china

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

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

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

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

lock up China without a single shot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

China wants to lead all technological conversations and is clear that this involves 6G. He has stepped on the accelerator

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Chenoa said that “when you go, I come.” In the technology sector it can be applied to many things, and one of them is the development of 6G by China. In 2018, the commercial deployment of 5G was taking its first steps, but in China there was already talk of the next generation. In the last update of the Five Year Plan they reconfirmed that 2030 was the deadline for network deployment, but now they are going one step further because 6G is not a simple improvement in communications. This is a geopolitical issue and a technology that will be ubiquitous. Completing phases. It was during the Annual Conference of the Zhongguancun Forum in Beijing where experts and representatives of the technology and communications industry presented an ambitious route for the development of the 6G network. Over the last five years, China has been patenting technologies related to the sixth generation and it is estimated that it accounts for approximately 40% of all global 6G patent applications. This is a very important step because, for example Huawei has already achieved something similar with 5G and that implies that everyone who wants to use that technology has to pay certain fees to the Chinese company. It also attracts talent and reinforces the internal industrial ecosystem for what is considered “a comprehensive industrial chain” in the country. It is something that has been bearing fruit, with a first phase in which companies have been collecting information and “materials” and a second phase for 2026 in which they project integrate more than 300 key 6G technologies into a functional prototype. AI from the ground up. Something key about this technology is that it is not simply something that will allow a connection with lower latency and higher speed. That is relevant, of course, since it is estimated that speeds above 100 Gbps will be achieved with a delay much less than a millisecond (in 5G, the figure is about 1Gbps), but in 6G what matters most is that it will be a system that will have artificial intelligence integrated into each layer. This is, perhaps, the most ambitious of everything that has been discussed in the forum. Unlike 5G, which has had to adapt to the capabilities of artificial intelligence and robotics, 6G has been designed with AI from the ground up. This implies that each network unit (stations, terminals and core networks) will have built-in AI computing power. In short: they will be systems that, in addition to allowing 6G connection, will have the capacity to operate AI agents locally. The idea is not to have to depend, for certain tasks, on data centers that are sometimes long distances away. In addition, it is being proposed that the network be ubiquitous – that it be everywhere -, being a system that can operate on land, air, space and sea. It sounds tremendously ambitious, but we are talking about a technology that will coexist with plans to take data centers into space. Mass adoption. As we pointed out a few days ago, China wants to carry out the deployment by 2030, but this ‘launch’ of 6G will not be for the consumer. Once the network is deployed and seeing that it is viable to promote the technologies they want to develop (robotics, physical AI, remote computing or autonomous driving, for example), it will be the consumer’s turn. It is something that will arrive by 2035, but here we should not be too optimistic. It won’t be easy. Although it sounds great to have devices in your pocket and at home that achieve that speed without the need for a cable connection, you have to keep something in mind: although 5G has been with us for more than six years, is still taking its first steps. We have 5G devices, yes, but there are several problems. One is that, many times, 5G is not “real” or does not reach the speeds it could. On the other hand, coverage is essential, and it is something that varies by neighborhood. In a report from a few months ago, the European communications giant Ericsson pointed out that Europe has a problem. While other countries have deployed the millimeter band, most European countries have prioritized the medium and low bands. We have a lot of coverage (there are the covered territory maps), but we have less speed and more latency. And if it is not resolved, the deployment of 6G will be useless. At least Europe has spoken out and He doesn’t want the play to be repeated.. Vital. And this, as we say, is essential because you will already be sensing that 6G is not only more speed: it is the wireless technology on which we want to shape the immediate future. have the superiority It is a geopolitical advantageand China is not the only one in this battle. China may have ZTE and Huawei, but South Korea has SK Telecom and Samsung. They want to have a functional 6G network by 2028, something in which they also Japan and the United States are involved. In any case, it is evident that we are going to start talking a lot about 6G in the short term because all the powers are moving. It will not be easy and the vice president of ZTE himself has commented that there are obstacles such as the supply chains of essential components and the cost of deploying a 6G network, but that as it is a technology that unites communications, AI, the aerospace industry and, above all, the military, it can make countries focus on this development. In Xataka | China was not supposed to be able to produce 7nm chips without ASML machines. It already has two companies capable of doing it

China is giving an overwhelming lesson in nuclear power plant construction to the rest of the planet

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The time it requires the construction of a nuclear power plant From the moment the concrete is poured until the moment it is connected to the electrical grid, it takes between 15 and 19 years in the West; between 7 and 9 years in Asia and the Middle East; and 6 to 10 years in India and Russia. And the total cost of the project usually ranges between 24,000 and 60,000 million dollars. Barakah 4 nuclear power plantin the United Arab Emirates, has four nuclear reactors, took 9 years to build and cost $24.4 billion. On the other hand, the nuclear plant Hinkley Point Cin the United Kingdom, clearly illustrates the execution problems faced by some Western nuclear projects. After several delays Its first reactor will come into operation at best 13 years after the start of construction of the plant. And its final cost will exceed 50 billion dollars. At an intermediate point, Vogtle Unit 4 is established, in the US, which has taken 11 years to be operational and has cost about 35 billion dollars. As can be expected, the number of reactors and the technology they use have a profound impact on the cost of the plant and the time that needs to be invested in its development. Even so, as we have just seen, construction costs and time vary greatly from one region of the planet to another, especially if we introduce China into the equation. And in this scenario the country led by Xi Jinping is unbeatable with a average construction time of 6 years per nuclear plant and a cost of $2,500/kW compared to the 10-year average and almost 8,500 dollars/kW for the rest of the planet. China’s recipe is the most competitive Shangwei Liu explains clearly in the article you published on the website of the Roosevelt Institute what is the strategy that China has devised to reduce the cost and time invested in the construction of its next-generation nuclear power plants. Its plan is based on two pillars: the reconstruction of the supply chain and economies of scale. To a large extent, China’s success is due to the fact that it has managed to create a national supply chain that is immune to the ups and downs and instability of the international market. In addition, it has a lot of qualified labor in all links of its supply chain. There is only one country on the entire planet capable of approaching China’s numbers in this complex and demanding scenario: South Korea. On the other hand, the economy of scale that has given China so much joy in a very wide range of markets also has a place in the production of the components required by nuclear plants. Furthermore, when replacing components manufactured abroad by local elements This Asian country managed to drastically reduce costs during the first decade of this century, and stabilize them during the last decade. However, there is another factor that works in China’s favor and that we cannot ignore: its coordinated industrial policy and stable regulatory framework allow it to carry out long-term planning. There is only one country on the entire planet capable of approaching China’s numbers in this complex and demanding scenario: South Korea. Its latest nuclear plant projects show a cost of between 3,500 and 4,500 dollars/kWwhich places it close to China, with 2,500 dollars/kW, and well below the average of 8,500 dollars/kW for the rest of the planet. This achievement is the result of approaching nuclear energy as an industrial assembly line and not as a set of isolated engineering projects. Again, economy of scale makes the difference. The US numbers are much less favorable. And the total cost of its latest nuclear plants exceeds $15,000/kWalthough presumably this figure will moderate until it barely exceeds the $10,000/kW in future projects. If Western countries want to drastically reduce their costs and moderate the time it takes to construct their nuclear power plants, they will necessarily have to look towards China and South Korea. The reconstruction of their supply chain is essential, and, in addition, they will have to resolve the crossroads posed by the commitment to large reactors, or by compact modular reactors. At the moment there are no other options on the table. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | Roosevelt Institute In Xataka | The future of energy is floating in the Arctic: Russia’s ace up its sleeve is a nuclear plant

China is producing fighter jets beyond its capabilities

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Washington is facing two dilemmas right now. The first: during the Cold War it produced hundreds of planes of combat per year, with factories capable of maintaining industrial rhythms typical of a war economy. Today, those production levels are the exception rather than the norm. The second dilemma It’s called China. A structural problem. The United States faces a growing challenge in its combat aviation. The reason: its fighter fleet has been reduced more than 60% since the end of the Cold War and many of its aircraft have decades of accumulated service. There is no doubt, although it remains a dominant air power, the combination of aging, operational wear and global demand is leaving to the system to the limitin the red and with a force that no longer has enough margin to respond to multiple simultaneous conflicts. China and another scale. But the real problem is not only internal, but comparative: because Beijing is producing fighters at a rhythm that clearly exceeds current American capability. With massive industrial expansion and projections of up to 300 planes a year Before the decade is out, Beijing is not only closing the gap, it is threatening with overcoming it both in volume and modernization, altering the global balance of air power for the first time in decades. The F-35, insufficient pillar. The F-35 is the centerpiece of American air strategy, and not only as a fighter, but also as an information node capable of coordinating complex operations in real time. However, its importance also exposes the core problem: there are too much dependency of a platform that is not being produced in sufficient quantities, which limits its strategic impact despite its technological superiority. He can’t keep up. Under this scenario, while China doesn’t stop acceleratingthe United States maintains a rather irregular and insufficientwell below the minimum necessary to maintain the size of its fleet. Annual purchases do not compensate for retirements of older aircraft, which progressively reduces operational capacity and generates gaps in key strategic areas, showing that the problem is not technological, but industrial and budgetary. Modern warfare requires more than technology. Recent conflicts have demonstrated that air superiority does not depend solely on having better aircraft, but on have enough. The ability to sustain operations, cover multiple theaters and absorb losses is as important as the quality of the system, and in this area the United States is beginning to fall behind a rival that is betting by the scale. The strategic decision for 10 years. In short, the global air balance is entering a different and critical phase in which the historical advantage of the United States is no longer guaranteed. In fact, if production is not accelerated, the industry stabilized and the fleet reinforced with more F-35s and other systems on the way, the country risks losing its deterrence capacity. against China. In other words, the question is no longer whether the F-35 is sufficient as a platform, but whether there will be enough F-35s to sustain that superiority. Image | US Air Force, LG Images In Xataka | The US has just achieved the “holy grail” of air combat: an F-35 not only detects the enemy, but also gets rid of it on its own. In Xataka | Europe has asked its military experts how to become independent from the US for the next war. The answer is déjà vu: the F-35

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