaids, the sorceress Circe), but possibly they have sought to contrast with the realism of the rest of the story. And we still have to see the bulk of the star cast (Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o, Mia Goth…). This Odyssey has only just begun.

China has been building the Great Green Wall for 50 years. What I had not planned was to alter the rains

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The China’s forests are growing. It has nothing to do with a natural process, but with a meticulously followed strategy to contain the desert expansion and reforest the country with billions of trees. The consequence of this reforestation is not limited to having more trees and two studies have just shown the counterpart of massive ecological engineering. This is not good news: the continental hydrological cycle is being altered. The Green Wall. Of China’s deserts, the Gobi may be the best known, but the Taklamakan It is one of the most problematic. 85% of this 337,600 km² desert are dunes, which at certain times of the year generates sand storms that leave the surrounding towns without crops. And countries like the two Koreas or Japan too they suffered the effects of storms. Furthermore, it was growing, so in 1978, the country launched march the Refugio Tres Norte Forest Program. The strategy: a series of tree belts to contain the expansion of its largest deserts. The objective: to go from forest cover in the country of 5.05% in 1997 to almost 15%, and the idea is complete that belt by 2050 with a total of 4,500 kilometers long. At the moment, the Great Green Wall has completed the shield around Taklamakan with a belt of about 3,000 km, observing a decrease in sandstorms. Consequences in water. Apart from that desert, in others such as Ulanbuh, Korqin, Hunshandake, Maowusu and Kubuqi, tens of thousands of square kilometers of forest and pasture have been built. And, although the storms have decreased, different investigations are noticing a secondary effect: an alteration of the water cycle throughout the continent. Published in Earth’s Future, a study carried out by Chinese researchers shows how new vegetation has increased evapotranspiration in the region. Bottom line: More water is being pumped from the ground into the atmosphere, meaning winds are transporting water to regions like the Tibetan Plateau as rain while the monsoon regions of the northwest and east are suffering a decrease in its net water availability. Non-uniform redistribution. This greater green cover causes restored forests and grasslands to transpire more water than bare soil or traditional crops. This additional moisture It enters the atmosphere, which falls in other regions as rain. According to the study, the consequences at the national level were the following: Evapotranspiration increased by 1.71 mm/year. Precipitation also increased by 1.24 mm/year. Water availability (from aquifers and springs, for example) decreased by 0.46 mm/year. And, as we say, the process is not uniform because the water is moving from one area to another. Greening/conserving water. It is not the only study published on the subject, but it is one that coincides in time with another published in August of this year in which, after analyzing 1,046 hydrological stations and their data from the last 60 years, they discovered that the flow of the rivers decreased by more than 70%. Their conclusion is that it is not an effect of climate change, but of changes in the landscape caused by human intervention. It makes perfect sense: trees need water to grow, and that amount of new trees makes them act like a giant pump, reducing the amount of water that feeds the rivers. Thus, there is a tension between greening China and conserving its water, since once in the clouds, it precipitates air currents wherever you go. Implications. In the end, the researchers conclude that the strategy when managing water must be changed and that hydrographic plans must take into account both the land basins and the “air basin”, anticipating where the water evaporated by the forests will travel. Because the ambitious reforestation plan has 24 years left and the country has invested a lot in it directly – by planting trees – but also with policies that prohibit the felling of forests or with incentives for farmers to convert their croplands into pastures. And, well, the consequences not only have to do with water. That the Natural Forest Protection Program prohibited logging in primary forests provoked that Chinese loggers would ‘loot’ the Burmese forests. Something that adds to the conflict between both nations. Images | Siggy Nowak, Janwillemvanaalst, Kanenori In Xataka | In China they already have room for the first city with a vertical forest: a million plants and trees

Huawei is building its own alternative ecosystem to CUDA. If it succeeds, NVIDIA will have a serious problem

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When talking about NVIDIA, almost all the focus is on the hardware: the H100Blackwell, racksenergy consumption, nanometers… It is understandable, but it is a mistake. The defensive moat – the moat– NVIDIA is not the hardware. Is CUDA. CUDA is not an add-on to the chip, it is the de facto standard upon which most of the AI ​​code on the planet is written, optimized and debugged. Changing GPUs without changing CUDA does not exist. And switching from CUDA means rewriting years of work. That is why it is a moat. Why is it important. Huawei’s big bet is not to “make a Chinese H100.” It is to build a path for the developer to reach Ascend without feeling like you are changing planets. The restrictions are accelerating it. Exports have split the world in two: An ecosystem that revolves around NVIDIA. And another that China is trying to lift against the clock. In that second, Huawei is not just playing chips: is playing “ecosystem”in AI and outside of it. And therein lies the nuance: you can be years behind in chips and still reduce dependency if you get the software to swallow. In detail. Huawei is attacking the problem on three fronts, with a pragmatically Chinese logic: not to replace everything at once, but to open shortcuts. Native stack (CANN + MindSpore). It is your “pure” alternative: your own environment and your own tools to get the most out of Ascend. The cost today is high, there are complaints of instability, the documentation is rather messy, and the community is much smaller. PyTorch support. This is the most strategic move. Huawei does not try to make the world love its framework– Try to ensure that the world doesn’t have to leave PyTorch. torch_npu acts as an adapter to run PyTorch models on Ascend, but with one problem: it is not native and suffers with every PyTorch change. If PyTorch advances and your backend lags behind, the developer notices. Portability via ONNX. Here Huawei looks for its best window: inference and deployment, not training. ONNX works as a bridge format: you train where you can (often NVIDIA) and deploy to Ascend. It’s a less romantic and more useful approach: if shortages hit, moving inference to local hardware is an immediate relief. Between the lines. The real story is that Huawei is trying to replicate the “trick” that made NVIDIA great: turning its hardware into an experience. That’s why the tactic that explains everything appears: putting engineers in the client’s home to migrate code and optimize it. It is not scalable as a business model, but it is scalable as a transition model: you buy time while you mature tools, libraries and support. And there is another derivative: if China gets enough teams to adopt Ascend out of necessity, over time that can become habit and then infrastructure. Not because it is better, but because it is already integrated. Yes, but. Huawei has two limits that cannot be fixed with marketing: Hardware improvement rate: Roadmap analysis suggests relative stagnation and a gap that could widen, not close, if NVIDIA continues to accelerate cycles. Off-chip bottlenecks: memory (HBM), tools and industrial capacity. You can add “worse” chips, but you need to make a lot of them and build a lot of systems. And now what. If this movie continues, we will see two clear signs: Less hype of chips and more real migration stories: how many computers have moved to Ascendwith what frictions, with what performance losses. Less obsession with training in Ascend and more normalization of the hybrid pattern: I train where I can, I deploy where I must. NVIDIA will continue to be CUDA. Huawei is not “a chip.” It is an escape strategy. And the restrictions are the fuel that is making it inevitable. In Xataka | With HarmonyOS NEXT Huawei has achieved something incredible. Neither Samsung, Microsoft nor Mozilla achieved it Featured image | NVIDIA, Huawei

China is building a megastructure for deep-sea research. For whatever reason, resist nuclear bombs

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China is building a mega thing. It doesn’t matter when you read this: the Asian giant always has a mega dam underwayhe highest bridge in the world either an impossible road in the bag. However, one of the country’s latest projects is not a mega-construction, but a floating artificial “island,” which can navigate and designed to be self-sufficient. Oh, and most importantly: prepared for the end of the world. The “island”. Waiting for it to receive a somewhat more “commercial” name, in a report by South China Morning Post They refer to the facility as the “Deep-Sea All-Wather Resident Floating Research Facility.” It is a name that is equivalent to “what do you want this station to do” and the answer is “yes,” and it is basically a mix between a research center, command center and nuclear bunker. It will be a semi-submersible platform with a 78,000 ton twin hull design and considerable dimensions: 138 meters long. 85 meters wide. Main deck 45 meters from the waterline. Long duration missions. The project specifications show that the platform is projected to house almost 240 people for four months without the need for any replenishment. In addition, it can sail at a speed of up to 15 knots and something that gives us a clue to its colossal ambition is that the engines allow a displacement comparable to that of the Fujian, the brand new Chinese aircraft carrier of 80,000 tons. Bomb proof (nuclear). If you’re thinking about a fortress that could be worthy of a Marvel movie, here’s the shot. The structure will resist waves up to nine meters high and category 17 typhoons, the highest for this type of cyclone. But the most striking thing is that it will have special armor to resist nuclear explosions. Instead of conventional steel armorthe walls of the complex will be built with a design that converts the powerful shock waves of a nuclear explosion into ones that the structure can assimilate. As a “dissipator” of the power of the wave, wow. To do this, they have resorted to a metamaterial which, when subjected to pressure, compresses, creating a denser and stronger structure than much thicker steel panels. According to simulations, its walls resist more pressure than those of a submarine and four times more than those of a conventional ship, but with a plate thickness of only 60 mm. Back.To withstand these long periods at sea, and as describe from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) in an article in which they talk about the superstructure, the installation contains critical compartments that guarantee emergency power, but also backup for communications and a navigation center equally protected against nuclear explosions. China is taking leaps and bounds in its fleet Strategy. The SJTU describes it as a research center and, although the project has been described as “civilian”, its specifications make it comply with the Chinese military standard GJB 1060.1-1991 against nuclear explosions. Therefore, although it can be used for deep-sea research, it could also operate in areas where warships could not be accessed (such as waters near diplomatically sensitive countries or territories). This is something that does not frighten a China that does not hesitate to deploy its ships in disputed territoriesand from SCMP they point out that the installation could function as a resilient command center, a logistics center or a surveillance station that, in addition, is less invasive than a fixed structure built on land. It’s not that far away. Although we now know of its existence, this station has been on the drawing board for a decade and is expected to reach operational status in 2028. Once completed, we will be able to see what it is capable of and, above all, what use it is given. Because therein lies its importance as a research center to support the “blue economy” (extraction of deep sea resources, renewable energies and marine research), but also its military component. The photo, by the way, is not of a real structure, but of an interpretation of the SJTU. Images | SJTU, 中国新闻社 In Xataka | China is immersed in a nuclear revolution and needs industrial quantities of uranium. His solution: “fish” it in the sea

There are those who think that the housing crisis can be solved by building. At the Polytechnic University of Catalonia they believe they are wrong

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Spain has a problem with housing. That is an (almost) objective fact. The CIS says so, which places it as the great concern of the Spanish, but a quick review of the newspaper archive arrives to confirm it. During the last months few topics have generated more political debate or have taken out so many people on the street such as difficulties in accessing a home. What is no longer so clear is how to solve this “crisis” residential area recognized by the Government itself. Should we build more houses? Does Spain suffer from a housing deficit? Do we need more land to build? Usually the answer to those three questions is a strong ‘yes’. Now a new study signed by two professors of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and published in a magazine linked to the Ministry of Housing points out that perhaps we were wrong. What has happened? That two professors from the Higher Technical School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB), Blanca Arellano-Ramos and Josep Roca-Cladera, have published a study about the problems that Spain is facing in terms of housing. The report in question is titled ‘Five theses about housing policy in Spain’ and is included in a monograph of CyTETa magazine published by the Ministry of Housing. So far nothing exceptional. The curious thing is that the text questions many of the ideas rooted in the real estate sector, such as that our country suffers from a housing deficit or needs more land to build. While the Bank of Spain (BE) estimates 700,000 homes the mismatch between supply and demand, the study questions whether there really is a ‘hole’ in the market or that prices will go down if we build more. Is there a housing deficit? As already indicated in its title, the article is structured around five theses. And the first addresses precisely that point: Does Spain suffer from a housing deficit? The question is interesting because it is one of the most deeply rooted ideas in the sector. The Bank of Spain itself has calculated that it would be necessary 700,000 houses to meet residential demand. For Arellano-Ramos and Roca-Cladera the reality is quite different. In his opinion, one cannot talk about a deficit without first taking into account the excess of housing accumulated between 2011 and 2021 and the stock of vacant properties. The researchers remember that between 2011 and 2021 the housing stock exceeded the growth in the number of homes by 959,554 units, generating a considerable pocket. In fact, they assure that in 2021 the “accumulated excess” was close to 8.1 million properties, a “‘cushion’ more than enough to absorb temporary housing deficits such as the one produced during the 2021-2024 period,” recalls the UPC in the statement in which he reports the study. What does that mean? That for researchers it is not so obvious that Spain suffers from a shortage of new housing. In their analysis they also remember that a good part of the excess of houses and apartments corresponds to second homes and empty homes. The INE itself estimates that at least in 2021 there were 3.84 million of uninhabited properties, 14.4% of the real estate stock. That percentage far exceeds what most experts consider “desirable” (5%), but at least in the statement The UPC does not address another fundamental aspect: the distribution of these wasted properties, if they are located in stressed markets, such as Madrid, Barcelona or Malaga, or in centers where demand is minimal or even non-existent, in the case of emptied Spain. What if we build more? That is the second question the researchers address. What if we build more homes? Would prices be reduced? Their response is once again skeptical to say the least: increasing buildings will not lead to greater social equity nor will it serve to soften prices. “On the contrary”, slide the UPC note. “According to the authors of the study, the solution is not to build more new homes so that the laws of the market balance prices. In addition to having serious environmental effects, what favors is the real estate bubble like the one that occurred around 2000.” What happens in other neighboring countries? Among other arguments, Arellano-Ramos and Roca-Cladera recall that the rise in prices is not a problem exclusive to the Spanish market, but rather something widespread on the continent. So the question is obvious: if the increase in prices is due to the imbalance between supply and demand, do the majority of EU countries share that same problem? “Is there simultaneously a restriction of supply in relation to demand occurring throughout Europe in relation to demand that explains the increase in residential prices? It does not seem that this is plausible. Therefore it is not reasonable, prima facieturn to the scarce construction of new housing as the main cause of the price of housing”, they reflect the authors before remembering that Spain has invested a higher percentage of GDP in construction than the European average. Do we need more land? The researchers also question whether in Spain the problem of lack of accessibility to housing can be explained by the scarcity of land. And to prove it, they go to the newspaper archive: between the late 90s and the early 2000s, buildable land was made available in the country, which allowed for “massive construction” of residential housing. This boom was not accompanied, however, by a reduction in the price of the square meter. Quite the opposite: residential prices increased, as in other parts of Europe. If Spain saw housing prices rise between 1996 and 2008, it was not because there was no land on which to build or build new homes. “Spain became more urbanized than ever and the result did not represent a reduction in prices, on the contrary,” underlines the UPC in your statementwhich recalls that between 2000 and 2012 Spain was the European country with the greatest “consumption” of land: more than 2,400 square kilometers (km2), almost as … Read more

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