china

China arrives earlier and better

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Just a few days ago, Porsche presented its quarterly results. In the month of Halloween, the numbers were truly terrifying. Hundreds of millions lost, a resounding drop in margins per unit sold and, above all, the feeling that the company is in the middle of a clamp between Europe and China where, in the latter, its toast is being eaten at a devilish rate. The numbers. Loud, if I had to give it a quick qualifier. Let’s review hand in hand with your own numbers: Losses in the last quarter of 967 million euros. Last year it reported 974 million euros in the same quarter. In the first nine months of the year it reported 40 million euros in profit. Last year it reported 4,000 million euros of profit in the same period. The operating margin has completely disappeared. Expected losses at the end of the year of 1.8 billion euros. a clamp. The problem for Porsche is that it has found itself in the middle of a perfect storm. not long ago it seemed like she was ready for that storm. Now everything indicates that is falling on him and he has been caught with a flimsy umbrella and a raincoat that leaks water. Encouraged by its sales in China and a European regulation that has clearly pressed for jumping into the electric car, Porsche put on the table a plan to electrify at a good pace. He porsche taycan was received with a good reception, the Electric Porsche Macan It was to be its first large “mass” electric car and the Porsche Cayenne would delve into the leap to electric. However, the electric Macan has arrived late. At that time, The United States has imposed very high tariffs that have caused a hole in their accounts. The European institutions want to jump to the electric car but customers seem not to want to do it at the pace proposed by politicians and The rich already seem satisfied with the electric cars they bought. The Chinese public has completely changed their focus and now, for them, Luxury is represented by the cars made in China itself.. Looking at the internal market. The paradigm shift in the Chinese market has completely disrupted Porsche’s prospects. Not only in terms of sales, but also in terms of putting a huge brand crisis on the table. For the Chinese, Porsche is no longer synonymous with luxury and the latest technologyit’s just another brand. The company, like many other European brands and the entire Volkswagen Grouphas not known how to adapt to the new reality. The result is that sales in the Asian country have plummeted. Despite the launch of the electric Porsche Macan, in the first nine months of the year, Porsche has sold 26% less than in the same period of 2024. The 32,195 cars sold in China in Q3 of 2025 are very far from the 64,237 cars sold in Q3 2019record year for the company. In the last five years, the drop in sales has been a constant but it has worsened especially in the last two years. China has experienced an explosion of electric vehicles that They are faster and more modern. But, in addition, they put supposed innovations on the market that arrive earlier and better than those presented by the German company. Better and faster. The best example of how China is arriving better and faster is the case of the electric Porsche Macan and Cayenne. The first, as we have said, was delayed for years and that was disastrous in an industry that is advancing at a devilish pace and that, specifically in China, makes cars obsolete in just a few months. To convince the skeptics and eliminate friction with its more classic customers, the Porsche Cayenne has been presented with a wireless charging system and a very digital environment. The problem is that this type of cargo is already offered in China in cars like the Hongqi E-HS9 for years and it hasn’t caught on. On the other hand, ubiquitous screens are no longer surprising, what the public in China is demanding is differential software, extensive integration with services such as the mobile phone and a variety of services that European companies do not seem to understand. The other great incentive is its ultra-fast 400 kW recharge. It must be taken into account that, indeed, in Europe it will be one of the most powerful cars on the market but Porsche is interested in looking at China and there BYD is offering cars with 1,000 kW of power for a fraction of the price. The Zeekr 7X, which is one of Geely’s (owner of Volvo) big bets it will go to 800 kW of power. We already know this. This example of the Zeekr 7X and its 800 kW of ultra-fast charging is just the (pen)latest example. BMW suffered something similar with its Panoramic iDrive. The company announced it in 2023 but will not have mounted it on a street car until the first units of the BMW iX3 hit the streets in the early stages of 2026. When it was first announced, Xiaomi did not have a single car on the street. Today, Your Xiaomi YU7 already has a system very similar to BMW’s big bet. The ability of Chinese firms to adapt to new markets or launch technologies in record time is one of their great assets when it comes to staying ahead of the competition. In fact, we know that from Volkswagen to Toyota have looked for solutions to speed up production times and put their products on the market more quickly and thus be able to compete with an industry that advances at a dizzying pace. We have noticed the consequences of this crazy race to bring more and better cars to the market even in our country. a few months ago we explain in Xataka how companies adapted their cars in record time to European tastes, adapting pre-series units … Read more

China had been testing a mysterious satellite in orbit for years. A counterespionage company has finally revealed what it was

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On October 16, the starry skies of the Canary Islands were illuminated by a spectacular fireball that crossed the sky from south to north. It was not a meteorite, it was a Chinese satellite that until a few days ago had been a complete mystery. A mystery called XJY-7. Since its launch in December 2020, as part of the maiden flight of the Long March 8 rocket, the Xinjishu Yanzheng-7 had been an unknown. China officially described it as a “new technology verification satellite.” Aside from a blurry render, the world knew almost nothing about its configuration, purpose, or capabilities. And although its re-entry was news in itself, the real news is that, just before it disintegrated, an Australian company managed to photograph it in orbit, finally solving the mystery of what it was and what it was doing up there. Counterespionage in orbit. Using its network of satellites to photograph other objects in orbit, the Australian company HEO achieved what ground-based radars could not: take photos of the XJY-7 up close. The images and the 3D model that HEO built from them revealed features that China had neglected to mention. According to the company has declared to SpaceNewsthe satellite was not a simple test platform; It was equipped with “a large radar antenna” and, most tellingly, a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) antenna. It was a spy satellite. SAR is an advanced remote sensing technology that allows high-resolution images of the Earth’s surface to be obtained in any weather conditions, day or night. The “mysterious” test satellite was, in reality, an advanced surveillance and remote sensing satellite. The HEO observations also revealed a fascinating detail about its design: the satellite had fixed solar panels. This forced it to “rotate its entire body” to maintain power generation, a behavior that the Australian company was able to verify through multiple simultaneous observations from different angles. Satellites that monitor satellites. Traditional monitoring methods (ground-based radars and telescopes) are no longer sufficient to monitor the activity of other nations in orbit. HEO uses a network of more than 40 sensors in flight to take satellite-to-satellite images for your clients. When one of its associated satellites passes near a target, it takes a photo of it. It is a “non-invasive flyby method” that offers real photographs where you can see antennas, panels, thrusters and payloads. With this technique, HEO has managed to identify more than 80 space objects before they appeared in any public catalogue. In an environment where satellite constellations are deployed by the dozens, knowing whether an object is an operational satellite, a piece of space junk, or what type of antenna it carries is crucial for intelligence and defense. Mysterious until his re-entry. Ironically, the mystery that surrounded XJY-7 in its useful life also accompanied it in its death, as the United States Space Command never issued a reentry alert. This is “strange” for an object of this size, says expert Marco Langbroek. It is estimated that XJY-7 had a mass of between 3,000 and 5,000 kg. That an object weighing more than three tons bypassed re-entry warning systems highlights the gaps in conventional space tracking. Even worse when it comes to a satellite with secret capabilities. Image | H.E.O.

The countries with the most kilometers of high-speed train, displayed in a graph with a brutal dominator: China

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The train is the backbone of many countries. For centuries it has been key to mobility in Europe, in Japan it is essential, China has experienced a railway revolution and even the United States or Latin America begin to bet on passenger mobility by train. However, it is one thing to have a railway and quite another to have a rich high-speed network. And this graph shows the countries with the most kilometers of high-speed trains and their plans for the future. China, undisputed queen. The Olympics They are an event in which countries “sell” themselves to the worldbut in the case of China, it involved a profound renovation of its infrastructure. It was in 2008 when China launched its high-speed railway line: barely 120 kilometers between Beijing and Taijin, and 17 years later, it is the country with the most kilometers of high-speed lines in operation. According to the data of World Population Review and as we can see in the graph prepared by Visual CapitalistChina has more than 40,000 kilometers of tracks on which its trains go at 250 km/h or more. They have another 12,800 kilometers under construction and more than 11,000 planned. In total, some 64,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. In addition, they are moving forward to make their network the highest speed thanks to the maglev advancesmagnetic trains, with tracks that already link cities like Beijing and Shanghai to speeds of more than 430 kilometers per hour. And it is this network that is putting the airlines in check. Spain and Japan. The train is vital in a country as huge as China and the numbers speak for themselves, but there are two other countries that, without being the ones with the most kilometers in total (operational, under construction and planned), complete the podium of those with the most high-speed kilometers currently operating. There are no surprises here. Spain has a total of 5,632 kilometers of high speed, of which more than 3,700 are already operational, followed by China the country with the most kilometers of high speed currently holds. There are another 1,040 kilometers under construction and another 862 kilometers planned. For its part, Japan, another example when we talk about fast trainshas a total of 3,700 kilometers divided into 3,050 operational kilometers, 402 under construction and 193 planned. Promises, promises. At a time when the train is emerging as the alternative to international flights, especially to low cost and among short-distance points, it is striking that, in reality, there are no more countries with high-speed lines. In Europe, apart from Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, Finland or Italy, they have hundreds of operational kilometers, but outside of the ‘Old Continent’ and cases like South Korea, things are very different. For example, India. It is the second country in the graph, but of the 8,000 total kilometers, only 508 eare under construction and the remaining 7,400 are planned. They do not have high speed, and the same thing happens in Egypt (with 3,400 kilometers planned), Australia (1,700 planned) and European countries such as Latvia, Estonia, Norway or the Czech Republic: all with plans to create high-speed lines, but not one operational kilometer. America. And if in China the train is essential due to its dimensionson the American continent we should think that things are the same. And no, not at all. The United States, a gigantic country, has only 735 kilometers of high speed, 273 under construction and almost 5,000 planned, but nothing more. Spain tried to bring the AVE to the North American country and there are demands for high-speed trains to expand, but their internal mobility continues to have the plane as the protagonist. Canada has 1,500 kilometers planned and not one kilometer built, Mexico is in the same situation with 210 kilometers on the table, Brazil the same with 510 kilometers planned and Argentina does not even appear on the graph. But, although high speed is complicated on the continent, the truth is that there are many plans to expand the railway network, even creating international trains that go from one ocean to another, like the one planned between Brazil and Peru. And who is behind many of these projects? Well, who has gained experience at a forced pace in recent years ‘pulling’ thousands of kilometers of tracks: China. In Xataka | China wanted to be the queen of high-speed trains. So he built all the longest bridges in the world

In China they have created a material for their fighters that opens a new technological direction: it aims directly at radars

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From the early days of World War II to the stealth fighters of the 21st century, the goal of remaining unnoticed by the enemy has been a constant obsession in military aviation. Aerial “invisibility”, more than a myth, It is a technological challenge that has marked decades of innovation in materials and design. A team from Chinese universities describes a flexible and ultra-thin coating capable of absorbing radar waves without losing thermal resistance, collects SCMP. If its effectiveness is confirmed in flight, it could change the conversation about modern aerial stealth. The development was detailed on October 14 in Advanced Materials. The study, signed by Cui Guang, Liu ZhongfanHuihui Wang and Maoyuan Li, among others, presents a graphene-on-silica-fabric (G@SF) metasurface that combines flexibility, low weight and thermal resistance of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. According to its authors, the direct integration of the material into the insulating layer of an aircraft would allow the reflected radar signal to be reduced to −42 dB, without compromising the structure or weight of the aircraft. A surface that wants to defy the radar The material is based on a silica textile base on which the researchers deposited graphene using a chemical vapor deposition process. On that layer they applied a laser “erasing” technique, which allowed them to create a precise pattern on the surface and adjust your electrical impedance. In this way, they claim, they managed to make the coating effectively absorb electromagnetic waves without needing to increase its thickness or weight. The result is a flexible, ultralight metasurface with an adjustable sheet resistance between 50 and 5,000 ohms per square. {“videoId”:”x9ri2iu”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”How China, the biggest polluter on the planet, has also become the complete opposite”, “tag”:”webedia-prod”, “duration”:”740″} Laboratory tests showed that the material maintains stable performance even under extreme conditions. After five minutes of exposure to 600 degrees Celsius in air, it retained its absorption capacity, and also withstood prolonged heating to 1,000 degrees in a vacuum without degrading. In tests with air currents of up to 200 meters per second, its loss of efficiency was less than 1%, and neither the surface pattern nor the resistance of the sheet were altered. These properties make it an ideal candidate for high-speed aircraft exposed to intense heat and friction. Withstood prolonged heating to 1,000 degrees in vacuum without degrading The material described in the study poses a possible alternative to conventional coatings, although it has yet to be demonstrated whether its advantages are sustainable outside the laboratory. US stealth fighters, such as the F-22 and F-35they use absorbent compounds They offer good initial performance, but require constant and expensive maintenance. In China, the J-20 has been seen with a coating apparently more stable, although those impressions come from displays and not verifiable technical data. The difference, for now, is in the discourse rather than the evidence. The new coating is still far from becoming a technology in real use, but it illustrates the direction of Chinese research in stealth materials. The challenge is not only to achieve high performance in the laboratory, but to keep it in flight and under extreme conditions. Chinese scientists aim to solve one of the most persistent limitations of modern fighters: the fragility of absorbent coatings. If the material achieves this stability, it could open a different stage in aircraft protection. In Xataka We believed that the F-16s were Ukraine’s great achievement: it has just taken the first step to receive up to 150 European Gripen fighters Beijing has set 2035 as the horizon to complete the modernization of its armed forces. In this context, the development of new compounds, sensors and materials responds to a broader policy aimed at strengthening its technological and military industry. Each advance in the field of stealth materials is interpreted not only as a technical improvement, but also as a step towards greater strategic independence. Images | Wikimedia Commons | Arthur Wang In Xataka | The Chinese ambition to lead each and every area of ​​the planet has found its next adversary: ​​Jaén (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); } })(); – The news In China they have created a material for their fighters that opens a new technological direction: it aims directly at radars was originally published in Xataka by Javier Marquez .

China continues to draw up five-year plans in the old communist way. Objective: tech self-sufficiency

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Let’s talk about five-year plans. Alexei Grigorievich Stakhanov She had no idea, but her exaggerated productivity ended up messing her up. In 1927 he began working in the Tsentrálnaya-Írmino mine and realized that he was good at it. In fact, he was much better at it than the others. In August 1935 smashed the record of mine productivity and extracted 102 tons of coal (14 times its quota) in five hours and 45 minutes. Days later he crushed it again and extracted 227 tons. He became a hero to socialist workers—in addition to appearing on the cover of Time magazine—and from that was derived the stakhanovismwhich advocated the increase in labor productivity based on the workers’ own initiative. That didn’t matter to Stalin: the Soviet Union was already completely immersed in its second five-year plan with a clear objective: the frenetic industrialization of the country based, of course, on trying to convert all workers into new Stakhanovs. And from those five-year plans we ended up moving on to others. China signs up for the five-year period That idea of ​​five-year plans ended up being used by China, which began to apply them in 1953 – with the help of the former Soviet Union – and has maintained them until now. In fact, the Asian giant has debated these days what will be your 15th Five Year Plan and the focus is clear: technological self-sufficiency. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China published on Thursday a statement in which he made it clear. Its objective was to “greatly increase” the self-dependence capacityand in that plan there are clear fronts for the medium-term future of the Asian giant: Promote R&D in critical technologies such as semiconductors, robotics, high-performance computing and, of course, artificial intelligence. Build a “modern industrial system“that allows reduce dependency of foreign components, equipment and knowledge. Promote the domestic market as a pillar of growth and reduce exposure to possible impacts of the export model Integrate technological development with national security: self-sufficiency not only makes economic sense, but also geopolitical sense. This five-year plan is clearly a consequence of the times we live in: the trade war with the US that it started years ago has marked the apparent end (at least partial) of globalizationand now both are looking for the same thing: not depend on others. China’s new five-year plan goes precisely in that direction, and has a clear impact both for that country and for the rest of the world. On the one hand, greater state investment in strategic sectors and greater interventionism are proposed (Hello Mr. Trump). On the other hand, this move may reduce Chinese demand for foreign technology, exacerbating technological rivalry with the US but perhaps opening new opportunities for collaboration with other countries. If successful, China’s five-year plan can stabilize growth in the face of potential external threats, but if self-reliance is prioritized too much, international openness and competition could be neglected, which could slow innovation or lead to less efficient companies. Source: Bloomberg And there is another problem: as they point out on BloombergChina is the great world exporterprecisely because their internal consumption is insufficient: they produce much more than they need. The contribution of exports to the country’s GDP is getting biggerbut consumption has stagnated or falls. All the details of the final five-year plan will be published in March, and will intensify the focus on everything related to the technological field. This effort, which began after that first veto of the Trump administration on Huaweiseems to be bearing promising fruits for China, which is becoming in an overwhelming machine of technological innovation. That pace will not slow down. Alexei Grigorievich Stakhanov would probably be proud. Image | Chinese Communist Party In Xataka | Spain has an antidote to mental and emotional exhaustion: the nap

either they create giants, or China wins

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Orange has confirmed that it can simultaneously undertake the purchase of 50% of Masorange and its proportional share of Altice’s assets in France without affecting the dividend. Or so he claims. Laurent Martínez, financial director, has said it unequivocally: both operations are viable while maintaining “profitability for the shareholder as an absolute priority.” Why it is important. Five years ago, any European operator that had announced two large acquisitions in parallel would have suffered an immediate stock market punishment. Now the market digests it. It is the first major sign that the consolidation of the sector has ceased to be a regulatory taboo and has become an accepted strategic necessity. There are even signs that Europe begins to give way after decades of anti-concentration dogma. Between the lines: Orange is looking for customers and spectrum in France, not duplicate infrastructure. In Spain, the Masorange shareholder agreement blocks any movement until April 2026. But CEO Christel Heydemann has been clear: “There is no rush.” They can wait because they have financial muscle. That capacity for patience is, in itself, a competitive advantage. The context. Europe has 34 main operators for 450 million inhabitants. The United States has three for 335 million. China, four for 1.4 billion. Proportionally, Europe has eight times more operators than the United States and 27 times more than China. The result: compressed margins, insufficient investment and a 41% drop in the sector’s market capitalization between 2015 and 2023. Unexpected twist. Teresa Ribera, new European Commissioner for Competition, said in spring that the rules will “evolve” to allow for greater scale. It’s a radical departure from her predecessor, Margrethe Vestager, who systematically blocked mergers for a decade. The Draghi Report has explicitly called for facilitating consolidation. Something is moving in the bureaucracy. Marking agenda. Marc Murtra, president of Telefónica, has led a manifesto signed by twenty European telecommunications companies calling for drastic changes in merger regulations. It’s not rhetoric: Telefónica has liquidated its businesses in Latin America to concentrate on Europe with the addition of Brazil. Murtra has declared that the teleco “will be active in a future scenario of European mergers.” They want to be much more than the large Spanish telecom. It’s been rumored for months its interest in taking over Vodafone Spain and with the German 1&1. Digi has even sounded. Yes, but. Not two of the three large Spanish operators can finance a state-of-the-art fiber network without external help. PremiumFiber, presented by Masorange and Vodafone A few days ago, it needed the Singapore sovereign fund with 25% of the capital. That is the real picture: without consolidation, European telecommunications companies will increasingly depend on Asian capital to maintain competitive infrastructures. The big question. Will Europe allow its operators to consolidate now, while they still have muscle, or will it wait for American and Chinese giants to absorb the European market piecemeal? Orange has shown that it can play on two boards at once. It remains to be seen whether regulators are going to let the game continue. In Xataka | Telefónica wants to lead Europe. But he resists turning Spain into his letter of introduction Featured image | Xataka, operators

Europe has done the only thing it could do to compete with SpaceX and China in space: merge its largest companies

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Europe has grown tired of watching from the sidelines how SpaceX and, increasingly, Chinaredefine the rules of the game in space. The continent’s response was inevitable: a historic fusion. The three European aerospace giants, Airbus, Leonardo and Thales, have signed a memorandum of understanding to combine its spatial divisions into a single, colossal enterprise. Merge or die. This is not news that we break every day. It is the most ambitious move in the European aerospace industry since the creation of the MBDA missile consortium in 2001. And at the same time, it is not an offensive move, but a strategic survival maneuver. Given the agility of reusable rockets and Elon Musk’s megaconstellations, the fragmentation of Europe had become an unsustainable burden. Now, the plan is to create a European champion with the critical mass necessary to at least be able to compete. A colossus about to be born. The agreement, which It’s been brewing for months. under the code name “Project Bromo”, it will give rise to a new company that, if approved by regulators, could be operational in 2027. The figures used give an idea of ​​the scale of the operation: a combined annual turnover of 6.5 billion euros, and nearly 25,000 employees spread throughout Europe. Airbus will have the majority stake with 35%, while the Italian Leonardo and the French Thales will share the rest almost equally, with 32.5% each. Despite the majority of Airbus, the government of the new colossus will be “balanced” and under joint control, as reported by the companies. What does each one contribute? Each partner will contribute his crown jewels in the space sector. Airbus will contribute with its Space Systems and Digital Space businesses. Leonardo will bring its Space Division to the table, including its valuable stakes in Telespazio and Thales Alenia Space. Thales will mainly contribute its shares in those same joint ventures (Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio) and Thales SESO. Why it was inevitable. The harsh reality is that Europe was falling behind, and very quickly. SpaceX’s disruption has been brutal, especially on two fronts: launch and satellites. While Europe continues recovering lost ground With the development of its Ariane rockets, Elon Musk’s company has not only radically lowered the cost of putting something into orbit, but has flooded the sky with its Starlink constellation and its military version, Starshield. Beating SpaceX is no longer possible. On October 19, the company surpassed a staggering number of 10,000 Starlink satellites launched in just over 300 launches of the Falcon 9 rocket. This network of small satellites has cannibalized the traditional market for large and expensive geostationary satellites, the pillar on which the business of European companies was based. The only thing Europe can do, and what this new giant is destined to do, is recover its technological sovereignty in space and, with it, its security. Image | Airbus In Xataka | “We are the company that has developed an orbital rocket the fastest”: PLD Space, one step away from making history from Spain

Delivery companies in China deliver 5,400 packages per second. Your solution to master this logistics: the ‘robofurgos’

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Shenzhen’s train stations are bustling with passengers coming and going during the day, but when night falls they fill up with another type of traffic: robovans. They are small autonomous vehicles that are dedicated to delivering packages and are increasingly common in China. Robovans. If we call autonomous taxis robotaxis, it is fair to call ‘robovans’ that way. They count in Nikkei Asia These small vans have a capacity of 3 cubic meters and their maximum load is 500kg. They move slowly and emit an audible signal to avoid colliding with pedestrians. If they detect anyone closer than two meters, they stop. Its objective is to transport packages to the platforms, where operators load them onto trains and then deliver them to a logistics center. Neolix. It is the company that has deployed the most robovans to date. It is headquartered in Beijing and on your website They boast that they have already deployed 10,000 units in 300 cities, across fifteen countries. According to its president, Will Zhao, they expect the number to increase to 10 million robovans in the next ten years. Challenges. Despite Neolix’s enthusiasm, the reality is that autonomous delivery has quite a few limitations. The most notable is that the robovans are much slower than human delivery drivers. Furthermore, at the moment they are quite limited to closed spaces such as stations or airports and involve quite a high expense. According to Zhao, they hope to increase the speed as they become safer, until they reach the point where they are more effective than traditional delivery. Leaders. It makes sense that China is leading autonomous delivery because it is also a leader in online shopping. According to data from the China State Post Office, In 2024, 5,400 packages were distributed per second and the average was 100 packages per person per year. To put it in context, in 2024 in the United States the average was 66 packages per year per person. Price war. Competing in the largest online commerce market in the world causes price wars between different companies to be fierce. The market continues to grow and the volume of packages is enormous, but profit margins are very small. Some of these companies are JD Logistics, ZTO Express, SF Holding, ZTO Express and Meituan. Immediate delivery. Overnight shipping may seem fast to us, but in China it is unacceptable for most consumers. Companies are investing a lot of resources in same day deliveriessome even in just half an hour. This pressure especially affects food delivery, where there is a price war that is causing losses for companies like Meituan or JD.com and also for the restaurants themselves, who are forced to carry out very aggressive online promotions with ridiculous margins. They count on Bloombergthat there are cafes that need to send eight orders to equal the profit they would obtain from a single in-person sale. Image | Neolix In Xataka | Amazon has been stuck for years in a project that promised to revolutionize deliveries: the use of drones

In its race to make advanced chips, China has tried to copy ASML. It’s going wrong

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China continues to make extraordinary progress when it comes to manufacturing its own advanced chips, but it still has a big problem: it does not currently have manufacturing equipment. extreme ultraviolet photolithography (UVE) own. Of course is working in the development of this technology, and one of the strategies it is following to overcome this challenge is unique… and almost obvious. Reverse engineering. In his 2010 book ‘Copycats’ Professor Oded Shenkar argued that it is often the case that imitators end up triumphing over innovators. Although in the West the view is the opposite, in China there is a positive view of copying and reverse engineering processes are an important tool to copy technologies. That is what the country has supposedly tried, as indicated in The National Interest (TNI). From producing for the world to producing for themselves. Already we review the conclusions from the book ‘Apple in China’, which is a perfect example of how by delegating production to China, Western companies have ended up contributing to the country’s development and its specialization. The trade war has logically made China now seek its independence in the face of the vetoes it is suffering from developing its own technological solutions. From UVP to UVE. There has already been significant progress in this area, and recently we counted as a Chinese manufacturer already has a prototype of a UVP machine (deep ultraviolet) for the creation of relatively advanced chips. If there is a crucial challenge to be able to create these even more advanced chips, it is power. have UVE photolithography machinesbut having that first problem solved is important to make the leap to EUV technology. And this is where something unique has been discovered. Let’s see how it works inside. As revealed in TNI, it has been revealed that China has been “caught” trying to reverse engineer a machine ASML UVP Photolithography. Not so much to mass produce these machines, sources indicate, but because Chinese technicians are trying to learn how they work in order to replicate them and, from them, develop more advanced machines and chips. It’s not broken just because. However, it seems that when disassembling one of these ASML systems, Chinese technicians damaged it. That made them notify the official ASML technicians to solve the problem. When they arrived, they discovered that the machine had not simply broken, but that the Chinese had tried to dismantle it and then reassemble it. ASML’s de facto monopoly. ASML’s UVE photolithography machines are considered the most complex and advanced in the world, and the truth is that today the Dutch company has a de facto monopoly with such systems. It is these machines that allow access to the production of the most advanced chips – such as those used in NVIDIA’s modern AI accelerators – and have become the true bottleneck of the semiconductor industry. Beyond the damaged machine. The incident reveals two crucial points. The first, Beijing’s extreme urgency to be able to control chip production from start to finish. The second is that the challenge of creating these machines goes beyond mere hardware copying: lithography systems require extraordinary technical mastery of components such as precision optics or materials science. Too many obstacles? China may have brilliant engineers, but ASML machines also have a highly specialized supply chain which undoubtedly makes it difficult for such a machine to be built entirely in China. A good example is Zeiss SMTthe German company that supplies the ultra-precision optical systems and mirrors needed for UVE and advanced UVP photolithography systems. A long way to go. This supposed problem reveals the difficulties that China is going through in order to have machines with advanced photolithographic technologies. At Nikkei Asia They were already talking in July about how complex it is to achieve a “Chinese ASML.” In this analysis they cited Didier Scemama, director of hardware research at BofA Global Research, who estimated that China still has years to achieve something like this. “It may take 5, 10, 15 years, we don’t know. Will it be competitive with what ASML does? It’s highly unlikely, but it will be good enough for China.” Image | Zeiss In Xataka | Holland has just declared war on China in the most important battle of the century: control of semiconductors

China has taken a new step in its high-speed race. The CR450 has just reached a new milestone in its tests

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China has spent years perfecting machinery that not only symbolizes speed, but also industrial precision. Its last exponent, the CR450has shown the scope of that search: in its most recent tests, two trains reached a combined speed of 896 km/h at the intersectiona new record in the Chinese system. It is not an isolated gesture, but a step within the innovation program launched in 2021 to raise the bar for high speed with more reliability and performance. The new registration was confirmed on October 21. During tests on the high-speed line connecting Shanghai, Chongqing and Chengdu, two CR450 trains crossed each other, reaching a relative speed of 896 km/h. In the same test campaign, one of the prototypes once again reached 453 km/h per unit, equaling the record set in 2023. The tests, they explain, are part of the “evaluation operation” that is currently being carried out on the Wuhan–Yichang section, a prior step to a more demanding phase scheduled for 2026. Speed ​​is on the table, but the operation is not yet At first glance, it might seem that two trains traveling at 453 km/h should add up to a crossing speed of 906 km/h. In practice, testing conditions prevent this. As China Railway Group explainedthe exact moment when both units are on parallel tracks it only lasts a few secondsand getting them to maintain the same speed at that point is extremely complex. For safety reasons, technicians increase speed gradually, ensuring stability and synchronization before attempting new records. The CR450 is not an isolated project, but one more piece of the railway plan that China launched in 2021 to raise commercial speed to 400 km/h. The challenge is not minor: maintaining that pace without increasing consumption or noise. Before entering service, the prototype must complete 600,000 kilometers of tests under real conditions, an essential requirement for its certification. This year, trials have extended from the Chongqing to Qianjiang sections to the Wuhan–Yichang line, where technical teams continue to fine-tune the train’s behavior in prolonged use scenarios. How Sina collectsmuch of the CR450’s advancement can be understood by looking inside its engineering. The train incorporates permanent magnet motors with a total power of 11,000 kW. The weight has also been reduced about 50 tons thanks to the use of carbon fiber and magnesium alloys, and the aerodynamic profile has been optimized with a longer nose, 15 meters. They claim that at 400 km/h, the noise level inside the car barely reaches 68 decibels. Although the CR450 has already demonstrated its technical capabilities, its commercial deployment remains without a clear destination. Today there is no operational line in China prepared to travel at 400 km/h. The first that contemplates this possibility is the Chengdu–Chongqing Central Line, approved in 2021 with a base design of 350 km/h and adaptable sections for future tests at higher speeds. According to China Economic Newsthe plan is that next year the train will undergo a more demanding testing phase there, the closest so far to a real service scenario. The development of the CR450 is divided between two of the main railway manufacturers in the country. The CR450AF version has been built by CRRC Qingdao Sifang, while the CR450BF is built by CRRC Changchun. Both They share an eight-car configuration —four engines and four trailers—. Official information indicates that they incorporate advanced communication and braking systems, as well as high stability bogies designed to maintain balance even in extreme speed tests. The immediate future of the CR450 passes through the aforementioned line, where over the next year it will undergo tests closest to real operation. There is still no confirmed date for its entry into service, and those responsible for the project emphasize that the priority continues to be technical validation. For now, we have to wait to see if all the promises of the program materialize and if the new train manages to transfer its laboratory achievements to the operational field. Images | China Railway Group In Xataka | The shortest launch in history: a million-dollar luxury yacht sank just 200 meters from the dock

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