china

prepares total blockade of chip manufacturing machines arriving in China

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The US has been exercising its control over advanced integrated circuit manufacturing equipment for five years now to prevent it from reaching China. It is the strategy with the one that has managed to slow downbut in no way slow down, the technological development of the country led by Xi Jinping. In 2021, it approved the first restrictions that prevented machines from extreme ultraviolet photolithography (UVE) of ASML and other advanced equipment arrive in China. From that moment on, the US Government has continued to deploy new sanctions with the purpose of increasingly limiting the access of Chinese semiconductor manufacturers to lithography and wafer processing equipment that comes not only from the US, but also from the Netherlands, Taiwan, South Korea or Japan. The US is exercising ownership of some of the patents that these machines use, and also their ability to influence the decisions made by their allies. However, the Administration led by Donald Trump still has room to tighten its siege on China. And presumably it will do so in the short term because several senators belonging to both parties (Democrats and Republicans) have proposed new legislation which seeks to impose an essentially total ban on exports of advanced chip manufacturing and wafer processing equipment to certain corporations in adversary nations. It is clear that China is in their sights. Objective: Prevent ASML’s UVP photolithography machines from reaching China State-of-the-art lithography equipment is extraordinarily complex and sophisticated. Currently, the most used by integrated circuit manufacturers to produce cutting-edge chips are deep ultraviolet (UVP) and extreme ultraviolet (UVE) machines. A priori, UVP machines are suitable for manufacturing semiconductors up to 10 nm. And with EUVs it is possible to go up to 2 nm. However, by refining the processes involved in transferring the pattern to the wafer and turning to multiple patterning It is possible to go beyond these integration technologies. The US is especially targeting SMIC, Huawei, Hua Hong Semiconductor, YMTC and CXMT This technique broadly consists of transferring the pattern to the wafer in several passes with the purpose of increasing the resolution of the lithographic process. It may have an upward impact on the cost of chips and a downward impact on production capacity, but it works. SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp), the largest Chinese semiconductor manufacturerhas resorted to multiple patterning for manufacture 7nm integrated circuits using ASML’s Twinscan NXT:2000i UVP lithography equipment. US export controls currently prevent the sale of UVP equipment to specific factories in China that may or may not appear on the US blacklist, but do not prohibit its sale to the companies that own these plants. This is precisely what the MATCH Law seeks to change (Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware) that US senators have proposed. In practice this proposal will, if successful (and it probably will), prevent ASML’s UVP machines and other advanced wafer processing equipment from reaching any facilities of major Chinese chipmakers. The US is targeting SMIC, Huawei, Hua Hong Semiconductor, YMTC and CXMT, and also their subsidiaries. He picks it up clearly. the published document by Senator Michael Baumgartner. In reality this proposal does not introduce new restrictions; what it does is change how shipping is allowed of advanced tools to prevent Chinese companies from continuing to develop sophisticated techniques, such as multiple patterningwith the purpose of producing cutting-edge chips. Be that as it may, in the medium term, China will need to have your own advanced lithography machines to be able to sustain its technological development. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | Congressman Michael Baumgartner In Xataka | We already know what the chips that will arrive until 2039 will be like. The machine that will allow them to be manufactured is close

30% of heavy trucks sold in China are already electric, in Europe only 4%

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China has been dominating with an iron fist for years the electric car race. Now it is opening a second front: heavy trucks. Just like they count Since Semafor, in 2025, almost three out of every ten heavy trucks sold in the country were electric or new energy. In Europe, the figure does not reach 5%. And the most striking thing is not the difference, but the speed at which that gap is closing. An unprecedented leap in a very short time. In 2021, new energy trucks barely accounted for 0.7% of heavy vehicle sales in China. In 2024, they were already 12.9%. Just like share the average, in 2025, almost 30%. That pace of adoption, according to Zhao Pei, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, “leaves the rest of the world in the dust.” In Europe the figure remains around 4%, and in California, which is supposed to be the region of the United States where there is the greatest adoption of electric trucks, annual sales are counted in hundreds of units, according to the analysis firm Rystad Energy. lTrucks are more difficult to electrify. Heavy vehicles are the backbone of any country’s domestic trade, but electrifying them is much more complex than doing the same with a car. Their energy needs are enormous and the size of the batteries can reduce the charging capacity. Furthermore, there is still a lot of distrust of technology in the freight transportation sector. “They are a completely different game from passenger cars when it comes to electrification,” counted Mao Shiyue, researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation. Politics and prices as catalysts. Since 2020, China’s central government forced factories in key sectors (steel, cement, energy) to incorporate a percentage of new energy trucks or face production restrictions on days of high pollution. Added to this were very generous subsidies to replace diesel trucks with electric ones. The result: a huge domestic market, highly integrated supply chains and fierce internal competition that has accelerated innovation. Today, the cost per kilometer of an electric truck in China is approximately one-third that of its diesel equivalent, they shared from the middle. Although the purchase price is double, the difference is amortized in about two years. The infrastructure that makes it possible. China has also deployed an entire network for its electric trucks to operate. To achieve this, they have been working for some time on what they call their “green corridors”, specific charging networks for heavy vehicles along highways. One of the largest, built by Qiyuan Green Power, connects Tianjin port with the Gansu industrial region across 2,200 kilometers and 27 stations. For its part, CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer for electric vehicles, it has developed a battery exchange technology that allows a dead battery to be replaced with a charged one in just five minutes, and already has more than 300 operational stations in the country. The weak point: long distance. Not everything is resolved. Trucks operating short, fixed routes have led the transition, but long-distance trucks, which can travel up to 1,000 kilometers a day, remain a challenge. The autonomy and capacity of current batteries are not always sufficient for these routes. And just as share From Semafor, a typical 49-ton heavy truck can travel between 200 and 300 kilometers on a load, enough to operate in ports and urban areas, but far from what long-distance interregional routes need. Now they arrive in Europe, and cheaper. More than half a dozen Chinese manufacturers plan to enter the European heavy truck market in 2026. According to account Reuters, among them stand out BYD, Farizon (Geely), Sany (which is currently the best-selling electric truck brand in China), Sinotruk and the startups Windrose and SuperPanther. The middle share that newly arrived manufacturers plan to set prices up to 30% below the European average, which is around 320,000 euros. Even so, that triples the cost of a conventional diesel truck, whose average in the EU is around 100,000 euros. Unstoppable speed. Phil Dunne, of the consultancy Grant Thornton Stax, counted Reuters that the European sector takes on average seven years to complete a development cycle for a new truck. Windrose, a startup founded in 2022, took three years to develop its Global E700 model, obtain approval to sell it in China, Europe and the United States, and prepare it to enter production. Its price in Europe will be 250,000 euros. “The speed at which the Chinese have come up with good products has surprised everyone,” Dunne said. Code red. Volvo, Daimler Trucks, Iveco, MAN and Scania dominate the European market and have the advantage of built-up trust among their customers. But they are aware of the risk. Volvo Group CEO Martin Lundstedt described Chinese manufacturers as “fast, innovative, determined and committed”. In parallel, associations such as ACEA and E-Mobility Europe they press the European Commission to accelerate support measures with lower tolls for electric trucks, fleet electrification mandates and subsidies tied to European production. What is at stake. China is the world’s largest importer of fossil fuels, has the most extensive road network on the planet and road transport represents almost three quarters of its volume total merchandise. If the electrification of its trucks advances at the planned pace, Rystad Energy calculate that China’s demand for diesel could fall by 20% from current levels before 2030. “We have one or two years to get ahead of ourselves. Or the Chinese will eat our toast,” counted Chris Heron, Secretary General of E-Mobility Europe. Cover image | aboodi vesakaran and Sany Group In Xataka | China has been boasting about its driverless robotaxis for years. Until more than 100 have stood at once in Wuhan

China says it has built its largest data center. And confirms that your problem is precisely in the chips

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China has just turned on its new technological pride in Shenzhen: an AI cluster with 14,000 petaflops built entirely with Huawei Ascend 910C chips. the city has presented it as the first scale computing center with 10,000 cards with completely national technology. It is an undeniable milestone, but if we give it context, an alarm signal and a dose of reality. Why is it important. The Shenzhen cluster, with all its rhetoric of technological sovereignty, represents about 1% of the capacity of the largest US data center in operation today. In other words: China has built, with great institutional effort, what OpenAI already had available to train GPT-4 in 2022. The gap is not a question of ambition (China has it) or capital (it also has it) or energy (of course, he also has it). It’s a chip issue. What are they capable of manufacturing and in what volume today. Between the lines. The Shenzhen government statement highlights energy efficiency metrics and occupancy rates of 92%. It’s really good data. But the selection of indicators (the cherry picking) says a lot so it is omitted: there are no direct comparisons with the clusters of NVIDIA H100 that colonize the data centers of Microsoft, Google or Amazon. Posting only what you have is also a way of not publishing what you lack. The context. At this point no one doubts that China does not lack electricity, not even engineersnor money to build large-scale AI infrastructure. What is still missing, despite the advances, are the chips. Export restrictions imposed by Trump They have cut off access to advanced semiconductors from NVIDIA and TSMCand that has forced China to accelerate its own ecosystem. Huawei has responded with the Ascend 910Ca capable chip but that still has performance limitations and, above all, volume production. If wafers were not in short supply, this data center would be a hundred times larger. Yes, but. Can China close that four-year gap before it gets even bigger? The answer depends almost entirely on how much its domestic semiconductor industry manages to scale, and whether or not Western sanctions manage to stifle that process. At the moment, in Shenzhen they are celebrating an achievement as undeniable as it turns out that in the eyes of Silicon Valley they are still in 2022. Featured image | Huawei In Xataka | Memory prices have started to fall in some markets. There is still a long way to go to close the AI ​​crisis

China has been boasting about its driverless robotaxis for years. Until more than 100 have stood at once in Wuhan

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The screen inside said: “Driving system failure. Staff will arrive in five minutes.” But no one came. The passenger pressed the SOS button and was told they were on their way, but it took 30 minutes just to get someone to pick up the phone. Meanwhile, the robotaxi was still stopped in the middle of a lane in Wuhan, with traffic passing on both sides. That is what happened on the night of Tuesday, April 1, in the Chinese city of Wuhan: More than a hundred autonomous cars from Apollo Go, Baidu’s robotaxis subsidiary, have stopped working at the same time due to a system failure. It is the first time that a collective robotaxis blackout has occurred in China, and it has exposed a concern that the sector has been avoiding for some time. Why is it important. Baidu is not a minor player. Apollo Go operates more than 1,000 robotaxis in Wuhan alone, its largest deployment, and has already accumulated more than 20 million trips in its history. The company just started in Abu Dhabi and Dubaithe two large cities of the United Arab Emirates; It is negotiating its entry into the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and has an agreement with Uber to operate through its app. An incident of this magnitude doesn’t come at any time: it comes when the company, like its entire sector, is trying to convince the world that it is ready to scale. Between the lines. Technically, the incident could be explained in many ways. Some Chinese media cited anonymous sources who pointed to the security self-verification systems, which would have detected some abnormal condition and stopped the vehicles preventively. If this were the case, the system would have worked exactly as designed, but the result has been chaotic: cars stopped in the center lanes of expressways, some passengers trapped for more than 90 minutes, collisions caused by vehicles that suddenly braked on highways… That no one has been injured is almost a matter of luck. The contrast. It is not the only precedent. In December 2025, A power outage in San Francisco left Waymo robotaxis immobilized throughout the cityforcing Waymo to send software updates for its entire fleet. Months before, in August, An Apollo Go fell into a ditch in Chongqing; in may, a Pony.ai car caught fire in Beijingwithout causing injuries. It’s easy to see a certain pattern: large-scale autonomous driving has not yet achieved the reliability it needs to justify the trust that is being asked of the public. And now what. Cars stopping is a problem, but an even bigger problem is that no one knows why. Baidu has not explained what caused the failure or how long it took to resolve it. Wuhan police have confirmed the incident but without giving further details about the cause. This opacity weighs as much or more than the incident, especially if we talk about a sector that has been arguing for years that its cars are safer than those driven by humans. We assume that is very true, but block failures like this do not invite optimism without questions. Featured image | Baidu-Apollo In Xataka | Waymo’s self-driving cars have started honking at each other. At 4 in the morning

With the RAM market in crisis, an unexpected winner appears: China

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The saying goes that, in a troubled river, fishermen gain. In the case of the RAM crisisto a troubled market, manufacturers profit. All devices need NAND chips. They are the ones that go into the RAM memory or the storage that is used from the mobile phone to the car, the router and the SD memories and Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron are the ones that control the majority of the production. The data centers need a huge amount of memorywhich has caused everything other than producing for them to be missing out on a large portion of the pie, which is why the three companies have thrown themselves into it. And, since their most important factories cannot do more, they have made the decision to inject a lot of money into China, which is not their favorite scenario, but what gives immediate relief. And all the extra RAM they make… it’s not going to be for us. Exploited. A few weeks ago we said that Jensen Huang, boss of NVIDIA, had met with senior officials from the Asian technology industry, including executives from TSMC and Samsung. He told the first ones to get their act together because NVIDIA was going to need a lot of wafers this year. In the seconds, more of the same, but with HBM4 memory new generation. Shortly after, it was Lisa Su, AMD’s boss, who visited Samsung’s offices in South Korea to reach a deal for HBM4 memory of South Koreans for AMD’s new platform focused on artificial intelligence. Everything moves to the tune of AI training and inference. We are talking about Samsung, but SK Hynix is ​​also developing new generation memory and the objective is the same: to produce everything possible because, although as users we cannot buy RAM or SSD and Valve can’t make the Steam Machinethey are doing great. Wons galore. The problem is that, although the numbers come out, the production lines can’t take it anymore. There are very few companies to create RAM that supplies a brutal demand, and that means that they either expand… or they don’t arrive. And that is precisely what they are doing, but looking at the industrial fabric that can serve as support: what they have been manufacturing in China. In SCMP we can read that Samsung is going to intensify its investment in its Xi’an plant. Specifically, 67.5% compared to the previous year. This will bring the investment to 465.4 billion won -about 264 million euros- in the Chinese plant. This is Samsung’s only plant abroad, and also one of the company’s most important because it is estimated to produce 40% of South Koreans’ NAND memory. The million-dollar investment comes after a few years of hiatus, but they are not the only ones. SK Hynix is ​​also going to inject 581.1 billion won -331 million euros- into its Dalian plant. It is 52% more than in the previous period and the largest disbursement since they acquired the factory in 2022. Immediate relief. The information They point out that it is not so much to produce more, but to satisfy the demand for cutting-edge memories. Recently, Samsung began mass manufacturing the HBM4 memory and SK Hynix the fastest DDR5 memory, and this strategy is focused on the two plants manufacturing that advanced memory instead of the rest of the factories having to adapt to the cutting-edge memory creation processes in order to continue dedicating themselves to other types of NAND chips. It also responds to a more pragmatic vision. Setting up a memory factory is not cheap, but above all, it is not fast. It takes about four or five years to build, polish the clean rooms and optimize the operational lines. It is much faster to adapt existing factories to obtain a much faster response. The reason is that they need wafers, and they need them now. From SK warned that the global shortage of wafers exceeds 20% and, probably, the situation will continue until 2030. Not very favorable weather. The curious thing is that this increase in investments occurs when the situation between China and the United States continues to be very turbulent. Although they have been relaxing, the United States imposed export controls on advanced chip manufacturing equipment destined for China. As much as Samsung is moving money and advanced machines to Samsung, it is in China and that means they must obey Washington’s order. There is licenses and annual permits and, both Samsung and SK Hynix, have a deadline to be able to send tools to their facilities, which are the ones they are taking advantage of because it is estimated that China represents 40% of Samsung’s NAND production and between 40% and 45% of SK Hynix’s. In fact, the company has another plant in Wuxi from which 30% of its NAND chips come out. China, from chill. Whether there is an upsurge in export orders or not remains to be seen. What is on the table at this moment is that China, “without doing anything” (and this with many quotes) is emerging as a very important player in this playing field. It is not only that Samsung and SK Hynix, the two most powerful in the sector, have greatly increased investment in their territory, but that their own RAM companies can see in this scenario the boost they needed to place themselves in the global conversation. One of the largest manufacturers in the country is CXMT and not only have they been polishing their manufacturing process in recent months to create 8,000 MHz DDR5 memories, but they have scaled their production capacity to reach a global market share of between 11% and 13%. Together with the manufacturer YMTC, they are emerging as an opportunity for brands like Lenovo, Dell or Asus, which need RAM to continue selling computers, have available without drastically increasing the price of their equipment. But hey, as we have said more than once in recent weeks, all the extra RAM they manufacture is … Read more

lock up China without a single shot

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Japan is a country made up of more than 6,800 islands, although only about 400 are permanently inhabited. Many of them are small, remote and barely appear on the map, but their location places them in some of the most strategic points of the planet. The invisible barrier. It is evident that international views have been marked by the war in ukraine and now in Iran but, in the meantime, Japan has been raising a kind of “invisible barrier” fortified on a chain of islands off China that completely redefines the balance in the Pacific. It is not a single base or a large visible deployment, but a dispersed network of military positions stretching from southwestern Japan to remote points of the ocean, creating a continuous line of surveillance, detection and potential attack. This strategy turns small islands, many almost uninhabited, into key pieces of a system designed to stop the Chinese advance without the need for open war. From forgotten territory to the first defensive line. It we have counted in recent years. For decades, these islands barely had a military presence, but that has been changing radically in recent times. Places like Yonagunia few kilometers from Taiwan, have gone from having no troops to hosting radars, electronic warfare systems and permanent military unitswhile other positions have been reinforced with new bases and military equipment. There is no doubt, this turn responds to a crystal clear reality: if China tries to act on Taiwan, these islands would be the first objective or the first shield, and Japan is no longer willing to leave them exposed. One of the Type 12 models installed on the islands by Japan Missiles, radars and drones. The real change is in the type of capabilities deployed, which turn this chain of islands into a system offensive and defensive at the same time. As? For example, Japan is deploying long range anti-ship missilessystems capable of hitting hundreds or even thousands of kilometers, along with advanced radars and drones that allow you to detect and track targets in real time. Not only that. Added to this are new weapons such as hypersonic projectiles and cruise missiles that extend the range to the interior of the rival territory, thus marking a clear break with its historical policy of limited defense. Lock up China without firing a shot. Beyond protecting his territory, he recalled this week the wall street journal in an extensive report that the network has a strategic objective much more ambitious: complicate China’s movements at sea in a kind of trap. We are talking about a group of islands that is part of what is known as the “first chain”a set of narrow sea passages that any Chinese fleet must pass through to project power into the Pacific. By deploying weapons at these points, Japan turns each transit at a riskraising the cost of any possible operation and creating a kind of encirclement that limits freedom of maneuver without the need for direct confrontation. The definitive jump. In short, all this reflects a profound change in Japanese strategy, which has gone from passive defense to an active deterrence with the ability to strike from a distance if necessary. The introduction of rocket missiles attests to this. Type 12 long rangethe Tomahawk purchase and integration with US forces, all indicative that Japan no longer just wants to resist an attack, but prevent it threatening key adversary objectives. If you like, we are facing a delicate balance, because reinforces securitybut it also turns these Japanese islands into possible targets, increasing tension in an increasingly unstable region. Image | NARA, Tokoro_ten In Xataka | A single island houses 70% of the US military bases in Japan. There is a compelling reason for them not to leave: China In Xataka | China is sending drones to an island 100 km from Taiwan. The problem is that Japan and the US are filling it with missiles

There is a much deeper and more important AI race in which China is crushing its competitors: human talent.

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The AI ​​race It’s about many things. Not only who makes the best AI modelswho has more and better data centers or who has more cheap energy to power this revolution. It’s also about something that right now China dominates with an iron fist: AI experts. China surpasses the US in talent. In The Economist have analyzed the evolution of the publication of studies at NeurIPS, one of the most important conferences in the world on AI. In the 2025 edition they have discovered a singular fact: for the first time in the history of this conference, China has surpassed the United States in studies presented, and that is the definitive sign of how the Asian giant has achieved a victory in a crucial area for the future of this technology. Alarming data. This data is not something isolated, but the result of a trend that began ten years ago. In 2019, 29% of researchers presenting their work at NeurIPS had started their careers in China. In 2025 that figure is 50%. Meanwhile, the proportion of quinees who began their careers in the US has increased from 20% in 2019 to 12% in 2025. The analysis is based on a sample of 600 articles written by almost 4,000 researchers (many studies have several researchers as authors). Chinese universities dominate. This analysis also served to analyze the origin of the researchers who published these studies. Nine of the ten institutions where the most NeurIPS 2025 researchers completed their studies are in China. Tsinghua University is, for example, the protagonist with 4% of all researchers. The prestigious MIT in the USA? Only 1% comes from there. Quantity matters, but also quality. It must be taken into account that this does not necessarily mean that China wins (or loses) in research quality, but it does in quantity. But this parameter is very relevant, because scale matters: when China manages to “produce” a huge number of AI graduates, its chances of those experts being responsible for new advances in this discipline increase. Not only that: it also makes these advances spread faster within the Chinese technological ecosystem. The US depends on Chinese talent. One of the most uncomfortable details of this study is where those who signed studies from US institutions were trained. Of all of them, 35% They graduated from Chinese universitiesthe same proportion as those who did so in US universities. Many leading AI companies in Silicon Valley are drawing on AI experts trained in China, which is increasingly the world’s largest pool of this type of engineers. Come home come back. What is worrying for the US is that the Chinese talent that US companies sign increasingly ends up returning to China. Chinese programs like Thousand Talents Plan They offer up to $100,000 annually plus subsidies for housing and research to attract that talent back. The United States government is also promoting just that, because the funding cutsthe uncertainty with visas and suspicions towards researchers of Chinese origin make working in the US no longer so attractive for these experts. Or what is the same: The US is shooting itself in the foot (again). From the American dream to the Chinese dream. In 2019, about a third of NeurIPS researchers who had graduated in China stayed in the country to work. In 2022 that proportion rose to 58%, and in 2025 the figure already reaches 65%. And as we mentioned, those who had left are returning: in 2019, only 12% of Chinese researchers who had completed postgraduate studies outside of China had returned, but in 2025 that figure has risen to 28%. The case of DeepSeek It is significant: none of its main contributors have a university degree outside of China: the talent who achieved that milestone He didn’t go through Stanford or MIT. The trend doesn’t lie. If we stick to the authors of studies published in NeurIPS as a metric, about 37% of the best researchers in the world now work in Chinese organizations, compared to 32% of those who do so in North American institutions. If this trend continuesin 2028, researchers working in China could outnumber those working in the US by two to one. Silicon Valley may continue to attract a lot of international talent, but the direction of the trend is clear, and that points to a worrying future for the United States. Image | Tommao Wang In Xataka | There is a city in China that goes head to head with Silicon Valley: welcome to Hangzhou, the home of the ‘Six Little Dragons’

China has been pushing the boundaries of engineering for years. Its gigantic high-speed tunnel boring machine has just given another example

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China has been developing large infrastructures and its own machinery to execute them for years, with projects that tend to stand out for their size and the technical control they require. It is not just about building more, but about doing so under increasingly demanding conditions. This pattern is repeated in very different areas, from energy to scientific research, and also in transport infrastructure. Under this logic, the appearance of new machines and projects is not an exception, but rather the continuation of a clear trend that now adds a new chapter with the “Linghang” tunnel boring machine. The advance. “Linghang” has completed the section under the Yangtze Riverwith a continuous excavation of just over 11 kilometers, according to CCTV. The machine began its journey on April 29, 2024 from Chongming Island, in Shanghai, and after 23 months of work, it completed the underwater section of the river, surpassed the south dam and came ashore in Taicang, in Jiangsu province. The movement is not minor: it involves completing the section under the watercourse, one of the key points of the work, and leaving the project one step away from its next milestone. What’s behind. The operation is integrated into the tunnel Chongming-Taicanga key work within the Shanghai-Nanjing section of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu high-speed corridor. With a total length of 14.25 kilometers, this infrastructure brings together several technical milestones, including the world’s longest single head excavation distance in a high-speed tunnel, with 11.32 kilometers, and a maximum depth of 89 meters under the Yangtze. The design contemplates the passage of trains at 350 km/h even in the underground section. The machine inside. The tunnel boring machine used in this project has unusual dimensions even within this type of work: it measures about 148 meters in length and weighs around 4,000 tons. according to Global Times. It is equipped with an intelligent control system called I-TBM, designed to automatically manage a large part of the excavation process, from internal pressure to the forward position or the exit of the material. Added to this are elements such as high-pressure seals, a long-lasting main bearing and a cutting head prepared to withstand demanding conditions under the river. A project that is not an isolated case. In recent years, the country has built facilities such as the Three Gorges Dam, the FAST telescope either the EAST reactorprojects that, although they belong to different areas, share the same base: scale, technical control and own development. In this context, this type of machinery is best understood not as a specific milestone, but as one more piece within a sustained line of work. A close reference. In Spain, the Mayrit tunnel boring machine, currently in use in the expansion of line 11 of the Madrid Metrooffers a useful point of comparison to understand the magnitude of this type of machinery. Measuring about 98 meters in length, weighing around 1,500 tons and with a diameter close to 9 meters, it is a large piece of equipment within the European context. Images | CCTV In Xataka | Czechia wanted to build a highway and found a problem: an intact 2,000-year-old Celtic city

the one that the US and China are fighting 80 km away

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More than 80% of world trade It moves by sea and about 60% of that traffic passes through the Pacific Ocean, converted into the great economic highway of the planet. In this scenario, it does not seem a coincidence that the most modern ports are no longer only designed to move containers, but to influence entire global routes. A silent movement. In recent weeks, the United States has taken a key strategic step in Latin America by approving a investment of up to 1,500 million of dollars to redesign and relocate the Callao naval base, the main maritime enclave of Peru. The operation is not limited to improving infrastructure, but seeks to create an environment safer and more efficient separating military operations from civil traffic, while allowing the commercial port to expand. The project, executed under the framework of military cooperation and with US technical presence for years, consolidates Peru as a relevant partner in the regional security architecture. The shadow of the Chinese port. The element that gives true context to this decision is the growing Chinese presence in the area, especially with the development of Chancay megaportoperated by the state-owned COSCO and converted into a key part of the Silk Road. Located less than 80 kilometers from Callao, this port not only reinforces commercial links between South America and Asia, but also awakens concern in Washington for its possible dual use, civil and strategic. The proximity between both infrastructures turns the Peruvian coast into a silent point of friction between the two powers. Infrastructure as a political tool. Beyond its technical nature, the project reveals how global competition is moving to the port and logistics infrastructure. The United States is not deploying forces or weapons directly, but rather reinforcing its presence through investmentsengineering and cooperation, ensuring access, influence and future operational capacity in a key region of the Pacific. If you also want, the strategy allows you to consolidate positions without formally altering the military balance, but conditioning the long-term strategic environment. Peru as a key piece. For Peru, the initiative fits within a broader process of military and industrial modernization which includes submarines, fighters and land systems, with the participation of multiple international partners. The renovation of Callao not only improves its naval capacity, but also promotes a technological and industrial ecosystem own, reinforcing its maritime sovereignty and its role as a relevant actor in the region. This positioning turns the country into a connection point between global interests and local dynamics. The new competition. The case of Callao illustrates a deeper change in the rivalry between great powers: it is no longer just about traditional military bases, but about control logistics nodestrade routes and strategic points in the global chain. Seen this way, the United States and China are not colliding directly, but rather competing for influence through investments that, under economic appearance, have potential military implications. Because in that context, Latin America stops being a secondary scenario and becomes just another piece of the global board. Image | Creative Commons, Peru Presidency In Xataka | “Chinese money is expensive”: Peru gave the keys to a giant door to China that the US now wants to blow up In Xataka | China has been building a megaport in Peru for eight years. It has just been released to revolutionize South America

The problem for the US is not that China is mass-producing a new hypersonic missile. It costs the same as a Tesla

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The most advanced military systems have had something in common: exorbitant prices and limited production, with weapons that can take years to manufacture and cost millions per unit. It happens that there is a less known fact that is beginning to change everything: today it is possible to build technology capable of traveling more than 1,000 kilometers in minutes using components derived from the civil industry. And China is in the lead. What a car costs. It we count in November of last year. China has introduced a quiet but profound change in modern warfare: a hypersonic missile, the YKJ-1000capable of reaching speeds of up to Mach 7 and traveling more than 1,000 kilometers for a price around at $99,000that is, equivalent to that of a high-end car like a Tesla Model It is not a trivial fact, although it may seem anecdotal, it is actually the core of the problem you have right now. United States in Iranbecause it completely breaks the traditional logic of military balance: for the first time, an extremely advanced weapon allows to be exclusive and expensive to become something potentially massive, accessible and replicable on a large scale. It’s not the technology, it’s the cost. Because the challenge for the United States is not that China has developed a new hypersonic missile, but that it has done so extremely cheap. While intercepting a threat can cost millions per attempt (with systems like Patriot, SM-6 or THAAD), destroying that missile costs dozens of times more to manufacture it. This creates a brutal asymmetry where the attacker always wins financially, forcing the defender to spend disproportionate amounts just to stay safe. In this scenario, defending yourself is no longer sustainable, especially in the face of massive attacks. Mass production. Unlike traditional programs, this missile is not a limited or experimental piece, but rather a product designed to be manufactured in large quantities. using civil materialscommercial supply chains and components already available on the market. China has not only reduced the cost, but has industrialized productionallowing us to imagine scenarios where hundreds or thousands of these systems can be rapidly deployed, saturating any existing defense without the need for absolute precision. Invisible launchers. The change is not limited to the missile itself, but how it unfolds– Can be launched from platforms hidden in shipping containers, trucks or common industrial facilities, integrating into global civil infrastructures. This virtually eliminates any predictability on the origin of the attack, expanding the scope of the threat to any point within its operational radius. In other words, war no longer has defined fronts and begins to depend more on a diffuse network where the attacker can appear anywhere without prior notice. The swarm effect. Added to this logic is the parallel development of advanced drones like the TM-300capable of flying at high speed, with stealth capacity and also designed for mass production. In that light, the combination of cheap missiles and swarming drones creates a scenario in which even sophisticated defenses can be overcome. simply by volumenot because of technological superiority. It is not necessary for all attacks to be successful: it is enough for some to do so to generate a disproportionate strategic impact. Change of era. If you like, all this points to a structural transformation: one where the advantage is no longer in having the most advanced weapons, but in being able to produce them faster and cheaper that the opponent can defend himself. The central idea, as we saw in Ukraine and now in Iranis clearly imposed: the problem for the United States is not that China is mass manufacturing a new hypersonic missile, but that it is doing so at a ridiculously low costaltering the balance between attack and defense and opening the door to a war where quantity and price can prevail over technology and sophistication. Image | x In Xataka | China is sending drones to an island 100 km from Taiwan. The problem is that Japan and the US are filling it with missiles In Xataka | China has drawn a very clear red line to Japan: being an ally of the United States is good, supporting Taiwan is bad.

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