Chinese

The new Chinese gem of semiconductors is called Enflame. This is the new member of “the four chip dragons” of China

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The name Enflame may not ring a bell yet. But it is very likely that in the coming months it will end up giving us a lot to talk about. And this Chinese AI chip company just got the go-ahead to go public on the STAR market in Shanghai, the preferred market for the country’s large technology companies. After this, we see how the scheme of large chip manufacturers begins to take shape. Enflame enters the select group of the four big technology companies that are dedicated to AI chipsand that are already listed or are about to do so on the public markets. Who is Enflame and where does it come from? The company was founded in Shanghai in 2018 by Zhao Lidong, an engineer who came from AMD, where he led the development of high-performance processors at the American company’s R&D center. Together with his co-founder Zhang Yalin, Zhao set out to replicate that knowledge in Chinese territory and build a domestic alternative to Nvidia. In seven years has developed five AI chips distributed across four generations of architecture, and has built a catalog that includes processors, accelerator cards, computing clusters and software platforms. Its most recent chip, the L600 module, has passed silicon verification testing, although it has not yet entered large-scale commercial production. Why this IPO matters. Enflame plans to raise up to 6 billion yuan (about 888 million dollars) selling between 10% and 15% of its shares. The money, as could not be otherwise in these times, will be used to accelerate the development of its next generation of AI chips in the cloud and build the software that surrounds them. However, the operation also has a certain symbolic character, since it is the fourth and final addition to the group known as the “four little dragons” of Chinese chips. The other three (Moore Threads, Biren Technology and MetaX) have already debuted on the STAR market, and have been received enthusiastically by investors. In fact, Moore Threads, nicknamed “the Chinese Nvidia”, rose 425% on its first day of trading in December of last year, according to Bloomberg. Restrictions. The reason China is betting so big on these manufacturers is that the United States has been applying restrictions on chip exports for years advanced towards the Asian giant. Nvidia’s most powerful models are blocked, which has created a real shortage in the Chinese market and a strategic urgency to develop its own alternatives. Beijing has responded with public moneyincluding a relaxation of STAR board rules to allow loss-making companies to list, and a $295 billion plan to build data centers that do not depend on American chips. In this framework, Enflame and its groupmates become part of an infrastructure of technological sovereignty. What does it look like? Tencent. Enflame’s greatest asset is also its greatest vulnerability. Tencent owns about 20% of the company and in 2025 it represented 84% of its income, compared to 38% the previous year. That is, almost everything that Enflame sells is bought by Tencent. The Chinese tech giant uses its chips to power large-scale data centers, recommendation systems, chatbots and generative AI infrastructure. The company itself acknowledged in its IPO prospectus that “Tencent’s demand has far exceeded its supply capacity.” That’s good in the short term, as it guarantees income. But how they point out In The Next Web, a chip maker that relies on a single customer for the majority of its sales ends up being exposed if that customer changes priorities. The numbers. Enflame is growing at breakneck speed, as revenues have multiplied a compound rate greater than 80% between 2023 and 2025, but still in losses. Net losses were reduced to 1.2 billion yuan in 2025, compared to 1.5 billion the previous year, and the company plans to close the first half of 2026 with losses of about 600 million yuan. For the same period, it expects its revenue to grow more than three times compared to the previous year, reaching between 10.6 billion and 11.5 billion yuan. On the other hand, investment in R&D has exceeded 100% of sales over the last three years, which says a lot about the phase the company is in (still building, not harvesting). Before the IPO, the Hurun Index valued the company at around $2.8 billion. Where Enflame fits in. Not all dragons are the same. Within China, Enflame competes in a market where Huawei and Cambricon They continue to be the benchmarks in the sector and are already profitable. Enflame, Moore Threads, Biren and Iluvatar CoreX make up a second, younger layer that is trying to break through. Technically, Enflame has opted for application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), a more specialized architecture, rather than the general-purpose GPUs used by Moore Threads or Biren. Xu Dawei, of Jintong Private Fund Management in Beijing, points out Bloomberg that Enflame “benefits from solid comparatives,” given that its Chinese competitors are already listed on the stock market with valuations well above what their revenues would justify. Companies like ByteDance are actively looking for domestic alternatives to Nvidiaand second-tier manufacturers, including Enflame, are on the radar. Cover image | Enflame In Xataka | TSMC is on the ropes and its biggest problem is not competition: it is water

An unexpected salvation for the end user emerges from the memory market debacle: Chinese chips

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The DRAM memory industry is facing a profound structural transformation. Until October 2025 the price of memory chips evolved in a relatively stable way, but from that moment on began a dizzying climb which still continues. In fact, the consultant TrendForce expects the price of conventional DRAM to rise between 58% and 63% quarter-on-quarter before the expiration of the second quarter of 2026. And the artificial intelligence (AI) is behind all this. The three largest chip manufacturers of memory on the planet, the South Korean companies SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, and the American Micron Technology, They have reallocated about 70% of its production lines to high-bandwidth memories (HBM) to satisfy the currently insatiable demand of data centers specialized in AI. The consequences of this movement did not take long to appear: standard DDR4 and DDR5 memories and their derivatives, which are the most used in the consumer segment, immediately began to become scarce. And its price skyrocketed. In fact, according to the consulting firm GartnerRAM has gone from representing 16% of the total cost of a laptop to 23%. And it is possible that this escalation will continue to develop in the coming months. However, users can cling to the greatest stabilizing agent in the memory market today: Chinese manufacturers. This is the great opportunity for YMTC and CXMT Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC) is one of the largest NAND chip manufacturers in China. Its global market share is approximately 13%making it one of the main competitors of Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, Kioxia or SanDisk. Its weight in the Chinese market is very great, especially because US sanctions They prevent American and South Korean memory manufacturers from selling their most sophisticated integrated circuits to their Chinese customers. On the other hand, Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is one of the Chinese companies specialized in the production of memory chips, and, like other companies in the country led by Xi Jinping, it has chosen to compete in this very attractive market by deploying a very aggressive pricing policy. CXMT in particular has increased its DRAM chip production capacity almost five times during the last four years, which has allowed it to increase its global market share until reaching a very worthy 7.6%. CXMT has chosen to compete in this very attractive market by deploying a very aggressive pricing policy. While large foreign manufacturers maximize their margins thanks to data centers and the rise of AI, Chinese manufacturers prioritize sourcing from local companies. This scenario allows the supply and prices of memory and NAND chips in China to remain relatively stable, remaining outside the strong premiums charged by the big three (Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix). This is the context in which the Chinese memory module brands Gloway and KingBank have recently announced new DDR5 modules that stand out for using SDRAM memory chips made in China. With a standard configuration of eight chips per module, these companies can produce 24 GB modules and group them into kits of two or four modules to achieve capacities of 48 GB or 96 GB, respectively. Chinese memory chips, particularly those from CXMT, have already begun to spread beyond China’s borders. Corsair has already integrated them into some kits of its Vengeance line, while HP and Dell have begun the process of homologating modules with CXMT chips for their products. This is good news for users, there is no doubt. Even so, we still don’t know if the use of CXMT DRAM will become widespread in response to AI-induced shortages. The market demands new players, wherever they come from, and if YMTC and CXMT are able to fill the gaps left by Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix, they are welcome. Image | Intel More information | Tom’s Hardware In Xataka | China needs to develop a new type of chips immune to US sanctions. And your scientists have just achieved it

A Chinese billionaire bought the most expensive house in London. What happened next is a real estate horror movie

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In 2021, the Evergrande collapse It erased more than $300 billion in liabilities and triggered a real estate crisis that shook all of China. Among his most extravagant assets was a record mansion in London that today remains trapped in lawsuits, divorces and frozen accounts: a financial ruin turned into an empty monument. The perfect purchase that went wrong. Year 2020, a Chinese billionaire buys for 210 million pounds number 2-8A Rutland Gate, then the most expensive home ever sold in the United Kingdom. On paper it was the definitive investment: a palace with 45 rooms, four elevators, an indoor pool, 24 marble bathrooms and privileged views of Hyde Park. But what seemed like a prestige move ended up leading to a chain of misfortunes so strange that it seems written like a thriller. Since then no one has lived inside, the real owner was caught in a financial collapse and the building became an empty shell with only one “tenant”. Palace with a cursed past. The history of the building was already coming loaded with symbolism. For decades it was the London palace of Rafik Haririwho transformed it by joining together several Victorian houses and decorating it with almost obscene luxury, from gold-plated trash cans to bathrooms encrusted with semi-precious stones. Hariri was assassinated in Beirut in 2005 and, after passing through the hands of the Saudi royal family, the interior was auctioned piece by piece in 2015. That left the mansion empty, as if it had been dismantled before its next owner arrived. The Evergrande turn. The official buyer of 2020 appeared to be the Hong Kong tycoon Cheung Chung-kiubut later was discovered that the real owner was Hui Ka Yanfounder from Evergrande and for years the richest man in China. And there the descent began. Just a year later, Evergrande began with non-payment of debtsbecame a symbol of the Chinese real estate collapse and ended up collapsing in 2024. Hui ended up declaring guilty of fraud and other financial crimes, while the mansion was trapped in a legal tangle: registered in the name of his ex-wife, with frozen assets and no possibility of sale. The most expensive house in the United Kingdom lost in limbo and a symbol of the real estate gap. Fernstedt at the entrance to the house The empty house and the Swede on the porch. And it is at this point in history where the image appears that changes everything to this day. While inside the mansion there are dozens of empty rooms and millions of pounds tied up, outside, on the same porch, lives Anders Fernstedta homeless Swede who has been living at the entrance for three years. Your “camp” It is made of umbrellas, flowers, broken bicycles and stuffed animals. The paradox could not be starker, because he sleeps inches from one of the most crazy expensive shelters in Europe, but separated by a door that never opens. Ironically, the only stable inhabitant of the house does not have access to it. The fall of Anders. As to the history of man Swedish, is almost as chaotic as the architecture on which it rests. Andres was a technology journalist, then he worked in horticulture, collaborated with people from the Silicon Valley environment and even worked for The Economist as a freelance fact-checker. However, a chain of failed jobs, evictions, attacks and personal losses dragged him onto the streets. He ended up landing in front of the palace purely by chance: He was looking for a covered shelter and found an empty porch. He has since converted that space into a kind of makeshift garden and permanent bedroom. The symbol of a broken city. It had an extensive Guardian report that the story of Rutland Gate sums up a huge contradiction in London. While more than 300,000 homes remain empty in England and hundreds of thousands are waiting for a house, one of the most luxurious properties in the country has been closed for years because it is, in reality, a frozen financial asset. From that perspective, it is no longer a home, it is a figure trapped in offshore companies, lawsuits and bankruptcies. And in front of that door, every night, a man sleeps what represents just the other end of the system: someone with nothing, living in the shadow of a palace that no one can use. Image | Gareth E. Kegg In Xataka | Now that the Pope is in Spain, he should visit this surgeon’s castle. Inside is the smallest church on the planet In Xataka | In 1972 Italy wanted to put an entire city in a one kilometer building. Half a century later he is still paying the consequences

The Trump Mobile T1 wanted to be the quintessential American mobile. It has turned out to be an absolutely Chinese mobile

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Donald Trump was determined that Apple will build the iPhone in the United States and he managed to get them to take steps in that direction, but it soon became clear that the 100% American iPhone was a utopia. Things didn’t go as planned, so he did something very Trump: announce its own smartphone made in the USA. After almost a year since its announcement, the Trump Mobile T1 is already has reached the hands of several analysts and the conclusion is that nothing American. The mobile phone is an old acquaintance and It is mostly made in China. An HTC U24 Pro with a coat of paint It is the summary of what they have discovered after analyzing it in detail in iFixit. The mobile phone that promised to be 100% manufactured in the United States is an almost carbon copy of the HTC U24 Prowith the main difference that its back cover is gold and has the American flag engraved with the text ‘Trump Mobile’. The differences come down to color, the camera module and little else There are other cosmetic changes, such as the speaker grill having a different pattern and the camera module having a different design, with an oval piece encompassing the three lenses (which by the way is completely misaligned in the photos on the official website). At the specifications level, the only change is that the battery is a little larger than in the original HTC, but it loses the 60W fast charge and is left with only 30W. At the internal design level, iFixit says that matches point by point with the original HTC model: same component layout, same motherboard and same screen. In terms of specifications, the HTC U24 Pro was launched in summer 2024, so it does not have the most cutting-edge features. We are talking about a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip, 12GB of RAM, 512GB of capacity and a 6.78-inch screen (although the Trump Mobile website says it is 6.8 inches). Made in China, assembled in the USA (or almost) First of all, it should be noted that the mobile was announced as “designed and built in the United States”, but In January of this year they lowered the promise by others like “designed with American values ​​in mind” or “proudly assembled in the USA.” This already gave clues of what was to come and the iFixit breakdown confirms it: it is very little American. In 2017, HTC sold a large part of its smartphone division to Googleabandoning frontline manufacturing. Since then, HTC has turned to Chinese ODMs to be able to manufacture and assemble its phones. Although they have not confirmed it directly, according to The Verge investigation Everything indicates that the HTC U24 Pro is manufactured in Guangdong Yuanchang Electronics, located in (surprise) Guangdong, China. According to Trump Mobile, the device is assembled in Miami, Florida. Specifically, they say the phone is assembled from “about ten pieces,” which is just enough for the FTC to allow them to use the label. ‘assembled in the USA’. To achieve ‘made in USA’ status that Trump so desired, the FCT is much stricter and requires that “all significant processing” and “all or substantially all” components be manufactured in the United States. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | In its quest to manufacture the iPhone at home, the US has achieved something historic: that the majority of its smartphones come from India

a Chinese company has just converted its energy into prefabricated parts

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The latest Chinese development in artificial intelligence is neither in the form of a chatbot nor a chip. It is in the form of a huge prefabricated electrical base to power data centers aimed at intensive computing loads. It may sound less striking, but it explains very well one of the underlying problems of the sector: data centers need more and more electricity, and that electricity must arrive in a stable, efficient way and with reasonable construction deadlines. China is trying to solve this less visible part of AI by converting the energy base into an industrial piece designed to be replicated. A prefabricated electrical base. According to CCTVOn June 6, what the chain presents as the world’s first prefabricated base for computer centers went into operation in Qingdao. They explain that it is the energetic “heart” of the center, the piece in charge of supplying continuous and stable electricity. We are not talking about a room full of servers, but about the part that makes it possible for that room to work. Manufactured by TGOOD, it is about 53 meters long, 41 meters wide and occupies around 2,200 square meters. From the construction site to the factory. To understand the change, let’s imagine the scene in reverse: instead of erecting each part of the electrical infrastructure on the ground, an important part arrives already integrated from the factory. In parallel, Xinhua describes the solution as a station that brings together high voltage transformers, medium voltage equipment, protection, control, communications systems and other components necessary to connect the center to the grid. The company ensures that its 167 functional modules are prefabricated and calibrated before arriving at the project. Build sooner, occupy less. The interesting part is not only that the infrastructure arrives more prepared, but in what that promises to change in the schedule of a project. The prefabricated base promises to reduce the construction cycle by almost 70% compared to a traditional solution, occupy more than 30% less surface area and reduce the overall cost by around 20%. There is also talk of savings close to 80% in civil works and an execution that, in the fastest scenario, could be completed in five months. The other front. There is another part of the proposal that should be separated from the construction deadlines: how the center is powered once it is up and running. According to CCTV, this base can be connected directly to green energy and promote its 100% local use, also relying on storage to better coordinate electricity supply and computing demand. According to figures reported by TGOOD and collected by Xinhua, the electricity cost per token could be reduced by around 30% if the system works as the company proposes. A problem that is no longer marginal. The interest in this type of solutions is better understood when we look around. The International Energy Agency prevIt is expected that the global electricity consumption of data centers will double to reach around 945 TWh in 2030, and remember an important difference: a data center can be operational in two or three years, but expanding the network, generation and the rest of the energy system usually requires longer periods. It’s not magic. The most reasonable reading is this: China is testing a concrete way to respond to some of the problems brought about by the expansion of data centers. Not all, not even definitively. This prefabricated base points to very physical challenges, such as available space, construction speed, connection to the electricity supply and, according to the figures reported by its promoters, a better fit with cleaner energy. In other countries we will see different strategies, because each network, each territory and each regulation has its own limitations. Images | TGOOD In Xataka | Spain produces so much solar energy that it is the envy of Europe. And even so, 70% of what you consume matters

an arsenal of malware that speaks Chinese

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European companies have been living for years with a reality that is difficult to ignore: many digital threats are not born here, but they can also end up reaching their systems, their emails and their internal documents. Sometimes they do it loudly, other times with disguised messages. In this case, what we have seen is precisely that jump. Proofpoint claims that a Chinese-speaking cybercriminal actor initially observed primarily targeting Asian organizations has expanded its campaigns to the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy with an increasingly broad set of tools. Identifying the problem. Proofpoint identifies to the actor as TA4922 and links it to the Chinese-speaking cybercriminal ecosystem through several indications: metadata in Chinese within malware samples, frequent use of infrastructure associated with Chinese providers and overlaps with campaigns such as Silver Fox either Void Arachne. Even so, the company separates this group from those labels and analyzes it as its own threat, probably motivated by money. Europe enters the map. Specialists began observing campaigns associated with TA4922 in spring 2025, but the change in scale came later. The group’s activity increased notably in March 2026 and maintained a high pace in April, with unprecedented operational diversity in its data on this actor. During this period, campaigns appeared aimed at organizations in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy, as well as South Africa, already within a more global expansion, a sign that the group is no longer limited to its most common objectives in Asia. The hook is in the everyday. The gateway is not always a spectacular vulnerability, but rather a message well adapted to the context of the recipient. Proofpoint describes localized honeypots that imitate human resources communications, payroll notices, tax audits, VAT returns, invoices or regulatory compliance requirements. In some cases, the attempt does not remain in the email: the actor also tries to move the conversation to WhatsApp, LINE either Microsoft Teamschannels where you can extend social engineering away from the usual visibility of corporate email. The toolbox grows. Proofpoint notes that TA4922 has notably expanded its arsenal in recent months, something that fits with the increase in activity seen in March and April 2026. The report mentions several pieces: Atlas RAT, a remote access backdoor recently identified by researchers; RomulusLoader, a loader designed to download and execute new loads; SilentRunLoader, aimed at stealing data from Chrome, and ValleyRAT/Winos4.0, an already documented family. Atlas RAT. This malware can collect system information, list and upload files to the command and control server, load additional plugins or modules, and execute new payloads. It also incorporates surveillance functions, such as keylogger, screenshots, clipboard access and audio or video recording via microphone and webcam. Proofpoint maintains the nuance: it evaluates the actor as financially motivated, but warns that these capabilities could be used or sold to espionage groups. Legitimate tools, malicious use. Part of the problem is that TA4922 does not rely solely on recognizable malware. Proofpoint describes the use of RomulusLoader to install remote administration software such as AnyDesk and SyncFuture, tools that may have legitimate uses within an organization, but in this context serve to extend control over the affected environment. SilentRunLoader completes the picture from another angle: it searches for sensitive Chrome data, including credentials, cookies, and history. Additionally, Proofpoint believes with high confidence that the group is likely using LLM to accelerate the development of new Python-based malware. The warning for Europe. Proofpoint describes an actor capable of moving fast, tailoring messages to the country, and combining malicious payloads with legitimate services, cloud hosting, and remote administration tools. That forces you to look beyond the obvious suspicious email. The company’s recommendations are along these lines: control what is executed and from where, monitor anomalous connections, reduce local privileges and limit the software allowed. The threat is not presented as confirmed espionage, but as a very real business risk. Images | DC Studio In Xataka | Apple has already sold so many iPhones to adults that it’s now going after kids. Convincing their parents first, of course.

The Pentagon includes BYD, Unitree, Alibaba and other Chinese giants on its blacklist. It’s taking away competition with cannon shots

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The river already sounded at the end of 2025: the Pentagon agreed that Chinese giants like Alibaba, BYD and Baidu They were linked to the Chinese Army. It was unclear at the time whether the companies would be included on the Pentagon’s 1260H list, but it was clearly a warning and came just three weeks before Donald Trump and Xi Jinping agreed to a trade truce. It seemed like things had calmed down, especially with more recent moves like the opening of the market for Nvidia can sell its GPUs H200 for AI or Donald Trump’s visit to China (accompanied by several CEOs of American companies) to ease tensions and maintain a fine balance in that trade truce. But it turns out not and, as they point in Reuters, Alibaba, BYD and Baidu are the new Chinese companies on the Pentagon’s list. And they are not the only ones. Many more Chinese companies on the Pentagon’s blacklist The update of the known list 1260H It had been expected for a long time. The November thing was a warning, but not a real update. It is now, one month after Donald Trump’s diplomatic visit to Beijing, that the Pentagon has launched the new version that reflects interesting changes. Because we have mentioned Alibaba, BYD and Baidu as companies that join that selector ‘club’ of companies for which there are still no direct sanctions, but there is a clear consequence: starting at the end of this month, the United States Department of Defense will have prohibited from contracting directly with any of these companies. And… what are they? Well, it turns out that there are a lot, and from all sectors. Alibaba and Baidu are two Internet giants (like putting Amazon and Google on the list respectively, wow), but there are also the aforementioned BYD -cars and batteries-, CXMT and YMTC -semiconductors and RAM memory-, Unitree and RoboSense -robotics- or WuXi AppTec -biotechnology-. It is a very curious list because they are companies that are competing, directly, against American or Taiwanese companies. For example, we have recently told how the technology industry is looking so much at CXMT like YMTC for get a RAM memory which they cannot access through traditional means due to the component crisis. The United States and China are immersed in the war over robotics and Unitree is one of the most advanced in both humanoid and quadruped robots (something China is exploring for military use). Precisely, Nvidia announced that it was going to work closely with Unitree for the development of robots. And then there is China BlueChemical Limited, a subsidiary of state oil company CNOOC, and Baicells, which makes telecommunications equipment. As we say, there are no consequences in the form of direct sanctions on these companies or with pressure like what happens with Huawei, but according to US law, the Department of Defense will not be able to make deals with these companies starting this month and, starting in 2027, it will not be able to buy their products or services through third parties. What do Chinese companies say? As we read so much in Reuters as in GuardianAlibaba considers that it is something that has no basis because “Alibaba is not a Chinese military company nor part of any military-civil fusion strategy”, ensuring that they will take “all available legal actions against attempts to tarnish the company”. Baidu, for its part, also rejection the measure, ensuring that “the suggestion that Baidu is a military company is completely unfounded”, noting that they will not hesitate to “use all immediate measures to be removed from the list.” This is something that WuXi AppTec has also responded to and it is possible to get off that list, but only if they withdraw from the United States or if they change the name of the entity. “These Chinese companies are working with the Chinese military against our national interests” – John Moolenaar From the Pentagon it is stated that publicly traded companies have ballots to be classified as “Chinese military companies”, although they can request their removal from the list, according to Pentagon representatives. House Select Committee Chairman Joihn Moolenaar was somewhat more direct, noting that updating the list “It’s a warning to American companiesall levels of government and for the American people themselves”, ensuring that “these Chinese companies are working with the Chinese military against our national interests.” In Reuters, Craig Singleton, an expert on relations with China, points out that Washington no longer treats Chinese companies as isolated entities, but as a strategic conglomerate that is part of an arm of the Chinese government. In Xataka | A Chinese company has been building AI for years to predict who is going to criticize the government before they do so

A mysterious Chinese structure has remained for five days in one of the most tense points in Asia

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In September 2023, a Philippine patrol cut and removed a floating barrier of about 300 meters that China had installed at the entrance to the Scarborough Shoal lagoon. The scene was so symbolic that it gave around the world: a simple cable supported by buoys had become one of the most delicate geopolitical hotspots in Asia. Five days in suspense. It all started with a series of images by satellite that showed something unexpected at the entrance to the lagoon Scarborough Shoalone of the most sensitive and disputed enclaves in Asia. For several consecutive days, different satellite captures recorded the presence of a reflective object accompanied in some cases by a type of linear barrier that seemed to partially cross the access to the atoll. No one could determine with certainty whether it was a buoy, a floating platform or a more permanent installation, but its mere appearance was enough to trigger investigations in the Philippines and attract the attention of specialized analysts. When new images taken days later showed that the object had disappearedthe questions remained the same: what the hell exactly was it, who placed it, and what was it trying to achieve. Why Scarborough Shoal is much more than a reef. The reaction is explained by the strategic importance of the place. Scarborough Shoal is situated within the exclusive economic zone claimed by the Philippines, but remains under effective Chinese control since the crisis of 2012. Since then it has become one of the main points of friction between both countries. Its waters are valuable for fishing, its lagoon serves as a natural refuge for boats and its position offers an important advantage to control sea routes and airspace in a region through which billions of dollars in commerce circulate each year. In such a sensitive environment, even a structure less than ten meters tall can acquire disproportionate geopolitical relevance. Scarborough Shoal The suspicions behind the mysterious structure. The images showed a visible object for at least five days and a possible barrier similar to those that China has previously used to restrict Filipino fishermen’s access to the lagoon. That sparked speculation about whether Beijing was taking a new step to tighten its control over the atoll. The experts they warned that, if it was a fixed installation, it could be interpreted as a disruption of the status quo in an area whose sovereignty remains disputed. Although no authority has been able to confirm the exact nature of the object, the episode reflects the extent to which satellite surveillance has become in a key tool to detect movements that just a few years ago would have gone completely unnoticed. A dispute that has never stopped escalating. The appearance of the structure also coincided with a particularly tense moment. China maintains an almost permanent presence of coast guard and vessels around scarboroughwhile the Philippines increases its patrols and strengthens military cooperation with the United States. Shortly before the object was detected, US and Philippine forces had carried out new joint maneuvers in the area. Manila also denounced the presence of dozens of Chinese vessels operating within its claimed waters. The result is something like a constant cycle of shows of force where every patrol, every maneuver and every potential construction is watched with enormous attention by all parties involved. The great transformation. What happened in Scarborough also fits into a much broader trend. As we have been countingOver the last decade, China has turned practically submerged reefs into authentic artificial islands equipped with ports, radars, military installations and even landing strips. The transformation of places like Mischief Reef, Fiery Cross Reef or Subi Reef changed completely regional balance and demonstrated that physical construction can become a tool of territorial control as effective as military presence. Each new structure detected satellite arouses concern precisely because there is a clear precedent of how small initial changes can end up becoming permanent bases. A race to consolidate positions. The response of the other claimants has been to assume that the scenario has changed. Vietnam has been expanding reefs under its control for years, building ports and new infrastructure. The Philippines reinforces its existing positions, expands landing strips and strengthens isolated detachments. The feeling that dominates the region is that the multilateral negotiations have failed and that each country is trying consolidate what you already control before circumstances worsen. In this context, the mysterious structure of Scarborough It is especially symbolic. Regardless of what it really was, it reminded all the actors involved that in the South China Sea a simple spot detected from space can become for a few days the center of a geopolitical dispute that affects a good part of Asia and in which China continues to be, by far, the most powerful player. Image | Vantor In Xataka | China has a problem: behind thousands of food delivery restaurants there is no establishment, no kitchen, no restaurant In Xataka | 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

TSMC chairman challenges Chinese chipmakers

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TSMC leads the integrated circuit manufacturing industry overwhelmingly. The current market share of this Taiwanese company is approximately 70%, according to the consulting firm TrendForce. Samsung is the second largest producer of chips for third parties, although with a market share of 7.2% is positioned very far from the leader of this industry. And the Chinese company SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp) is hot on his heels in third position with a share of 5.32%. However, there was a time when Intel dominated the semiconductor industry with a force comparable to that currently held by TSMC. Its rise to leadership began with the 1981 agreement with IBM to supply the processor for the original PC, making the x86 architecture the standard. de facto of personal computing. Over the next three decades, Intel set the pace of technological development in the semiconductor industry, but its decline began in 2015 when it began accumulating delays in the transition to the most advanced nodes. In 2010, probably few analysts in this sector would have predicted that TSMC would take over from Intel both from a technological point of view and from a strictly commercial perspective. Its market share of 70% says it all. Now it is the Chinese chip manufacturers who are slowly beginning to intimidate. SMIC, as we have just seen, is already hot on Samsung’s heels in the fight to manufacture semiconductors for third parties. And Hua Hong and Huawei are pushing harder and harder. So much so, in fact, that TSMC shareholders are starting to get restless. Huawei wants to change the rules of the game that TSMC is winning CC Wei, the current president of TSMC, has assured that his company “is not afraid” of competition from China. This assertion is not accidental. In fact, this executive spoke these words in response to a shareholder’s question during the annual meeting that was held just a few hours ago. wei has pointed out that competition has been a constant throughout the company’s forty years of history. And it’s true. But it is also true that no company has led the chip sector forever. Fairchild Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi, and, of course, Intel, have led. And all of them have fallen. If we look towards China, the companies that seem to worry TSMC the most are SMIC and Huawei. In fact, their alliance has allowed SMIC to manufacture 7nm integrated circuits using the equipment deep ultraviolet photolithography (UVP) of ASML and without the need to resort to the most advanced machines of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV). Also, as we told you last week. Huawei has presented a new scaling law and a new chip architecture capable, on paper, of taking its semiconductors to a lithographic process node equivalent to 1.4 nm by 2031. Huawei’s plan is to continue improving the performance and density of its chips despite the restrictions At the moment the most advanced integrated circuits that TSMC, Intel or Samsung produce are 2 nm. Huawei’s plan is to continue improving the performance and density of its chips despite restrictions that limit China’s access to the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment. And the heart of their strategy is the “tau scaling law.” This principle seeks to reduce the time it takes for signals and data to travel through computer chips and equipment. It proposes a paradigm shift that replaces the traditional geometric miniaturization of transistors with temporal scaling (τ), hence its name. It seems like a very complicated strategy, but it’s actually reasonably simple. We can easily understand what it is by referring to this example. Let’s imagine that we have a city (the chip) with many buildings (transistors) connected by roads (wires). Moore’s Law says: “Make buildings smaller to fit more in the same space“. Huawei, however, proposes: “buildings can no longer be much smaller, so instead let’s make cars (electrical signals) travel faster on the roads, and redesign the urban layout so that they travel less distance.” τ (tau) is, precisely, the time it takes a car to go from one building to another, and Huawei’s bet is to reduce it as much as possible. Huawei’s LogicFolding architecture plays an essential role in this approach. And, if we continue with our example, it proposes a new design of the roads on which cars circulate, so that the chip will perform better without the need to build smaller buildings. Huawei has anticipated that its next generation of Kirin chips, which will arrive next fall, will be the first to implement the LogicFolding architecture. Whatever its Chinese competitors do, TSMC will continue to do very well in the short and medium term. But in the long term his current leadership is not guaranteed. Image | TSMC More information | SCMP In Xataka | The condemnation that afflicts China: after decades of manufacturing a competitive desktop processor, it is six years behind

A Chinese company has been building AI for years to predict who is going to criticize the government before they do so

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In ‘Minority Report‘, Tom Cruise was the head of the pre-crime police, a department capable of arresting criminals before they could commit the crime in question, all thanks to the powers of mutants or precogs. Well, according to the New York Timesthere is a Chinese company that is trying to build a similar system, but their target will be future political dissidents and instead of mutants with powers they will use AI. what’s happening. The leak reported in the New York Times contains internal documents from the Chinese company Geedge Networks and has been published by a group of researchers at Vanderbilt University. In it they detail how the company is building an AI system capable of predicting which citizens will become political dissidents in the future. Geedge is investigating how to use LLM to synthesize large packets of data (including browsing histories, locations, online activity and contacts) and then infer citizens’ behavior, detecting whether they will present a “political risk” in the future. Like the police precrime, but for political dissidents. What is Geedge?. In September 2025 we learned that a Chinese company was exporting the surveillance system known as “Great Firewall of China” to other countries. It was Geedge Networks. The company, which has one of the creators of the Chinese firewall as a key investor, has already sold its solution to countries such as Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Myanmar. What this great firewall does is analyze the traffic of entire countries, even capturing personal data such as passwords and emails. Why is it important. According to the leak, the system is in the research phase, but it is still a disturbing approach. It is no longer just about using AI to monitor what people do, the next thing is to anticipate what they could do and even think. We see every day that AI models have biases and make many errors, using them as predictors to repress dissent poses a terrifying scenario. Tech authoritarianism as a service. As we said, Geedge is already exporting its solutions to other countries so it is selling technological authoritarianism as a service. The worst thing is that we do not find this only in China, but it is a global trend: the United States too you are delegating critical security functions to private and disreputable corporations like Palantir, and The United Kingdom also wants to follow in their footsteps. The bottleneck. There is good news (if you can call it that) and that is that Geedge has encountered a problem in developing this system: they do not have the power to manage such a volume of data. According to the New York Times, since they cannot access the most powerful chips due to the US blockade, since 2024 they have been forced to use AI models and less powerful chips. In order for the system to be able to manage the enormous amount of data they already collect, they need computing capacity that they currently do not have, always according to US sources. Image | Xataka with Gemini In Xataka | We have been hearing for years that China scans the faces of millions of citizens every day. It’s already happening in Europe

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