china

China has been patiently preparing for a major global energy crisis for years. And now it reaps its fruits

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The Third Gulf War is here and the global oil market looks into the abyss. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has unleashed an unprecedented logistical panic and has catapulted the barrel of Brent well above $100. The panic is palpable throughout the Asian continent: The Philippines cuts working hours, Singapore sends its office workers to telework and Thailand intervenes in diesel prices in desperation. Just a few thousand kilometers away, China observes the global chaos with an almost insulting coldness. The Asian giant has not been saved by providence, but by millimetric planning. Just as centuries ago it built a vast stone infrastructure to stop nomadic invasions, Beijing has been building an invisible Great Wall for more than a decade to isolate itself from fossil volatility. The seed of this resistance must be found five years ago. In 2021, during a visit to an oil field, President Xi Jinping ruled that China should keep the “energy rice bowl” firmly in its own hands. According to The Economisttransferring this traditional metaphor (historically used to appeal to food sovereignty) to energy, made clear a state obsession: the country was going to prepare tirelessly for the worst possible scenario. Is patience a good bet? There are several popular proverbs and sayings that say that whoever waits, victory will be sweeter. In the case of China it is a pure and simple pragmatic and geostrategic application. As we analyze in Xatakathis shielding is the direct result of the strategy “Made in China 2025” designed a decade ago. The Chinese government understood that dependence on foreign oil and gas was its greatest military and economic vulnerability. Mass electrification was not an environmental whim, but a matter of national survival. Today, China generates more than a quarter of its electricity with sun and wind, rewriting the world order and dividing the board between the old “petrostates” and the new “electrostates.” But while that transition is complete, Beijing has not neglected the fossil economy. The Chinese model puts raw resilience before the efficiency of Western markets, As a column points out Five Days. The best example is what happened last year. While global markets debated an alleged oil oversupply, China took advantage of the low prices to spend $10 billion buying heavily sanctioned oil from Russia, Venezuela and Iran; a crude oil that, in reality, I did not need immediately. The result of this silent hoarding is that today China has massive Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR), estimated between 900 and 1.4 billion barrels. This mattress is enough to cover between 96 and 140 days of your internal demand without caring for a single drop from the outside. The shield in action This long-term preparation has allowed China to deploy an arsenal of almost immediate containment measures since the conflict in the Gulf broke out: Closing energy borders: The first lightning order from the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission was to demand from their state giants of refining (PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC) to immediately suspend gasoline and diesel exports to protect the supply of the domestic market. The “shadow fleet”: Despite the war and the blockade, oil continues to flow to China. Iran is exporting a daily average of 2.1 million barrels using a fleet of old oil tankers without tracking systems that operate outside the US financial system. Land alternatives: To completely avoid the vulnerable Strait of Hormuz, the Asian power is squeezing to the maximum the land pipelines that connect it directly with Russia and Kazakhstan. Renewable bestiality: This is your shield more impenetrable: The price of solar panels and electric cars does not rise when there is a war in the Persian Gulf. In July 2024, China reached its goal of 1,200 GW of wind and solar capacity, achieving it six years ahead of schedule. In addition, new energy vehicles have already exceeded 60% of total car sales in the country by the end of 2025. Megainfrastructures and market reform: To manage the intermittency of renewables, increased their storage capacity by batteries 75% in 2025. Furthermore, the political response does not stop, as detailed ChinaDailyhave announced that the National Energy Administration will launch urgent reforms ahead of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) to create a “unified national energy market” capable of managing the volatility of having so much green energy on the grid. The dominance of uranium: Faced with the need to fuel its 58 operational nuclear reactors and the 27 under construction, Beijing has budgeted about $16 billion for resource storage in 2026. This includes the exploitation of gigantic deposits in the Ordos Desert and the pioneering extraction of uranium from seawater. The small print However, China’s energy “rice bowl” still has cracks. To keep the system afloat, the country remains dependent on an immense, dirty safety net: the coal. In 2024, this mineral supplied 56% of its energy primary and, currently, they have more than 300 plants under construction. As emphasized a report of ChinaPower Projectdespite the pollution, the vast and abundant supply of coal offers Chinese policymakers a true final “safety net” against disruptions from other sources. But the real battle for survival is not only fought in the oil wells, but in the semiconductor laboratories. Although the country manufactured an astronomical 484 billion chips in 2024, still no access to the UVE lithography machines of the European company ASML. However, the Asian giant is finding cracks in the Western blockade. China already has two companies, SMIC and Huali Microelectronics, capable of producing advanced 7-nanometer chips using engineering techniques ‘multiple patterning’ using machines from previous generations. It is a more expensive and less efficient process, but it shows that sanctions only accelerate their quest for sovereignty. The next bottleneck to overcome is chemical. The country depends almost entirely on Japan (specifically from JSR Corporation) to obtain the hyper-specialized photoresist liquids needed in chip lithography. The new Chinese five-year plan has already set a five-year deadline to also break this Japanese monopoly. And while China weaves this net of absolute … Read more

Opening a company in a single visit to the administration sounds like utopia. In China it has been law for years

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Bureaucracy is probably one of the few things on which there is almost absolute consensus: everyone hates her. Queuing from window to window, discovering that you are missing a photocopy, returning another day because the official who signs is not there… an administrative ordeal, but it doesn’t have to be like this: years ago, in China they set out to end the labyrinth of procedures with one objective: so that more companies can be created to be more competitive. One visit at most. The ‘one visit at most’ reform It was promoted in the province of Zhejiang in 2016 and today it has spread to more territories in the country. The central objective is to unify all the procedures into one, so that those who want to form a new company only have to go to the administration once, avoiding the “walk” through different windows. It does not only affect the creation of companies, but all types of procedures such as birth certificates, registration records, registrations for health insurance and health cards. In addition, there are many procedures that can be done electronically, it is what they call ‘zero visit’ and the idea is that over time more and more processes will be added to this list. How it was before. Before this reform the process was not only much more tedious, but also much slower. a businessman counted in CGNT To get a permit you had to go through a lot of procedures, the lines were very long and it took several weeks. And if everything went well, if a document was missing or there was an error, you would have to start over. Another businesswoman says that she sent the documentation online and when she went to do the process it took her only 15 minutes to get the permit. Land of entrepreneurship. That this reform has been promoted in Zhejiang is no coincidence. It is the province in which Hangzhou is located, the city that has become the reference technological hub for AI companies. Here you can find Alibaba, DeepSeek, Unitree or Deep Robotics. It is also where the Zhejiang Universitynicknamed “the Stanford of the East”, and where many of those who are today senior executives of technology companies have studied. The streamlining of bureaucracy is one of all the measures that the government has implemented and which also include very advantageous loans for entrepreneurs. One person companies. Recently We were talking about ‘one person companies’ or OCP and how the Chinese government is supporting this new entrepreneurship model. They are startups created by a single person with strong AI support, very much in the style of what he did Peter Steinberger with OpenClawwhich in turn has allowed many entrepreneurs to create their own solo companies. OCP communities are being created in cities like Suzhou, Wuhan offers special loans for ‘solopreneurs’ and in Shanghai they cover up to 300,000 yuan in computing expenses. How is it here? In Spain we also have our own agile business creation system called CIRCE. It works through the DUE (Single Electronic Document) that groups up to 25 administrative forms into one. Through CIRCE you can create or cease a company, whether it is a SL or a self-employed person, and it can take from one to ten days. Of course, for SLs it is still necessary to complete an in-person procedure at a notary office. Image | Studio4rt, Freepik In Xataka | For 60 years, a farmer with no idea about architecture built a cathedral from scratch in Madrid. The bureaucracy has closed it

If Apple is forced to choose between the United States and China, Tim Cook is very clear about which one he will choose

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Tech CEOs are on tour, and they’re pointing east. a few days ago, Lisa SueAMD boss, went to visit samsung for the first time. The result is a contract for the South Korean company to manufacture the next-generation memory for the American company’s AI platform. For his part, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, was traveling through China. And, after all the pressures from Donald Trump For Apple to manufacture in the United States, Cook is clear about one thing. China is Apple’s base. The best. believe me. Tim Cook has transcended. Although it seems that he has little left in the position (at some point he will have to retire and John Ternus aims to be the successor), Cook has become an almost political figure. This is demonstrated in his travels through other countries or in the United States itself. His trip to China has consisted of several phases. He first visited the Apple Store by Taikoo Li, but the highlight was the trip to Beijing to meet with the Minister of Commerce. One of the points of the meeting was the bilateral relationship between the two. Because Apple is a huge customer for the Chinese technology industry, but China is also a safe asset for Apple. So much so that, as reported by the state portal Xinhua, Cook stated that “China is the most important production base for Apple, as well as its main source in the supply chain.” China’s pressure. The visit occurred at a time when things are as they are between China and the United States, but also with Apple. The details of the commercial and technological war between the powers are something that we have covered almost daily, but with Apple there is also a mess created due to the commissions in the App Store. China has demanded greater flexibility from Apple on store restrictions and Apple’s response is a reduction in commission from 30% to 25%. It’s just a little bit of giving in and a show of goodwill on Apple’s part, but China continues to ask that they loosen control over the App Store, which translates into allowing more third-party payment options to cut what they consider like a monopoly. Come on, Apple, in the eyes of Chinese regulators, still have homework. And the pressure from home. But at the same time that Cook’s visit to China takes place and it is declared that it is the great base of the company, something is moving. On the one hand, India wants to become the new China, and in 2025 Apple achieved a milestone: that one in four iPhones are assembled in India. Assembling is not the same as manufacturing, where China continues to lead the way. And the United States wants to turn the tables. Within its protectionist policies, Donald Trump’s government is trying to get its technology companies to create value on homeland. Intel’s billion-dollar rescue It was an example of the extent to which the US wants its technology to be manufactured in its territory and the truth is that it is bearing fruit. Apple or NVIDIA already have some assignments for Intelbut these incentives are also encouraging foreign companies such as SK Hynix, Samsung or, above all, TSMC those that are taking over the Americans in their territory. Many millions at stake. But despite the demands and demands, a powerful gentleman is a gift of money, and China is a huge market with great potential. It is evident that we can think that “what is Cook going to say in China, which is wonderful, of course”, but we must not forget that this is a company that, like all others, seeks the greatest benefits. And China not only has the capacity to meet Apple’s needs in terms of device manufacturing: it is a market to exploit. A few weeks ago we echoed how the company’s sales marked the best quarter since the first of 2022ending years of declines in Chinese territory (where Huawei has been making a strong comeback), but it’s not just Apple that is pursuing entry into China. NVIDIA has spent months putting pressure on his government to let them sell the H200s in China. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, commented that the Chinese cake is one of 50,000 million dollars and publicly asked the US government to stop being jealous and start collaborating in the name of capitalism. Cook has had a similar message on his trip to China, one supported by Li Qiang, Prime Minister of China who pointed out that if industrial issues are politicized, “the supply chain becomes a weapon, costs will only increase for companies and the momentum for development will be weakened.” In the end, they have gone to puncture where it hurts: the pocket. Images | Tessa Bury In Xataka | The decline of “Apple culture.” Blind devotion has evolved into critical enthusiasm

The war in Iran has given China an unprecedented opportunity. And she has just been transferred to Taiwan so she can think twice

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Taiwan is one of the most advanced economies in the world, yet it produces less than 5% of the energy it consumes. In just a few days, it can go from being a key center of global technology to depend completely of what happens thousands of kilometers from its coasts. And China has seen an opportunity. Energy as a geopolitical weapon. The war in the Middle East has triggered a chain reaction that goes far beyond the battlefield: with energy routes strained and the Strait of Hormuz turned into a global bottleneckcountries have set out to ensure supplies at any price. In this context of urgency, energy has ceased to be just an economic resource and has become a direct tool of political pressure, one capable of reconfiguring alliances, dependencies and strategic balances in a matter of weeks. The offer that changes the board. And it is precisely in that scenario where China has reformulated your proposal towards Taiwan with a much more pragmatic approach: instead of appealing so much to national identity, the offer is aimed at a concrete and urgent need, energy security. The idea? Beijing offers guaranteed access to stable, cheaper and less exposed resources to external crises in exchange for peaceful “reunification”presenting integration as a technical solution to a structural problem. The message leaves no room for doubt: under the umbrella of a “strong power,” the island could free yourself from uncertainty of global markets and their dependence on vulnerable maritime routes. Gas station in Taiwan A known vulnerability. The proposal is not coincidental, of course, but rather points directly to a critical weakness what was known: Taiwan almost all the energy matters that consumes and depends largely on supplies that pass through areas of high geopolitical risk. Beijing not only presents itself as an alternative supplier, but also suggests that this exposure can get worse if the conflict is prolonged, reinforcing the idea that the solution is to reduce this external dependence. At the same time, it proposes a future of energy integration (electrical networks, gas pipelines, interconnections) that would eliminate a large part of that vulnerability. Between seducing and pressuring. There is no doubt, this strategy of “energy persuasion” It does not replace the rest of the pressure tools that China has had active for a long time. It we have counted before, those military maneuvers around the island, the blockade drills and the constant presence of Chinese forces are part of an environment of sustained pressure that seeks to wear down without provoking open conflict. Under this scenario, the energy adds thus to a set of levers (military, economic and diplomatic) designed to progressively reduce Taiwan’s room for maneuver. Taiwanese rejection and calculation. Taiwan’s response remained to be known. Faced with the suggestive offer, the island has officially responded firmlyrefusing to exchange sovereignty for energy supply and defending that it has sufficient reserves and diversified sources, especially with the support of the United States. As analysts point out, beyond the technical feasibility of the Chinese proposal, the problem is more credibility: The Hong Kong experience has eroded confidence in the model of “one country, two systems”and for a large part of Taiwanese society accepting this agreement would mean beginning a process of gradual loss of autonomy. Long term play. This “no” from Taiwan has not been interpreted in Beijing as something resounding. Possibly, because deep down, the Beijing proposal reflects a much broader strategy: taking advantage of global crises to present itself as a provider of stability in the face of an increasingly volatile environment. There is, therefore, no urgency or immediate rush to force reunification, but rather an accumulation of advantages that, over time, make the option of integrating less costly than resisting. The war in the East has thus opened an unexpected window for that narrative, turning energy into a political argument first order and demonstrating that, in the new geopolitical situation, the control of resources can be as decisive as that of territories. Image | 總統府, Picryl In Xataka | The same day that the US sent its marines to Iran, Taiwan woke up with déjà vu: China has surrounded it with 26 planes and 7 warships In Xataka | US experts are clear about the year in which China will try its luck with Taiwan: the countdown has already begun

depends on China to do it

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I don’t need to tell you that the world is becoming a vibrant hornet’s nest with several open fronts. Some explode directly, such as conflict between the US, Israel and Iranand others endure, buried and palpitating, in the form of diplomatic tensions and tariffs. The United States has been and is the dominant world power economically (in terms of nominal GDP) and militarily, but China is moving inexorably to break its hegemony on all fronts. Trump has the main mission of “Make America Great Again” and in the military it involves adopting a more proactive role: we have seen in Venezuela and in Iran but also on a small scale with the boarding of ships. Given this scenario, China is in an uncomfortable position (buys 90% of all the oil Iran exports) that attempts to resolve with maximum diplomatic pressure but without military action. There is a broad business relationship at stake. If it did, the United States would have a lot of problems. Because the relationship between the United States and China is paradoxical: they are geopolitical rivals but at the same time they have a symbiosis economically and industrially. And if the United States wanted to strengthen its military, China would be essential, as evidence this internal report commissioned by the Department of Defense itself. Why is it important. Because we are probably in the greatest moment of military tension between both powers since the Cold War and the United States has been declaring China since “pacing challenge“(for Pete Hegseth, it’s already “pacing threat“): in different defense documents: The pace of the Asian giant is a challenge that threatens the supremacy of the United States. Despite this, its dependence on the military supply chain has not decreased, quite the contrary. If China decided, either in retaliation or on its own initiative, to disrupt its supply chain, the operational capability of the US military would be seriously compromised. Context. The fall of the USSR in the late 1980s was followed by a reduction in defense spending in the 90s, at which time the industry moved in search of economic efficiency in the form of contractor mergers and supplier outsourcing. To where? Towards Asia, something that its base industry also did. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, China was establishing itself as a global supplier of electronics, semiconductors and critical raw materials. A concrete example that you can see at a glance in this graph: the rapid rise of China in rare earth production and the fall of the United States. Chinese suppliers to the US military. NUMBERS MATTER: DEFENSE ACQUISITION, US PRODUCTION CAPACITY, AND DETERRING CHINA In figures. Govini’s internal report from 2024 leaves some numerical data that supports the serious dependence of the US military on China: 41% of the semiconductors in its weapons systems and infrastructure depend on Chinese suppliers. Chinese suppliers in defense supply chains have quadrupled between 2005 and 2020. US dependence on China in electronics increased by 600% between 2014 and 2022. Graphic that relates American weapons to their Chinese producers. NUMBERS MATTER: DEFENSE ACQUISITION, US PRODUCTION CAPACITY, AND DETERRING CHINA China is the world’s factory. A no-brainer: semiconductors are everywhere, from cell phones to missiles or drones. And China makes more chips than anyone else and also dominates in assembly, although lags behind in advanced chips. Yes indeed, is among your priorities. The United States has attempted to repatriate chip production with its Chips lawbut its consequences will be seen in the medium and long term, not in the coming months. At the moment, its first green shoots are the plant TSMC in Arizona. China is the “mine” of the world. We mentioned it above because it is the clearest example: in rare earths, China is the absolute queen of the industry from start to finish: from deposits to processing. And it’s not just rare earths: it’s also gallium, germanium, graphite, antimonyhe cobalt or the tungsten. Be careful, this does not necessarily mean that it dominates because of the deposits it owns, but because it has set up a powerful refining industry that allows it to control the processing link, so that other countries turn to China for this operation. They are industries that require high investment and low margins, which makes them unattractive for private companies without state support to enter the sector. China knows this and uses it as a currency of pressure in the form of restrictions and locks. In Xataka | The US Navy warns Congress: China is erecting the largest nuclear barrier in its history under the sea In Xataka | China needs chips and the United States needs energy: in the AI ​​race the two great powers have divergent paths Cover | Nick Fewings and Scandinavian Backlash

China is giving apartments to its entrepreneurs because it is clear that the future is the Yo SL companies

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Ma Ruipeng is 41 years old and has been working as a programmer for 20 years. Three months ago he left his job to start his own company. From his apartment in Beijing he works with three computers, AI tools like Claude Code, design platforms like Figma and, of course, his own installation of OpenClaw which he has called “Big House”. That’s what he hopes from his solo adventure: that his house becomes really big. He hasn’t made money yet, but he clearly prefers working with AI before AI works in place. The era of the Yo SL in China they start to push There are increasingly so-called “one-person companies” (OPC), one-person companies that act like startups founded and operated by a single person. These types of entrepreneurs make the most of AI tools—scheduling agents, video and image generators, task automation systems—to do the work that previously required having a team of employees. The falling cost of developing digital products, combined with the arrival of AI agents really functional like OpenClaw has made this type of business figures viable for the first time on a massive scale. The government is betting on entrepreneurs in the AI ​​era. In November the city of Suzhou advertisement that would build “30 OPC communities” with the goal that by 2028 the city would have at least 1,000 one-person AI companies. Other Chinese cities quickly followed. The Pudong district of Shanghai covers up to 300,000 yuan (37,500 euros) in computing costs, and Wuhan offers special loans for AI solopreneurs and even promises to absorb some of the losses if they go bankrupt. It is a well-known strategy: there is a central guideline that drives core competence to take advantage of this new industry that promises to revolutionize the market. Free floors and empty data centers. Chinese government incentives they don’t just translate into money. Several local governments are converting office buildings and underutilized data centers in a kind of incubators for this new SME format, for these “Yo SL”. The context is revealing, because with the AI ​​fever many municipalities built data centers without calculating real demand and had them half empty. Filling them with subsidized startups solves two problems at once. Silicon Valley is something else. On the other side of the Pacific, it is venture capital funds that finance Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and there We bet on startups with the most return potential. In China, it is the State that is fully involved in this effort: it offers subsidies for infrastructure, it is a priority customer of these products —what’s happening with robotics— and promotes competition between municipalities to attract talent. “It’s like a giant Silicon Valley,” explained Lin Zhang, a researcher at the University of New Hampshire: “when a new technology emerges, the entire bureaucratic system is mobilized to develop it.” There will be many who fail. The uncertainty, however, is notable. Venture capitalists say that most OPCs will not end up becoming viable businesses, although they admit that government subsidies are encouraging more and more people to start pitching ideas for their startups. Taking into account that frequent layoffs are beginning to occur in the market, this is an alternative for many former employees of technology companies, who can thus seek their own opportunity with the help of the Chinese government. It is a commitment to volume as an innovation strategy: many will fail, but the more they try, the more options for success there will be. Fear of unemployment is a powerful ally. Behind many of these stories there is a common motivation: the fear of being left out of the labor market. The prospect of being replaced by AI both in China and the rest of the world is starting to get really disturbing for a whole generation of skilled workers. These OPCs are for many of them a response to that threat: if you can’t beat the AI, use it. Before, those who ended up laid off looked, for example, at franchised businesses and they set up a bar or a photoepilation business. The future indicates that many will now set up their “Yo SL”, their startup from home in which there will be no need for an office or employees. AI will take care of (almost) everything. Image | Blackcreek Corporate In Xataka | To dominate chips, China must first obtain hyper-specialized technology in the hands of its historical rival: Japan.

China and the electric car

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October 1973. The world is divided into two clearly differentiated poles. We are in the middle of the Cold War and the clash between the United States and the Soviet Union has spread across half the world. The Missile Crisis is beginning to be far away and the confrontations between both powers are moving to Asia and Latin America. The Operation Condor in Americathe battles in vietnam either Cambodiato give just a handful of examples. And the Yom Kippur Warof course. It was, as we said, October 1973. Egypt and Syria, taking advantage of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, attack Israel with the primary objective of recover the land lost in the Six Day War. But also with another very clear one: to demonstrate that Israel was not invincible. The attack catches Israel, which is supported by the United States, off guard. Little by little, they manage to stop the bleeding and the Arab countries stand up. They have a weapon that goes beyond bombers: oil. An embargo on all countries that support Israel causes energy chaos. The Oil Crisis has an enormous impact on society and, especially, on the American automobile market. The savages muscle car they are domesticated. In the second half of the 70s, the customer no longer appreciated those huge engines that were the watchword of the country. And one country had exactly the car that the American wanted: Japan. Toyota, Nissan and Honda They made their way at a frenetic pace through the streets. The country had achieved an evolution that was key. The efficiency (and later they would discover reliability) was its great value. And Ford and General Motor were quickly relegated to the background because nationalism usually falters when the customer’s pocket is touched. Now, a new war and a new crisis threatens to bring a paradigm shift to the automobile market. The electric car is at its best moment to convert the skeptic. And the country that is bidding hard to gain a foothold is China. A new paradigm Explains my colleague Alba Otero that with the Oil Crisis of 1973 four million barrels left the market. Today, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is five times more serious. The world is more interconnected, there is greater production but the market is also more sensitive, with a closed energy funnel and one of the largest fuel producers, such as Russia embargoed for its attacks on Ukraine. The rope is tight. So tense that the price of gasoline has skyrocketed. Diesel is much worse, with prices for “basic” fuel that are close to those offered by 98 gasoline. In two and a half weeks, the price of diesel has skyrocketed by almost 50 cents/liter on average in Spain. The prices are so high that right now it eats up any type of savings promoted by this fuel. A car that uses 5 liters/100 kilometers costs the driver 9.55 liters per hundred kilometers. An electric car with a consumption of 20 kWh/100 kilometers (which is not surprising) needs to pay 0.50 euros/kWh to match its price, a high figure that is associated with high-power recharging. If the car consumes 16 kWh/100 km, such as a Tesla Model 3 that circulates relatively unconcerned about consumption, it will improve spending on all recharges below 0.625 euros/kWh. A diesel car that consumes 5 l/100 km is paying almost 10 euros. An electric car with a domestic rate does more than 600 kilometers for that money The gap is even greater if recharging is done at home. Right now, those who pay 0.15 euros/kWh, which is not a particularly attractive rate, can go 100 kilometers for 1.50 euros. They are 8.05 euros less per 100 kilometers. The difference is so substantial that if this new crisis continues and prices remain high, we are facing the best breeding ground for the electric car. The interest of potential buyers is increasing significantly. In fact, Google searches related to the terms “cheap electric car” have soared just when more and more models begin to arrive on the market. In recent months, the avalanche of electric cars has been unleashed. We have all kinds of options. From premium cars with hundreds of kilometers of autonomy that are equal in price to gasoline cars, like the BMW iX3 or the next Mercedes GLC either electric CLAto attractive vehicles for families such as Kia EV5, Renault Scenic either Peugeot 3008as well as urban mobility vehicles with recognized success as the BYD Dolphin Surf (one of the best-selling electric cars in Spain) or the Renault 5with the first demand band covered. Without forgetting, of course, the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y whose low consumption and very low interest financing allow them to continue to be some of the most interesting models you can buy. The context is especially important in a Europe that is moving towards the electric car. 2025 emissions targets pushed back to 2027 but manufacturers will have to comply with an average to be calculated in that period of time. This leads us to most expensive combustion cars in the coming months (to be less attractive and, if sold, offset possible fines) and more affordable electric vehicles (to lower average emissions). General photography is also particularly interesting for Chinese manufacturers. Absolute technology dominators and of electric batteriesit is the country that can tighten the most on price even if tariffs on their electric cars remain. Spain is one of the countries where we are most sensitive to price and where we are most willing to buy vehicles with an attractive quality/price ratio. Of the 10 best-selling electric cars So far this year, two are Chinese and have prices significantly lower than the competition, such as the BYD Dolphin Surf and BYD Atto 2. The weight of this country is more forceful among plug-in hybrids: four of the 10 best-selling cars are Chinese cars. Spain is by no means a general photograph of Europe. But it does give clues … Read more

The new Xiaomi SU7 is much more than an improved version. It is confirmation that China runs while Europe walks

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Frantic. This is how we could define Xiaomi’s calendar in the automobile market. On Thursday, December 28, 2023Xiaomi publicly presented the Xiaomi SU7, its first electric car. He did it with a presentation as the occasion deserved. Hours (literally) breaking down each and every detail that made his first electric car unique. The brand turned the industry upside down. And his car directly attacked Tesla and Porsche. Its promises were to perform the same as any of the two reference electric cars for its market (Tesla Model S and Porsche Taycan) for a fraction of its price. We could think that it was just another coming out. An important one, yes, because it is not every day that a “mobile brand” becomes part of a new industry, let alone the automotive industry. But the thing is that the Xiaomi SU7 was already beginning to get ahead of all of us who live outside of China, who work and live at a different pace there. Today, with the renewal of the Xiaomi SU7 we have confirmation of what, indeed, was already more than confirmed. The boiler of the Chinese electric car If the Chinese electric car were a boiler, we could say that it is operating at full capacity. So high that it seems about to explode with the number of cars that are feeding it. In the traditional industry, what we could understand as the European automobile industry, it had been accepted that work was done at very specific rates. Generally, a car had two or three years of development. It was launched on the market and sales supported it for two or three years. After this time, commercial life began to languish, the brand introduced a purely aesthetic redesign to boost sales more or less in the fourth year after launching the car on the market and the public’s embrace responded slightly to, once the seventh year arrived, it introduced a new generation to the market. These times vary slightly. Advance a facelift to three years if the car was not performing as expected or extend it to five if there was no replacement on the way or sales are going at a good pace. Thus, there are cars whose commercial life can last eight or nine years. Waiting longer for a new generation is a real rarity. China has blown up these times. The best example is Xiaomi, although it is by no means the only company that is involved in an infernal maelstrom of launches. As we said, on December 28, 2023, Xiaomi presented the SU7. Today, 812 days later, it has presented its renewal. In less than two and a half years. And before two years have passed since The first units reached customers in April 2024. The calendar takes away the hiccups: In five years, Xiaomi has announced that it was entering the electric car market, it has presented two vehicles and a special and sporty version of one of them. It has just announced the renewal of the first of them. The new Xiaomi SU7 perfectly fulfills that of “more and better”. On the outside, the details are minor. The grille and new wheel designs focus attention. Inside, the car is renewed to, according to the brand, improve qualities with greater use of soft plastics. In addition, the design is more similar to that of the Xiaomi YU7 that has led the way in this case. In addition, the seats are changed and ventilation and heating are standard on all models. There are also minor improvements such as changes to the rear seats or the refrigerator that is incorporated into the rear seats. Mechanically, the Xiaomi SU7 is improved with the HyperEngine V6s Plus engine, which can now reach 22,000 rpm and allows the car to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.08 seconds. The maximum speed is limited to 265 km/h. The battery has also been improved and now has the following maximum ranges according to the Chinese CTLC cycle: 720 kilometers of autonomy for the standard. 902 kilometers of autonomy for the Pro. 835 kilometers of autonomy for the Max. It must be taken into account that the Chinese CTLC cycle is more optimistic than the European WLTP but Xiaomi is already talking about recovering 670 kilometers in 15 minutes with an improvement in charging power. In addition, the adaptive suspension has been improved, which is now faster and has a wider range of movement, and the brakes that, according to the company, can withstand up to 40 emergency brakings from 100 km/h without fading in the Max version. The less ambitious ones also have larger brakes than It had been one of its negative points. New interior of the Xiaomi SU7 In terms of software and driving assistance, the Xiaomi SU7 includes the evolution of its assisted driving and parking systems that are now smoother and safer, according to the company. Besides, the infotainment system becomes Xiaomi HyperOS now so the integration with the rest of the devices is better and more fluid, one of the great attractions of the Xiaomi YU7. The renovation of the Xiaomi SU7 is, therefore, much deeper than what is seen at first glance. It is also an example of the pace at which the electric car industry works in China. Renewal times are very short and sales of the Xiaomi SU7 had already plummeted while waiting for a new version. As we said, it is by no means the only company that plays with very short cycles. BYD has put so many cars on the market and announced improvements at a rate that has made its own cars obsolete. It is the result of covering the great advances of the competition with a new function, improvement or, directly, launch that can overshadow them. The result is an industry that responds to customer needs extremely quickly. It is even something that we have noticed in Europe that, as how we count in Xatakahas received … Read more

It’s geopolitics. And China goes with the accelerator to the table

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When commercial 5G was taking its first steps in 2018, China was already talking of the next generation. The Asian giant saw very early that 6G would be a strategic element and got to work to dominate the conversation before its rivals. Because this is not about playing with less latency at a cloud game or download data faster. It is about having frontier technology before the rival. Strategic 6G. Since the middle of the last century, China has had something known as the ‘Five Year Plan’. It is a roadmap that sets out the objectives to be developed and achieved over a period of five years. Everything goes into it: energy, economy, society, technology and the environment, and it represents an organizational chart to coordinate policies that make the set objectives possible. In the 14th Five-Year Plan, the focus was on developing technologies that would allow China to be self-sufficient in semiconductors and digital technologies such as 6G. Time has passed and we have been able to see enormous progress during this time (especially in semiconductors), and now the new development plan has just been published in which we want to strengthen that sovereignty, but where two key objectives are framed: AI and 6G as a lever for economic growth. Calendar. The new roadmap defines the objective for the period 2026-2030, but the country has been preparing the ground for years. Huawei, already in 2019, He pointed out that they were testing 6G internally and that it was considered that it would not be until the end of the next decade when it would begin to be deployed commercially. The moment is approaching and steps have been taken. In 2020, China deployed what was considered the world’s first 6G satellitein 2022 experimented with sending data packets of one TB per second from a kilometer away, and in 2023 we learned that military uses were also being analyzed. For example, vibration analysis in water to detect even smaller submarines and drones in the open sea from the air. In the middle of last year, the state media CCTV commented that China’s objectives with 6G were being met as planned, highlighting, again and as they do every time they make a communication on the subject, the country’s leadership in this field. And… for what? China wants the world to know that are very actively developing this technology. And the big question is… do we need 6G? And here there is a big mistake: thinking that 6G is a technology for users. Obviously, consumer devices capable of having connections of these speeds will be essential for applications, for example, of artificial intelligence that are not calculated at the local level, but 6G is not so much for mobile phones but for the global network. From the same CCTV statement it is detailed that “6G is more than a communication technology.” This is something to drive more complex devices, smart terminals and new generations of sensors. Speeds above 100 Gbps are targeted with a delay of less than a millisecond (in 5G, the figures are about 1Gbps) and this will benefit the remote manipulation of devices, the number of simultaneous connections and tasks that require total precision, such as “swarms” of robots working in the field and coordinated by artificial intelligence. This sounds like science fiction, but recently Samsung presented its plans to transform its factories by 2030. Robots will be the workforce and the brain will be the AI. In its own updated five-year plan, China emphasizes the development of ’embodied AI’, that “robotics with AI” as one of the pillars of the country’s technological development. Everyone wants to lead. The country detailed that “the future 6G will not only be a mobile communication network, but a new generation of mobile information.” But of course, with all the range of possibilities that something like this opens up, and with how important it can be for an accelerated and massive deployment of robots, Physical AI and even of the remote computing in data centersno country wants to miss the train. Because China has giants like Huawei, but South Korea has SK Telecom and Samsung. Both have already expressed their intention to start conduct short-term technology tests with an ambitious goal: to have a functional 6G network by 2028. Japan is also in that raceEurope (which missed out on 5G) He doesn’t want things to repeat themselves. with 6G and the United States, whose current president already said in 2019 that I wanted 6G for yesterdayis also in garlic. A basic problem. My colleague Laura points out in Xataka Mobile that China wants to win the 6G battle before the battle for 6G begins, but although it is evident that they are in it and they lead patent applications worldwide (as has already happened thanks to Huawei with 5G), as users… we say again that the thing will take a while to start. At least in Europe. In a report last year, Ericsson, which is a communications giant, He pointed out that there is a basic problem: While competitors have deployed the millimeter band, most European countries have prioritized medium and low bands. More coverage, less speed, and although soon it will be time to talk about 6G as a current technology, the 5G has been with us for more than six years, and it is still taking its first steps. And if Europe wants to be a reference in robotics, AI and new technologies, it will have to start deploying towers as they are already doing in other regions. Pexels (edited with Gemini) In Xataka | Qualcomm believes that 6G will be the definitive network for AI and has already set a date: the reality is that 5G is still in its infancy

China has started a battle against the US and Japan that no one is talking about. And it is crucial to winning the chip war

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In the semiconductor war that the US and China are fighting Companies that specialize in the manufacture of photolithography equipment tend to attract attention, such as ASML; those that design the chips, such as NVIDIA or AMD; and the companies that produce them, such as TSMC or Samsung. However, in this complex network there are other much less known companies that also play an essential role in the integrated circuit industry. One of them is the Japanese company JSR Corporation. This entity is one of the industrial strongholds of Japan. And it is because it supplies its photoresist liquids to most of the semiconductor manufacturers that produce cutting-edge chips, helping to sustain Japan’s leadership in a very important area that usually goes unnoticed: that of the manufacture of advanced materials to produce integrated circuits. For China to have its own advanced photoresist liquids in your path to total independence of its chip industry is crucial, so its plan involves break Japan’s monopoly in no more than five years. China prepares to intimidate Japan The photolithography equipment designed and produced by ASML is responsible, very roughly, for transferring the geometric pattern described by the mask with great precision to the surface of the silicon wafer. In this area we can observe the pattern as the “drawing” that delimits the distribution of the transistors, the connections and the other elements that make up an integrated circuit. Before transferring the geometric pattern to the wafer, it is necessary to pour a liquid capable of absorbing light and preserving the pattern on it. However, before reaching this very important step, it is necessary to subject the wafers to a process known as deposition. It usually involves equipment manufactured by Tokyo Electron or Applied Materials. Its purpose is prepare silicon wafers for the transfer of the geometric pattern by depositing a very thin layer of material on them. Depending on the type of chip being manufactured, it will be necessary to use one material or another. One of the most used deposition techniques is known as oxidation, and consists of taking advantage of the ability of silicon to form a very thin layer of oxide when reacting with water. Its purpose is to protect the transistors and other chip components from external contamination. However, before transferring the geometric pattern to the wafer using lithography equipment, it is necessary to pour a liquid capable of absorbing light and preserving the pattern on it. This is the function of the photoresist fluid. During the last two decades, all companies specialized in the production of photoresist materials have been Japanese. In fact, Japan has since then the monopoly of this marketwhich is currently led by JSR Corporation. For the US, one of its main allies should lead this market not a problembut the possibility of China developing the capacity to produce its own advanced photoresist materials on its path to cutting-edge chip manufacturing is an issue. The Chinese government knows that photoresist production is a critical bottleneck, which is why its latest five-year plan has set out to resolve it. Xuzhou B&C Chemical, which is one of the leading photoresist materials manufacturers in China, anticipates that in at most five years will have the capacity to produce large-scale advanced KrF photoresists (Krypton Fluoride) and ArF (Argon Fluoride). Precisely this last material is commonly used in nodes equipped with deep ultraviolet (UVP) lithography equipment. However, the great challenge facing China is the development of photoresists suitable for the production of integrated circuits in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) nodes. We will see what achievements it achieves over the next five years. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | SCMP In Xataka | Japan takes the lead with nuclear fusion and sets an extremely ambitious date: the 2030s

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