china

The US had a ship with 2,000 marines ready to invade Iran. Now he has sent it right to the place where China worries the most

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An image that is still studied in military academies occurred in 1942, when during the call Battle of Midway The Americans managed to sink four Japanese aircraft carriers in just a few hours. That battle showed that, in the Pacific, moving a handful of ships to the right place could upset the strategic balance of an entire region, a lesson that continues to influence American naval planning more than eight decades later. A movement and what it reveals. For weeks there was speculation that the United States would expand its confrontation with Iran through more aggressive operations on the ground in the Persian Gulf. However, one of the most significant military moves has occurred far from the Middle East. He USS Boxeran amphibious assault ship capable of landing troops, vehicles and combat aircraft has abandoned any potential role in a ground operation against Iran and has set course to the South China Sea. On board is the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, some 2,000 troops specialized in rapid interventions and amphibious assaults. The decision suggests that Washington considers that the main strategic challenge today is not in Tehran, but in the growing rivalry with China. From the Gulf to the China Sea. When the Boxer left San Diego In March, in the midst of the crisis with Iran, many interpreted its deployment as a way to keep open the option of carrying out limited landings or capturing strategic objectives if the conflict escalated. However, after a logistics stopover in Singapore and a transit through the Andaman Sea, the ship has reappeared in the South China Sea integrated into the Indo-Pacific Command structure. It is a platform comparable in concept to the Juan Carlos I Spanish, capable of operating landing craft, amphibious vehicles, helicopters and F-35 fighters, allowing it to act as both a light aircraft carrier and a ground intervention force. What changes for Iran. The boxer exit It further reduces the chances of a US amphibious operation against Iranian targets. While the USS Tripoli continues in the region performing functions focused on air strikes and naval support, Washington seems to be betting on a strategy based on blockades, precision bombings and economic pressure, avoiding committing troops on the ground. The decision can be interpreted as a partial military de-escalation, although it also reflects a simpler reality: the United States believes it can contain Iran without deploying significant amphibious forces, while competition with China requires a constant presence and visible in Asia. The concern of Asian allies. Reuters counted that the issue was very present in the Singapore Shangri-La Dialoguewhere numerous Asian defense officials expressed doubts about whether the United States will be able to simultaneously maintain its focus on the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. Although Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth insisted in which Washington can manage both scenarios at the same time, countries such as the Philippines, Japan, Australia, Canada and New Zealand they are reinforcing their military capabilities and deepening their mutual ties to complement the American security umbrella. The goal is to build a stronger regional network in the face of growing pressure from Beijing. Japan and the new security architecture. Japan is becoming one of the pillars of that strategy. Tokyo has made more flexible historically its arms export rules and aspires to act as a connection point between the different partners in the region. The idea is that deterrence against China do not depend exclusively of the United States, but of an increasingly integrated network of countries capable of sharing equipment, training and military cooperation. This shift reflects the extent to which the perception of China’s military rise is transforming Asian security policy. The center of gravity of global competition. The arrival of the Boxer coincides with intense military activity in the Indo-Pacific. The USS George Washington aircraft carrier has started new patrols from Japan, while the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning operates in the Western Pacific under surveillance of neighboring countries. In this context, the deployment of a US amphibious force in the South China Sea has a strong symbolic and operational value. Because beyond the crisis with Iran, the Boxer’s journey summarizes an increasingly evident trend: although the Middle East continues to generate immediate conflicts, the great strategic competition that defines Washington’s priorities is being fought in Asia and, especially, in the face of the rise of China. Image | US Navy In Xataka | China has resurrected the strangest concept of the Cold War: a plane, a ship and a missile launcher in one machine In Xataka | Something is happening over the skies of Chile: the US and China are fighting their particular “cold war” in silence

Bringing wind energy 100 km from the coast seemed impossible. Until China has thrown away its new metallic “heart”

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A 25,000-tonne mass of steel, with the surface area of ​​a football field and the height of a 15-story building, is currently crossing the ocean aboard an immense semi-submersible ship. The latest great milestone in Asian engineering is already underway. This colossus has just set sail from the port of Nantong, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, on a 1,090 nautical mile journey to southern China. The protagonist of this monumental journey is called “Hai Feng Zhi Xin“, which translated into Spanish means “heart of the sea wind.” As highlighted in an official statement collected by the agency PR Newswireit is the largest offshore converter station in the world, built by the state-owned Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (ZPMC). Its destination is the waters off the city of Yangjiang, where it will connect to the mammoth Qingzhou V and Qingzhou VII offshore wind farms, operated by the corporation Three Gorges. The “bottleneck” of offshore wind. To understand the magnitude of this project, you have to understand the historical problem that the wind sector faced. As the news agency explains XinhuaUntil now, the development of offshore wind energy has hit a physical wall. Conventional wind turbines produce electricity in alternating current (AC). The problem is that transmitting this alternating current through submarine cables over long distances causes severe and unaffordable energy losses. This technical limitation forced engineers to build wind farms in relatively shallow waters and very close to the coast. However, the wind resource is much stronger, stable and constant the further you go into the open sea. That’s where the technological solution of this new project comes into play as it acts as the largest power adapter on the planet. It collects the energy generated by no less than 163 wind turbines, increases its voltage and converts that alternating current into direct current (DC). So why is this a game changer? Because direct current can travel hundreds of kilometers underwater with minimal energy loss. The platform boasts a record unit capacity of 2,000 megawatts (MW) and operates with a flexible ±500 kilovolts (kV) direct current transmission system. In addition, it is a pioneer in the use of ±525 kV submarine cables for these distances. This technical conversion unlocks access to high-quality wind resources located more than 100 kilometers offshore, making ultra-deepwater wind finally commercially viable. When at full capacity, this metal “heart” will pump out 6 billion kWh of clean electricity a year, a vital boost to the decarbonization efforts of the industrialized Guangdong region. A 25,000 ton giant. Building a power plant in the middle of the raging deep ocean is not a viable option. The project was approached as a gigantic set of modular parts. Assembly, integration of all equipment and installation progressed in parallel onshore (Nantong), demanding an unprecedented level of supply chain coordination. Yan Bing, Senior Specialist of ZPMC cited by PR Newswireexplains that they adopted an integrated construction model of “land assembly, transportation as a single unit, and float-over installation.” This offshore installation method is overwhelmingly complex, requiring millimeter-level adjustment precision amidst strong ocean currents to fit the superstructure. Once locked into place, the platform’s working environment will be unforgiving. As detailed Xinhuawill operate completely autonomously, without a permanent human crew, controlled through intelligent maintenance and remote monitoring systems. Inside, a dense network of electrical, ventilation and fire control systems has been specially armored to resist the very high salinity and corrosive humidity of the deep ocean. The urgency of this megaproject. This feat is within China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030). The Asian country has set the goal of reaching 100 gigawatts (GW) of installed offshore wind energy capacity by 2030. China’s problem is that its nearshore wind resources are quickly becoming saturated. Just in February this year, the country connected the first 20-megawatt offshore wind turbine to the grid in Fujian province (made entirely from domestic components), followed by the installation of the world’s largest floating wind platform in Yangjiang. The 100 kilometers from the coast are no longer an unbreakable border. With the imminent ignition of its new energy node, China not only alleviates the energy hunger of its coastal areas, but also establishes a replicable technical model that demonstrates to the entire world that the future of clean energy inevitably requires losing sight of the shore. Image | Xu Congjun/Xinhua Xataka | Japan has realized that it cannot depend on gas, so it is going to set up a mega wind farm on the coast of Tokyo

The US opened the door to Nvidia’s H200 chip in China. The Chinese army has been waiting for a long time on the other side

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Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, has been forced to “fight” with the US Department of Commerce for months, but he has achieved what he wanted: your company can now deliver some of its Chinese clients its chip to artificial intelligence (AI) H200. As we explain to you On May 14, Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and JD.com are four of the ten Chinese companies that already have access to this powerful GPU. And they have it because the US Department of Commerce, which is the institution that grants or denies export licenses, has authorized at least ten Chinese companies and several distributors, including Lenovo and Foxconn, to acquire the second most powerful AI chip that Nvidia has. This decision has come almost two months after the US Government confirmed which was going to allow the company led by Jensen Huang to deliver its H200 chip to its Chinese customers. However, Nvidia likely won’t have time to savor this victory. Once again, dark clouds are gathering over it that threaten to compromise, once again, its business in China. And, according to Bloombergat least seven Chinese universities linked to the country’s armed forces and defense industry are trying to obtain H200 chips. This disclosure comes from China’s public procurement records, so it is presumably reliable. Remote rental: the avenue that the Department of Commerce still does not know how to close In the US there is a pressure group that opposes the sale of advanced American AI chips in China. Chris McGuire, senior fellow on China and emerging technologies at the Council on Foreign Relations, holds that “any deal that allows Nvidia to sell more chips to China means fewer Nvidia chips for US companies and a smaller US advantage over China in AI.” Besides, McGuire argues that “it is surprising that President Trump continues to allow himself to be convinced to put Nvidia’s interests before those of America.” Chinese entities increasingly resort to renting airtime on servers equipped with restricted Nvidia chips What is happening right now with Chinese universities is the ideal breeding ground to reinforce the theses of this pressure group in the US. Two of the institutions that have expressed interest in H200 chipsBeihang University and Northwest Polytechnic University, are among China’s “Seven Sons of National Defense”, a select group of universities dedicated to supporting the People’s Liberation Army. Both have been included in the blacklist of the US Department of Commerce for their involvement in the advancement of Chinese military capabilities. And public procurement records reveal that the Beihang School of Cyber ​​Science and Technology, which claims to have “national defense characteristics and aerospace advantages,” is attempting to rent the use of Nvidia chips. Northwestern Polytechnic University’s School of Cyberspace Security is also trying to rent access to H200 chips, according to those same records. Chinese entities are increasingly resorting to time of use rental on servers equipped with restricted Nvidia chips as a way to access prohibited hardware without having to import it directly. This is the strategy that the US Government will surely try to dismantle. What is not clear at the moment is how he is going to do it. Image | Nvidia More information | Bloomberg In Xataka | The US remains committed to stopping China. Now it has targeted the second largest Chinese chip manufacturer

China has found a giant “tunnel” to introduce its cars into Europe without Europe. And it is facing Spain

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In 2007, when Morocco inaugurated the port from Tangier Med off the Spanish coast, many saw it as an ambitious logistical gamble. Less than two decades later, that port has not only become the largest of the Mediterranean and Africabut has begun to surpass historic European giants like Algeciras in traffic. What seemed like a regional infrastructure ended up becoming one of the main commercial gateways to Europe. A half-open door to Europe. Europe has been trying for years reduce your dependency China’s industrial sector and, more recently, protect its manufacturers against the avalanche of electric vehicles from the Asian giant. The tariffs imposed by Brussels, in fact, respond precisely to that objective. However, I remembered the weekend the financial times that, while attention was focused on Chinese ports and factories in the country’s interior, Beijing began to build a much closer alternative: an industrial network located on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar. The growing concern in Brussels does not arise because China is exporting more cars from its territory, but because it is transferring part of its production capacity to a country that enjoys privileged access to the European market. Map of the surroundings of Tangier, with Tanger Tech City (to the south), Tanger Automotive City and the port of Tangier Med Morocco as an industrial platform. It explained the means that the transformation is visible around Tangier and Kenitrawhere Chinese investments in tires, brakes, electronic components, battery materials and future gigafactories are multiplying. What is emerging are not simple isolated plants, but a supply chain increasingly complete capable of feeding the European electric car industry. Morocco offers practically everything you are looking for manufacturers: geographical proximity to Europe, competitive labor costs, renewable energy, tax advantages and an extensive network of trade agreements. For many Chinese companies, producing there is more attractive to continue manufacturing in China and then face the growing European trade barriers. The fear of Brussels. European concern does not lie solely in foreign investment. What is worrying is the possibility that Morocco will become in an indirect way so that products backed by Chinese capital, technology and subsidies enter Europe with much more favorable conditions. The European Commission already has detected cases in which components manufactured with Chinese financial support end up benefiting from preferential agreements. The challenge is to distinguish where it ends an authentic Moroccan industrialization and where a strategy designed to circumvent tariffs begins. Put another way, the more complex supply chains become, the more difficult it becomes to answer that question. Beijing’s geographical advantage. If you like, China too. has understood that geography can be as important as technology. Off the Spanish coast is a country connected by trade agreements with Europe and the United States, equipped of modern ports and increasingly integrated into global production chains. From the Chinese perspective, installing factories in Morocco does not mean abandoning Europe, but rather get even closer to her. Instead of shipping finished products from thousands of miles away, companies can manufacture components and vehicles a few hours of the main European markets. The strategy reduces costs, limits commercial risks and makes the application of protectionist measures difficult. A battle for European industry. What happens in Morocco reflects much broader economic competition. Europe tries to protect an industrial base that consider strategicas China looks for new ways to keep its huge manufacturing capacity running despite increasing Western restrictions. The result is that North Africa is becoming a space increasingly disputedwhere the interests of Brussels, Rabat and Beijing intersect. For Morocco, investments mean jobs, infrastructure and growth. For China, they represent a privileged platform next to the gateway to the European market. And for the European Union they constitute a uncomfortable question: If Chinese production can be installed just on the other side of the Mediterranean, to what extent are tariffs really capable of slowing its advance? Image | Adam Cle, The Spanish Monkey In Xataka | China and Europe do not trust each other when it comes to electric cars. And someone is taking advantage of it: Türkiye In Xataka | The Chinese auto industry is moving to colonize Africa and Latin America. Also to be your springboard

That Iran shot down a US F-15 was something unusual. The problem is that they have opened the missile… and everything points to China

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In 1960, when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet UnionWashington initially believed it was facing a military problem. He ended up discovering that the incident had diplomatic consequences much larger and blew up a summit between the two superpowers. Because sometimes a single downed plane reveals a story much bigger than the battle in which it fell. The takedown that changed the conversation. He downing of an F-15E on Iran last month was, in itself, an extraordinary event. It had been decades since a United States fighter had been shot down by enemy fire, and the rescue movie operation later, with one of the crew hiding for two days in the Zagros Mountains, underlined the seriousness of the episode. However, as investigations continue, the incident is shifting from being a story about Iranian military capabilities to something else: a story about China. According to cited sources by NBC News the suspicion that the plane was hit by a portable anti-aircraft missile (MANPADS) of Chinese manufacture has shifted the focus from the battlefield to a much more uncomfortable question for Washington: to what extent Beijing is helping to sustain Tehran’s military capacity. More important than the missile. From a military point of view, a portable anti-aircraft missile is not a revolutionary weapon. Its appeal lies precisely on the contrary: It is relatively cheap, easy to deploy, and capable of threatening even extremely sophisticated platforms if circumstances are favorable. Hence, what has aroused American interest is not so much the type of weapon used as its possible origin. If suspicions are correct, the shootdown would demonstrate that Chinese technology has ended up participatingdirectly or indirectly, in one of the more symbolic hits suffered by American aviation in years. From that perspective, the discussion then stops revolving around how Iran managed to shoot down an F-15 and begins to focus on what role played China to make it possible. The shadow of broader support. Because suspicions are not limited to the missile. US sources also suggest that China may have provided Iran with radar systems capable of detecting stealth aircraft and access to space capabilities that would facilitate the location of targets. So far none of these accusations have been conclusively proven publicly and Beijing categorically rejects them, but together they paint an image that is worrying in Washington: that of a technological support network which, without involving direct military involvement, could significantly increase Iran’s ability to challenge the United States and its allies. In this context, the downed F-15 becomes tangible proof of a broader phenomenon that US officials have been denouncing for some time. The contradiction of American diplomacy. The situation is especially delicate because the United States simultaneously needs to contain Iran and keep channels open with China. Beijing is the main buyer of the iranian oil and one of the few actors with enough influence to put economic pressure on Tehran. During negotiations to reach a ceasefire, the Trump administration sought precisely that collaboration. But every new accusation on Chinese missiles, radars or satellites used by Iran complicates that balance. Washington thus finds itself in an uncomfortable position: it needs China to contribute to stabilizing the region while accusing it of providing tools that strengthen one of its main adversaries in the Middle East. The real message. That’s why the downing of the F-15 It has a relevance that goes far beyond the loss of a plane. What is at stake is not only the effectiveness of Iranian defenses, but the American perception that more and more regional conflicts are connected to global strategic competition. against China. The investigation on the missile seeks to determine how the fighter fell, but also who was behind the technology that made it possible. In a sense, Washington has opened up the missile to examine it piece by piece, and in doing so has discovered that the biggest questions no longer point solely to Tehran. They aim more and more towards Beijingwhere the United States believes is a growing part of the economic, technological and military infrastructure that allows its rivals to challenge its power in different corners of the world. Image | U.S. Force In Xataka | The US has copied its very cheap drone swarms from Iran and Russia. The problem is what Starlink asks for connecting them In Xataka | The war in the East has reached an unexpected agreement: one where the US does not discuss Iran’s missiles, bombs or uranium

Microscopes had been dependent on human operators for almost a century. China wants to change that with AI

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A team of Chinese researchers has presented in Beijing which they claim is the first transmission electron microscopy system in the world capable of operating completely autonomously. Dubbed “Aeye-1”, the device has demonstrated in tests its ability to replace a human operator in all phases of the process thanks to AI. What exactly is it. A transmission electron microscope (TEM) is a tool that has been essential for decades to observe matter at the atomic scale. It is used to develop new materials, energy technologies, industrial chemistry, and has been a key instrument for evolution in science. For almost a century, these devices have always depended on manual handling by a technician, something that in the end ends up giving subjective results and entails certain difficulties in performing quantitative analyses. Why it is important. Aeye-1 makes the leap from “manual operation” to “AI-led autonomous operation”. According to they count its researchers, the system carries out the entire work chain by itself, from transferring the sample to capturing the images and analyzing the data without the intervention of any person. According to Deng Dehuiprofessor at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and leader of the project, the system works “like an ‘intelligent eye’ that visualizes the atomic world.” In detail. The development was carried out by the team of Deng Dehui and Professor Liu Wei, in collaboration with researchers from the Shenyang Institute of Automation. Together they have designed the algorithms that allow the microscope to perceive, analyze and control the process independently. To achieve this, they had to overcome many technical challenges, including the intelligent transfer of samples in high vacuum, the autonomous optical adjustment of the image, the precise localization of objects at the nanometer scale, the capture and analysis of images in real time and the coordination of all subsystems at the same time. The figures. According to Deng, image analysis It is more than 300 times faster than manual. To understand the magnitude, two weeks of Aeye-1 operation are equivalent to one year of work of a conventional microscope. In tests with molecular sieve catalysts, the system analyzed an average of 168 samples per day, captured more than 4,000 images per day and automatically generated professional reports with detailed statistics on particle size, dispersion or crystal structure. Who supports it. The system surpassed last Sunday an evaluation of scientific and technological achievements held in Beijing and organized by the Chinese Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation. The evaluation committee unanimously concluded that it is a “highly innovative technology, the first of its kind in the world and an international leader.” And now what. Those responsible for it expect that Aeye-1 will be able to continuously provide large volumes of high-quality structural data in fields such as energy, industrial chemistry, advanced materials and life sciences. The long-term goal is for this new team to drive a paradigm shift in AI-supported scientific research. It really is a process in which automation through AI can be highly beneficial. We will have to wait to find out if it ends up setting a trend in the scientific world. Cover image | China Daily and National Cancer Institute In Xataka | South Korea has just entered the most exclusive club on the planet. And China and North Korea are not exactly calm

China can’t buy the best Nvidia chips. So Alibaba has decided to connect theirs and sell them as if they were one

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Alibaba does not want its infrastructure artificial intelligence (AI) continues to depend on Nvidia technologies. Little by little, the largest technology companies in China are assuming the request that Xi Jinping’s government made them at the beginning of October 2024: as far as possible They had to use chips produced in China. Ten months later this recommendation became a requirement. And the data centers that belong to the State throughout the country had to use at least 50% Chinese integrated circuits on their servers. This scenario especially favors Huawei, Moore Threads and Cambricon Technologies because they are Top AI GPU Manufacturers from China, but it also works great for Alibaba. In fact, Alibaba Cloud, its cloud computing subsidiary, has taken a very important step forward. A few days ago it presented a new chip for AI, the Zhenwu M890, and made official a very ambitious itinerary that describes what solutions it will develop over the next three years. This GPU has been designed by T-Head, the semiconductor division that Alibaba founded in 2018. It incorporates 144 GB of HBM3 memory and achieves an interconnection transfer speed between chips of up to 800 GB/s. As we are about to discover, this last feature is essential in the strategy that Alibaba has developed to compete in the AI ​​hardware market. Alibaba is going to spend $53 billion on its infrastructure According to Alibaba, the performance of its Zhenwu M890 chip is triple that of its predecessor. Additionally, it has been designed to perform well both during training of cutting-edge AI models and during inference. An important note: inference is broadly the computational process carried out by language models with the purpose of generating responses that correspond to the requests they receive. Alibaba wants to compete face to face with Nvidia in the deployment of infrastructure for data centers However, there is another relevant fact that is worth not overlooking: in medium precision operations (FP16) the Zhenwu M890 chip reaches 0.6 petaflops, a performance comparable to that of Nvidia’s A100 GPU and three times higher than that of the H20 chip. On the other hand, the ICN Switch interconnection chip allows link up to 128 GPUs M890 so that they work in unison. Alibaba assures that this architecture makes these GPUs work as a single chip, which, on paper, will allow it to compete head-to-head with Nvidia in the deployment of infrastructure for data centers. Regarding the itinerary that will follow until 2028, this Chinese company has anticipated that it plans to launch the Zhenwu V900 during the third quarter of 2027. According to Alibaba, it will implement its own significantly improved parallel computing architecture, will have three times the performance of the M890 chip, will be supported by 216 GB of memory and will reach an interconnection transfer speed of 1,200 GB/s. The Zhenwu J900 will arrive during the third quarter of 2028 with another major architectural leap. This roadmap It reflects that Alibaba goes all out. In fact, it has also announced that it will support this plan with an investment in 380 billion yuan (about $53 billion) over the next three years. Is the largest engagement of its kind in history of the company. Additionally, T-Head is planning its IPO to fund a more aggressive infrastructure investment program, which would put it in direct competition with Cambricon Technologies and Huawei’s Ascend line in the domestic AI chip market. Image | Alibaba More information | Alibaba | ChinaDaily In Xataka | Nvidia has to deal with the absolute distrust of several US legislators. Your plan in China is in danger In Xataka | The US wants to end Chinese AI chips sold abroad. And China knows how to defend itself

South Korea has just entered the most exclusive club on the planet. And China and North Korea are not exactly calm

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In 2004, South Korea admitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency that years before it had rperformed secret experiments of uranium enrichment without officially declaring them. That caused a small diplomatic crisis and revived a question that has been chasing Seoul for decades: how far it is willing to go to not be left behind in Asia. Now he has taken an unprecedented step. The great leap. South Korea just gave one of the most important strategic steps in its recent military history: entering the small club of countries capable of operating nuclear powered submarines. Until now, this terrain was reserved for powers such as the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom or India. He Jangbogo-N project It completely changes Seoul’s position in Asia because it stops being only an advanced industrial and technological power and also becomes a naval actor with oceanic ambitions and a much more sophisticated deterrence capacity. The decision has an enormous symbolic component, but above all practical: A nuclear submarine can remain submerged for months, travel enormous distances and operate with a freedom impossible for traditional diesel models. For China and North Korea the message is clear. South Korea no longer wants to limit itself to protecting its coasts; It wants to have a permanent presence and response capacity throughout the regional board. Announcement of the project in the South Korean defense ministry Seoul’s great obsession. He official argument revolves around the North Korean threat and especially the growth of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal. North Korea has been developing ballistic missiles launched from submarines and working on their own naval nuclear propulsion programs with possible Russian help. In this context, South Korea considers that its current diesel submarines are no longer sufficient to maintain a credible long-term deterrence capacity. The new nuclear models would allow the waters near the peninsula to be monitored for much longer and guarantee second attack ability much more difficult to neutralize. Even without nuclear weapons on board, the simple possibility that these platforms could disappear under the sea for long periods makes any enemy military calculation much more complex. China in the equation. Although North Korea is the immediate threat, the greater strategic background clearly points towards China. They remembered the TWZ analysts that Beijing has been expanding its submarine fleet and strengthening its naval presence for years throughout Asia-Pacificas South Korea watches the regional competition shift away from focusing solely on the Korean Peninsula. The construction of nuclear submarines reflects precisely this mental change in Seoul: the country is beginning to see itself as a regional maritime power with much broader interests. Hence China has publicly criticized the program and has insisted on the obligations non-proliferation. Beijing understands perfectly what it means this technological leap. A neighbor with its own nuclear submarines implies a presence that is more difficult to track, a much deeper surveillance capacity and a navy capable of operating far from its ports. The most delicate detail. Impossible to pass by, because South Korea insists that does not intend develop nuclear weapons and will use low-enriched uranium under supervision international and coordination with the United States and the IAEA. However, the movement remains extremely sensitive because historically almost all countries with nuclear submarines also ended up developing atomic arsenals. Therein lies a good part of the regional concern. Although Seoul maintains officially your commitment With non-proliferation, the project brings it technologically closer to capabilities that seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. Furthermore, the international context has changed. Blind trust in the US military umbrella It’s not so solid anymore. As before, in South Korea the debate has been growing for years about whether the country needs a more autonomous deterrence capacity against Pyongyang and against an increasingly powerful China. A gigantic industrial bet. The program is also a statement of industrial power. South Korea wants to build the submarines within its own territory using its naval, nuclear and technological industries, something that fits perfectly with the country’s obsession with gain strategic autonomy. The government estimates that the project will last more than forty years between construction and operation, it will generate tens of thousands of jobs and strengthen key sectors such as modular reactors, advanced shipbuilding and military engineering. Market reactions have made the expected impact clear: the large South Korean naval companies they shot in the stock market after the announcement. Seoul understands that this project not only redefines its military strength; It may also establish the country as one of the few nations capable of designing and maintaining complex nuclear naval systems on its own. The silent race. The most important thing is that the movement of South Korea can further accelerate the submarine and nuclear race in Asia. Australia now advances with AUKUS To obtain nuclear submarines, North Korea seeks its own with Russian support and China continues to expand one of the largest submarine fleets on the planet. Now Seoul officially joins to that strategic underwater competition. If you also want, the region is entering a stage where the ability to disappear under the ocean for months has become one of the maximum symbols of military power. And South Korea just announced that is going to be part of that exclusive group, even if that means further altering the security balance in East Asia. Image | x In Xataka | Russia has built an imposing nuclear submarine with one mission: to launch one of the most extreme weapons ever devised In Xataka | North Korea has cleared up doubts about its alliance with Russia: it has just announced its first nuclear submarine

China can slow down Earth’s rotation by filling the Three Gorges

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The Three Gorges Dam It is a marvel of modern engineering. Located in central China, it interrupts the passage of the Yangtze River, the longest in Asia, generating more electricity than any other hydroelectric plant on the planet. It is so large that, according to NASA, filling it can slow down the Earth’s rotation. With a minimal impact, but highlighting the human influence on planetary balances; even the most fundamental ones. The Three Gorges Dam. The Yangtze River is the third longest in the world, behind the Amazon and the Nile. Also called the Blue River, it drains a basin of almost two million square kilometers, feeding 40% of Chinese territory with water. In the middle course of the river there are three natural gorges called Qutang, Wu and Xiling: the Three Gorges. In 2012, almost two decades after the start of construction, China inaugurated the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world, built on the Yangtze River in Hubei province to take advantage of the Three Gorges waterfall. How China overshadowed Itaipu. With a power of 22,500 MW, the Three Gorges Dam is the first to generate more energy than the Itaipú hydroelectric plant, shared by Brazil and Paraguay on the Paraná River. In 2020, the Three Gorges Dam broke Itaipú’s 2016 record of 103 TWh after intense monsoon rains. That year, its 32 700 MW turbines produced almost 112 TWh of electricity, more than what entire countries, such as Finland or Chile, consume annually. The megastructure is completed by two smaller 50 MW generators, which provide power to the plant itself, and a boat lift that allows navigation on the river. And it slowed down the Earth’s rotation. With a length of 2,335 meters and a height of 185, this colossal structure is capable of retaining up to 40 cubic kilometers of water, or in other words: 40 billion liters. A gigantic mass that, as NASA warned in 2005 and was evaluated laterif filled, it could have a calculable influence on the rotation of our planet. According to geophysicist Benjamin Fong Chao of NASA’s Goddard Center, filling the Three Gorges Dam would slightly shift the Earth’s axis to slow its rotation, increasing the length of the day by 0.06 microseconds. A slightly longer day. Although it is a small change compared to the melting of the polar caps or large earthquakes, demonstrates the impact that human activities can have on our planet, even on a scale as large as the Earth’s rotation. Take the devastating Indonesian tsunami of 2004. It was caused by an earthquake which, in turn, was due to a compaction of the Earth due to the interaction between the tectonic plates of India and Myanmar. That tsunami had the opposite effect: it moved the North Pole about 2.5 cm to the east, which slightly accelerated the planet’s rotation, reducing the length of a day by 2.68 microseconds. The key: the moment of inertia. The trigger for this effect is a physical magnitude called “moment of inertia” that describes the resistance of a body to changes in its rotation. The moment of inertia is greater or less depending on the amount of mass of the object and how that mass is distributed with respect to its axis of rotation. The classic example is a figure skater who, by crossing his arms close to his body, increases his rotation speed. Similarly, the Earth’s rotation can be modified by changes in its mass distribution. In the example of Indonesia, the movement of tectonic plates caused a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that modified the distribution of masses on the Earth’s surface and, consequently, the planet’s moment of inertia. The Moon has competition. The Earth is not a perfect sphere; Its axis of rotation shifts naturally due to changes in the atmosphere, oceans, and Earth’s crust. Since 1900, this axis has moved about 10 centimeters per year. Traditionally, this displacement was attributed to the retreat of glaciers or the gravitational pull of the Moon. Now we are beginning to understand the hand of man, and the Three Gorges Dam or the melting of the poles, which increases the water level towards the equator, are not the only examples. Another example is wells. Between 1993 and 2010, human geoengineering extracted approximately 2,150 gigatons of groundwater, used for consumption, agriculture, livestock, and industry. This massive extraction raised sea levels by more than six millimeters and, surprisingly, shifted the Earth’s axis of rotation by 80 centimeters east. Question of adjusting the clock? The impact of the wells or the Three Gorges Dam on the Earth’s rotation, although minimal, raises questions about the influence of human activities on our planet. For years, some researchers have advocated introduce a negative leap second in international time if the Earth’s rotation becomes slightly faster. As we saw a few months agothis idea is becoming progressively outdated. A Nature study suggests that the melting of the poles is already offsetting the hypothetical (and tiny) acceleration of the Earth due to human causes. The leap second was going to be introduced in 2026… And for now it has been postponed to 2029. It is possible that it will never be introduced. Short record. The impressive magnitude of the Three Gorges Dam can be put into perspective in two ways. The first is by observing the works that China is undertaking in the future Medog hydroelectric power stationin Tibet, located on the Yarlung Tsangpo River. Its works began in 2025 and, once it is completed, in 2035, it will be the most powerful dam on the planet, three times more than that of the Three Gorges. The second is with a fact: despite its brutal dimensions, the Three Gorges only produce 1% of China’s annual electricity. A testament to the country’s energy voracity. In Xataka | Dujiangyan: the engineers who, more than 2,000 years ago, decided to tame the Min River and, unintentionally, ended up forging China

In China they want humanoid robots to do household chores. The problem is that a house is not a factory

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For years we have seen humanoid robots do somersaults, danceppractice martial arts or move through factories with increasingly striking capabilities. The next step seems almost natural: taking them home to do the laundry, prepare a bed or support elder care. The problem is that this transition is not as direct as it seems. A factory is designed to reduce uncertainty; A home, on the other hand, is full of small exceptions. And for a robot, those exceptions can be exactly the difference between a flashy demo and a useful product. The concept. SCMP account That GigaAI has introduced the SeeLight S1 as the country’s first general-purpose home humanoid robot model, developed in collaboration with the Hubei Humanoid Robot Innovation Center and the Hubei Humanoid Robotics Industry Alliance. In images released by the company, he appears performing very recognizable tasks: cutting vegetables, frying eggs, loading a washing machine, hanging clothes, making a bed or opening curtains. The company also plans to test it for free in homes in Wuhan in the first half of 2027. A house is not an assembly line. That is the fundamental difference. In a factory, the robot can work with known references, pieces always placed in the same way and movements that are repeated thousands of times with very few variations. In a home, on the other hand, nothing guarantees that the shirt is where it was yesterday, that the chair has not moved or that a pet does not cross in front of it just when the robot is trying to complete a task. Much movement, little understanding. Xinhua itself collects an idea that helps cool down the epic of the demonstrations and that does not only affect China, but humanoid robotics in general: humanoids have greatly improved in their “cerebellum”, the part linked to control and coordination, but they still have major problems in their “brain”. In other words, they can execute complex movements, but it is difficult for them to understand what a scene means and what function each object has within it. Home is also a data problem. Now, for these systems to work better in real homes, they need to learn from real homes, but the home is precisely one of the places where it is least easy to collect data. We are not just talking about room maps, but about objects, forces, angles, routines and physical decisions that are difficult to simulate. Advances and challenges. According to NSFCthe country expected to exceed 10,000 humanoid units sold in 2025, with a year-on-year growth of 125%, and there were already pilots in industrial manufacturing, delivery, catering and services. The important nuance is that none of this automatically turns this industrial career into a successful deployment within homes: the sector itself locates the path prudently, first industry, then logistics and commercial uses, and only later the home. A future easy to imagine, difficult to materialize. The difficult part is demonstrating that this can be done usefully, safely, and at reasonable cost outside of a prepared demonstration. There is the real border. China and other countries around the world can accelerate prototypes, pilots and production, but a home does not forgive clumsiness in the same way as a controlled stage. To get home, the robot will not have to understand human life better. Images | GigaAI In Xataka | In China there are already “schools” for robots. Its objective is the same as schools for humans: to teach them to work

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