devouring

AI is devouring physical storage

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Of course, this does not seem like the best time to assemble a PC in parts. The industry has been talking for months about memory shortage and a market with rising pricesand the doubts about the launch of new NVIDIA graphics cards For this 2026 they don’t help either. In the midst of this context, another signal now arrives from a less visible layer of hardware: Western Digital has communicated that its hard drive capacity for 2026 is practically compromised. So we ask ourselves what that message really means and how far its impact can go. The data. During the presentation of results for the second fiscal quarter of 2026, its CEO, Irving Tan, noted that Western Digital “has practically sold the entire catalog by 2026”, backed by confirmed orders from its seven largest clients and by multi-year agreements that extend until 2027 and 2028. The combination of volume in exabytes and price within these contracts points, in the executive’s words, to a transformation in the role that storage plays as activity linked to artificial intelligence gains weight within the technology business. behind the scenes. In this context, “sold out” does not refer to empty shelves or a sudden lack of hard drives for the consumer. As we can interpret, it refers to the fact that future production capacity is already reserved through agreements with large clients, defined by massive amounts of data and economic commitments for several years to come. In other words, the focus is not on the retail market, but on much larger scale contracts. And that detail completely changes the way the ad is interpreted. What kind of hard drives are we really talking about?. The language used by the company points directly to the storage used by data centers and large cloud services. It is the realm of high-capacity professional drives and business families designed to operate continuously, far removed from the disk that ends up inside one of our computers. The distribution of money. During the same fiscal quarter, Western Digital indicated that 89% of its revenue came from the “cloud” business, compared to 6% from the “client” segment and just 5% from consumption. The company ensures that it also delivered 215 exabytes of capacity, with a strong weight of next-generation disks for AI that reach up to 32 TB. The numbers not only measure the scale of business demand, but also explain why the industrial priority is placed there. Why AI is eating hard drives. It is no longer a secret that models need huge volumes of data to train and, later, infrastructures capable of preserving and serving information continuously. That combination skyrockets storage where capacity outweighs speed. Hence, despite the advancement of faster technologies, large data centers continue to rely on magnetic storage to sustain the scale of AI. What about the home user. Western Digital maintains consumer-oriented products and has not announced cuts or shortages on that front, so any direct effect would be, for now, speculative. What we can see is a clear priority towards large-scale enterprise contracts, and an eventual redistribution of capacity could generate indirect pressures on the rest of the line. More thermometer than immediate warning. If one thing is clear, it is that the data shows the extent to which AI is redefining priorities in the physical base of the technology industry, even in components that seemed stable for years. It remains to be seen whether that pressure will continue long enough to further disrupt the consumer market. Images | Western Digital In Xataka | While technology companies dispense with juniors to replace them with AI, IBM is doing the opposite: catching bargains

We have turned sadness into a psychiatric disorder. And that is a problem that is devouring us socially.

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When Roland Kuhn discovered the first antidepressant in history, imipramine, the directors of Geygi hesitated to put it on the market because depression was so rare who did not believe it could become a profitable medicine (Healy, 1999). It was the 50s of the 20th century, but it seems like an alternative reality. Today, depression is omnipresent. Only in Spain, the consumption of antidepressants has grown 200% in the last fifteen years and it is nothing more than the reflection of an unstoppable international trend. How is it possible that, in just over half a century, depression has become “so common”? Are we confusing normal sadness with a psychiatric disorder, as many experts say? Are we pathologizing everyday life? I am not going to enter into terminological debates, no matter how interesting and necessary they may be. When talking about “invention of mental illness” or “pathologization of everyday life” we run the risk of minimizing problems as serious as depression and that is something that is not in question. On the contrary, the idea is understand her better to treat her better. As the neurologist Luis Querol said“if we stick to the conventional concept of diseaseanyone who has seen a melancholic depressive SUFFER (…) will recognize that it is an illness.” It is totally true: that is enough for now. Depression is a particularly insidious and destructive disorder. According to the WHOnot only is it the main global cause of disability, but it affects 350 million people and is behind 800,000 deaths each year. Synopsis of an epidemic However, this does not explain why depression has become an epidemic. Above all, because it is not a disease that we “just” discovered. Melancholy is one of those psychiatric disorders so old that they were already diagnosed by Hippocrates and classical Greek medicine. Since the 19th century, the European diagnostic tradition separated most mood disorders from deep melancholy and included this among the diseases that end up consuming the person (such as senile dementia). At the beginning of the 20th century, psychiatric practice already clearly differentiated between endogenous or melancholic depression (which affected between 1 and 2% of patients) and reactive or neurotic depression (much more common) which was a product of stress, loss or pain. (Unsplash) In 1980, in the middle of a deep reputation crisis for psychiatric practiceDSM-III changed the way we think about depression. It moves from an etiopathogenic model (which asked about the cause of the disease) to a semiological one (which, in its claim to atheoretical nature, was based on symptomatology). A careless eye might think that the change was terminological and that “endogenous” was only replaced by “major” and “reactive” by “dysthymia”; but, in reality, the DSM-III expanded the playing field. Melancholia became one of the five subtypes of major depression and, with this, the underlying depressive disorder went from having a prevalence of 2% to a prevalence of up to 17% (Kessler et al., 2005). In recent years, a good number of historians (and activists) have insisted that this change and the commercial pressure of pharmaceutical companies (Horwitz and Wakefield, 2007) have taken us to overdiagnosis current disease (Mojtabai, 2013; Parker, 2007). At its strongest, it is a difficult argument to reject. Especially because it is not that the existence of depression is denied, but rather that it is argued that the failure of epidemiologists, psychiatrists and social scientists to differentiate ‘normal sadness’ and ‘depressive disorder’ is leading to health policies that condemn many people to taking unnecessary medications and carrying the weight of stigma on their backs. Whys, doubts and conspiracy Basically, although it is not usually said clearly, we are talking about ‘iatrogenesis’; That is, suffering or damage to health caused by health professionals themselves. The current opioid crisis in the US It shows that, far from being pure conspiracy, pharmaceutical companies and their balance sheets can create a health problem of colossal dimensions. However, we must not be unfair, nor fall into banal Manichaeism. Although it may seem counterintuitive and paradoxical, many problems only appear when we have the solution them. Without antidepressants or effective behavioral therapies, depression was deep sadness, black sorrow that wells up, black shadow that amazes me. Something that was between us and there was nothing we could do to avoid it. (Jacob Sedlacek/Unsplash) Horwitz and Wakefield say that “tolerance for normal but painful emotions has fallen” in the West. And it may be true. But they forget two fundamental things: that, for the first time in the history of humanity, we can do without them and that it is not a personal problem, the modern world has tended to prioritize productive optimism and has forgotten how to live with sadness. At this point we realize that, if we want to learn to better separate “illness” from “normality”, it is not just a matter of challenging depressive overdiagnosis, but of claim sadness. The problem is that, why would we want claim sadness? And the answer, honestly, may surprise us. Sadness, said Lazarus (1991), promotes personal reflection after the loss. Focus our gaze on ourselves, promote resignation, invite acceptance (Izard, 1993). It allows us to waste time to update “our cognitive structures” (Welling, 2003); that is, to accommodate the loss. That reflective function of sadness It allows us to stop. And weigh actions, review our goals, modify our plans (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Oatley and Johnson-Laird, 1996). It makes us more attentive to detail, more precise. It makes us flee from heuristics and stereotypes (Bodenhausen, Gabriel and Lineberger, 2000; Schwarz, 1998) and distrust first impressions (Schwarz, 2010). Physiological arousal decreases and makes us more prone to slow thinking (Overskeid, 2000). Furthermore, it shapes us as a group. Causes sympathy, empathy and altruism in others (Keltner and Kring, 1998). The complex balance between “normality” and “disease” In 1843, Charles Darwin wrote a letter of condolence to a distant cousin in which he said that “strong affections have always seemed to me the noblest part of man’s character and the … Read more

Three chains are devouring the supermarket business in Spain year after year: Mercadona, Lidl and Aldi

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From ugly duckling to goose that lays the golden eggs. The white label revolution seems to find no ceiling in the retail Spanish. Until not so long ago, the brands associated with supermarkets carried a stigma in Spain compared to items from manufacturer brands clearly recognized by customers. It was not even strange for words like “Estandado” to be used in a pejorative way. Buying white was synonymous with buying ‘poor quality’‘option B’. Not anymore. Spanish families are increasingly betting on white label. And that is making gold for some of the country’s big chains. What has happened? That the white label is experiencing his particular revolution in it retail Spanish. And that is still striking if you take into account that until not so long ago, firms like Hacendado or Auchan carried a certain stigma compared to their competitors, the brands associated with manufacturers. It’s nothing new. For a long time we have been confirming how the white label is driving some chains of “short assortment”supermarkets that are committed to offering customers a limited selection of items. That is, instead of including a dozen different brands of cookies (or other items) on their shelves, they offer only two or one, among which they include their own brand. Chain Market share in value Difference (PP) compared to the 2024 quota Mercadona 37.0% 0.9 Carrefour Group 12.3% -0.2 Lidl 8.0% 0.5 Day Group 4.7% 0.1 Consum Group 4.5% 0.0 Eroski Group 4.4% -0.1 Alcampo Group 3.6% -0.3 aldi 2.5% 0.4 Bon Preu Group 2.4% 0.0 You save 23% 0.1 Gadis Group 1.7% 0.0 Magnifying glass 1.1% -0.1 El Corte Inglés Group 1.0% -0.2 dinosol 0.9% 0.0 Froiz 0.8% 0.0 Alimerka 0.8% 0.0 Rest of Modern distribution 12.0% -1.1 Why is it news? Because the latest data from 2025 reveal that this strategy is driving some brands to catapult them to unprecedented market shares. This is suggested by at least one recent report from Algori on consumption prepared with data from the first ten months of the year. The study shows that at the end of October the three chains that were gaining the greatest market share (in terms of value) in Spain were Mercadona (0.9 percentage points), Lidl (0.5 pp) and Aldi (0.4). Between the three, they also held a market share of 47.5%, a share clearly led by Juan Roig’s company, which alone holds 37%. DIA and Ahorramás are also growing, while others like Carrefour, Alcampo or Eroski are stagnating or decreasing. Chain % of white label sales 2023 % of white label sales 2024 % of white label sales 2025 Lidl 79.7% 81.9% 80.7% Mercadona 72.9% 74.5% 77.8% aldi 68.8% 69.1% 74.5% Day 54.2% 56.3% 65.1% consumption 33% 35.9% 37.4% Carrefour 29.3% 31.4% 33.3% Eroski 25.6% 28.4% 31.2% Alcampo 21.5% 24.3% 23.8% Why is it important? Because Mercadona, Lidl and Aldi are not just any chains. They are precisely the ones that give the greatest prominence to their own brands. At least according to another recent study from Worldpannel by Numerator, which shows that if we talk about the weight of private labels in total sales, Lidl heads the list with 80.7%, followed by Mercadona (77.8%) and Aldi (74.5%). In summary: the chains that gained the greatest market share in 2025 were the ones that most clearly opted for their own products, a strategy that often arrives backed by aggressive price differentiation. elEconomista.es precise Furthermore, Mercadona, Lidl and Aldi have increased their market shares to record figures. Their 47.5% share is more than two percentage points higher than last year, when they accounted for a total of 45.2% of the market. Everything, they explain from Algori, while the entire sector experiences growth both in terms of volume and value. And what are the forecasts? The sector is optimistic. AECOC, the consumer association, states in one of its latest reports that 44% of companies expect to close 2025 with growth data above 5%. 28% expect to increase their activity, although to a lesser extent, and 11% expect to fall. They are led by Lidl and especially Mercadona, which has been expanding its market share until it approaches or even surpasses 30% thanks to a strategy based on white label, territorial dispersion and ready-made foods. Images | Wikipedia and Vitaly Gariev (Unsplash) In Xataka | Mercadona has found a vein to grow beyond its white label and prepared food: tourism

The James Webb captures a lonely object of the size of Jupiter devouring like a miniature sun

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An international astronomer team has witnessed an extraordinary event: a lonely object, with a mass of just 5 to 10 times that of Jupiter, has entered a violent and prolonged growth burst. Using the combined power of James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and him Vary Large Telescope (VLT) of the Southern European Observatory, scientists They have observed How this object, known as Cha J11070768-7626326, drastically increases its brightness and its “food” rhythm, behaving like a miniature star. The importance. This discovery represents the first time that a outbreak of accretion of type “exor”, a phenomenon so far associated with young stars, in a body of planetary mass. The finding is not only a milestone in astronomical observation, but also further blur the borders between what we consider a giant planet and a small star. The mystery. CH 1107-7626 is not a planet in the traditional sense that we all have in our mind. Although it has a mass comparable to that of a gaseous giant, I do not orbit any star and is 620 light years from the earth. Is what is known as an “free planetary mass object” or FFPMO (for its acronym in English). The existence of these lonely bodies raises a fundamental question for astronomy: are giant planets that were expelled from their solar systems, or are smaller stars that can exist in isolation? In order to solve this enigma that astronomers have right now on the table, you have to analyze the gas and dust disc that is around, as well as the way of accumulating the material. The fact that Cha 1107-7626 has an album and feeds on it suggests that its origin is more like that of a star. A cosmic feast. Astronomers observed Cha 1107-7626 in a state of calm in April and May 2025. However, for June, something had changed drastically. The object entered a “indulgence.” This means that its rhythm of ‘food’ began to increase, and in this way it reached a mass increase rate of 10-7 masses of Jupiter per year, the highest ever measured in a planetary mass object. As a result of this frenzy, the objective became between 1.5 and 2 brighter magnitudes in visible light and its optical flow increased between 3 and 6 times. This outbreak remained active for at least two months, since it was still on the end of the observation campaign in August 2026. But the most interesting thing is the speed it has. According to the observations made with the Vray Lark Telescope of the European Observatory, the growth rate is really aggressive, with a record rate of devouring 6,600 million tons per second of dust and gas. Great footprints. Beyond the increase in brightness, the telescopes captured detailed physical changes that reveal the nature of the event. A hydrogen emission line, known as Hα, developed a “double peak” profile with a red displaced absorption. According to the authors, this profile is a “distinctive brand” of the accretion channeled through magnetic fields, a process called “magnetospherical accretion” observed in young stars. But the most surprising finding was the change in the chemistry of the disc. At first, changes in the emission lines of the hydrocarbons molecules that came from the disc during the outbreak were seen. But water vapor also began to appear with a characteristic emission around 6.6 µm. This appeared during the outbreak where there was nothing before and is relevant because it is the first time that chemical changes of this type are observed caused by an increase in accretion. Relevance. This event classifies Cha 1107-7626 as the first “exor” of known planetary mass. Exor outbursts are significant accretion events that are considered key episodes in the early evolution of the stars. They can deeply affect the physical structure and chemical composition of the protoplanetary disk, potentially influencing the early stages of planet formation. Observing this process in such a small object demonstrates that the violent and fundamental mechanisms that the stars build also work at planetary scales. The study of Cha 1107-7626 offers an unprecedented vision of the accretion in the lower mass objects of the universe, providing a new window to understand how both smaller stars and the largest planets are formed. Images | Javier Miranda In Xataka | The most transformer of modern cosmology is just around the corner, according to the hypothesis of these physicists

We have a big problem with plastic. This caterpillar can help us devouring a bag in 24 hours

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The global plastic crisis, a problem that It takes centuries to degradeI could find an unexpected ally in the world of insects. A team of scientists He has revealed how the caterpillars of the wax worm (Galleria Mellonella) are able to devour and metabolize polyethylene, The most common plastic in the worldat an amazing speed. However, they have a deadly cost for them. A decomposition that is not perfect. The investigation, presented at the Annual Conference of the Experimental Biology Societyreveals that these caterpillars, nicknamed “plastivorous”, not only chew the plastic, but that they decompose metabolically and make it an body fat in a matter of days. The most shocking data: some 2,000 caterpillars can end a standard polyethylene bag in just 24 hours. The problem of the plastic diet. Polyethylene is the plastic that we find in purchase bags, containers and endless daily use products. His chemical resistance makes it incredibly durable and, therefore, A persistent contaminant. The finding that a living being can decompose it naturally opens a Revolutionary door for waste management. However, the solution is not as simple as let out millions of caterpillars in landfills. Dr. Bryan Cassone, professor at the University of Brandon (Canada) and project leader, explains the great inconvenience: an exclusive plastic diet is deadly for worms. “They do not survive more than a few days with a plastic diet and lose a considerable mass,” says Cassone. It is as if a human swells with fat. The process is similar to that of a human consuming excess fat: The caterpillars turn the plastic into lipids that accumulate in their adipose tissue, but without the necessary nutrients to survive. It is not the first time that this possibility is explored. Given the seriousness of this problem, science does not cease in its attempt to find a solution to disintegrate the plastic we generate. Thus, in 2022 a group of Australian researchers They verified the ability of the ‘super worms’ to devour polystyrene thanks to an enzyme they had in their metabolism. But these same wax worms, object of this study, also They were already protagonists of an investigation where the capacity they had to decompose the plastic was proven. This study has taken a step further to perfectly understand its processing system and the repercussions it can have. Towards a sustainable solution: supplements and bioengineering. Although the fact that the accumulation of fat is an obstacle to research, scientists have turned this fascinating biological process into a viable solution already a large scale for pollution and for this they point to two main roads: create a mixed diet and replicate the process in the laboratory. Create a mixed diet. Scientists are experiencing with “co-supplement”, such as sugars and other stimulants, to mix with polyethylene. The goal is to formulate a feed that not only keeps the caterpillars alive, but to optimize their ability to degrade plastic, creating a circular economy system where waste becomes food. Replicate the process in the laboratory. The second way is even more ambitious. It consists of thoroughly studying biological mechanisms and intestinal microbiome of caterpillars to identify enzymes and bacteria responsible for the decomposition of plastic. If they get it, they could replicate this process of “biodegradation” in an artificial way and industrial scale, without the need to raise insects. And right now there are a lot of daily products that have been generated thanks to the use of bacteria, fungi or enzymes. In this way, the fact of extrapolating this process to the industry can be the most intelligent to control the management of plastics. From garbage to the plate. As if solving one of the biggest environmental problems were not enough, this research could have a positive and unexpected economic impact. The massive breeding of wax worms would generate a huge amount of insect biomass. According to Dr. Cassone, these worms could become a very nutritious food source for aquaculture. In this way, a waste as problematic as plastic could be revalued to enter a new value chain, contributing to the food industry. Images | Murat i̇di̇kut Tanvi Sharma In Xataka | Our problem with microplastics is so huge that they already appear even in human testicles

A type of content is devouring all streaming platforms in silence: the anime

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The Anime It became a large more ingredient of our cultural offer. No one is surprising that an anime feature film reaches the billboards, which is the second or third part of a saga that only the otakus knows but becomes The most watched premiere of the weekend. The anime has one of the most delivered and consistent fandoms in the world. It has nothing strange than the platforms of streamingalways attentive to any new success to which the tooth will have, have increased spectacularly in recent years their anime catalog fund. New mainstream. Since the first anime that triumphed in the West (‘Akira’, ‘Champions’, ‘Dragon Ball’, ‘Ranma’ …) decades have passed. The figures that manage the new successes (‘One Piece’, ‘Attack on the Titans’) show those of those productions, which already marked millions of young people in their day: now, generation Z is that of the anime, and its aesthetics and narrative have become the new new mainstream. That is, we are willing to review a few figures that define a cultural panorama dominated in large part by the anime. Crazy growth. The Parrot Analytics Market Studies firm Recently estimated that the average demand of the United States of anime in streaming It grew 176% between 2019 and 2024, and this is undoubtedly due to a greater amount of offer (in that period the number of anime programs tripled). But also to the increase of occasional spectators, which are those who are giving a renewed impulse to Japanese animation outside the fans circles. For the anime industry, all this means income from 27,000 million euros a year. A for the anime. A quick look at platform catalogs allows you to distinguish to what extent the anime is important in its programming. The first one is betting strongly on classics such as ‘Dragon Ball’ (licensed exclusively outside Asia the new franchise series, ‘Daima’) or ‘One Piece’, whose adaptation Live Action It has been one of the great successes of the platform in recent months. In the United States, in addition, Hulu (owned by Disney) plants face with abundant licenses, but out of there, in countries such as Spain, Netflix and Prime Video are distributed (they often share) the great successes: ‘Death Note’, ‘Guardians of the night’, ‘Naruto’ and many others. Specific services. And to this are added the dedicated platforms, a privilege of which only audiovisual subgenres with a more delivered fandom, such as terror or anime. In the case of anime we have above all to Crunchyrollwhich was born as a fan project in 2006 that spread anime without permission, but whose rapid acceptance led him to start closing deals with distributors to issue anime legally. Owned by Sony since 2021, he absorbed an important competitor, funimation, and has More than 120 million registered users. Other important streaming services exclusively of anime are Restrocush or Hidive, to which the abundant Fast thematic channels are added that emit 24 hours of series such as’ Pokémon ‘,’Conan detective‘ either ‘Inazuma Eleven‘. Everything is anime. Another important sign of how the anime has become undisputed creative force in current streaming is that many series that at another time would undoubtedly have had a western aesthetic approach now start from approaches completely anime: ‘Suicide Squad isekai‘It is produced in Japan and its own title betrays its origin, but is based on DC heroes; The greatest animation success of recent times, ‘Arcane’It is French production, but its anime visual roots are absolutely indisputable; And even a very characteristic series of the United States, ‘Rick and Morty’, has Your own spin-off anime. According to Jason Demarcocreator of the mythical Toonami thematic channel, this type of phenomena are a sign of “maturity” of this animation style. And all this rent extraordinarily in both addresses: 38% of international anime income is produced in Netflix. The benefit navigates In both directions. The new normality. The overwhelming growth and implementation figures in particular and Asian culture in general are no longer surprising (remember that a Korean series, ‘The Squid’s game’, remains the greatest success in Netflix’s history). That ‘Dundundun’ ravages or that one of the most profitable ideas that the platform has had in recent times has been to bring the anime in real image ‘One Piece‘They are some pieces of the many that make up a complex puzzle. One whose final snapshot shows a future in which the anime has an indisputable weight in the global computing of pop culture. In Xataka | The curse of Tolkien’s animated adaptations continues: the prequel anime of ‘The lord of the rings’ click at the box office

How YouTube is devouring the audiovisual industry

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YouTube turns twenty years old and does so exhibiting some data that proclaim its domination of the audiovisual panorama. We are not talking about the social network most seen and followed by the world: it is that the platform owned by Google is about to advance giants like Disney. At least if we attend to the forecasts of the firm specialized in Moffettnathanson market analysis. A juicy 2024. What we know so far, According to the prestigious moffettnathansonIt is that YouTube has become 2024 in the second largest company specialized in audiovisual content, with revenues of more than 54,000 million dollars. In front of her is only Disney, to which YouTube will advance in 2025 if two premises are fulfilled: that YouTube does not stop its current upward rate of income and that we only have audiovisual income (excluding other businesses, as thematic parks) of Disney. In what does win. Although in terms of YouTube benefits, the second place has, there are other aspects in which it is number one. For example, in February 2025, YouTube became, According to Nielsenat the largest -added television content source in the US. He left giants like Disney itself, in addition to Netflix, Fox, Paramount, Warner or Universal. And that renouncing to become a Netflix overflowing with its own content, that is, all based on licenses from other channels and what the content creators generate. YouTube is an essential property for Google: according to the estimate of Moffetnathanson, it could have a value of between 475,000 and 550,000 million dollars, that is, 30% of Alphabet’s total valuethe conglomerate that Google has. The youtube theme TV. Although it is only available in the United States, YouTube TV has become The largest live television service Distributed by the Internet of the country, with 8 million subscribers. It also offers content on demand, and includes programming of ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX, which makes Google proposal especially powerful in sport and news. Payment YouTube. To this are added other types of subscriptions such as the streaming of music YouTube Music and Youtube premium that among other things allows you to watch videos without ads. This same month, YouTube talked about 125 million subscribers in these two servicesMusic and Premium. It is a spectacular rise since April 2024, where it had 100 million subscribers. The spectacular income of the platform comes from both these two payment formats and TV YouTube, and according to Moffettnathanson, it still has a margin of growth when it enters the market of the market streaming on demand. The advertising business. YouTube It has also confirmed That television screen consumption has surpassed the mobile, in a seemingly counterintuitive growth but that makes two things clear. First, that advertising remains an ingredient of the business that YouTube will continue to take care (36,000 million in benefits in 2024); And second, that it is clear who their next rivals are: Netflix, Disney+ or Prime Video, once he has left behind his attempts to become a social network of short -style videos Instagram or Tiktok. Header | YouTube In Xataka | Podcasts are living their great revolution, but not in Spotify or Apple Podcasts: YouTube is winning the game

The world pharmaceutical industry has been sunk in its “Deepseek moment”: China is devouring it

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This summer we estee that, for the first time in history, China beat Europe as a new medication developer. It was not a stroke of luck: the pharmacist is one of the most complex sectors in the world and China has been determined to compete in it at the highest level. A decision that is paying off. So much that, today, the question is not whether China will stand up to the US. The question is whether the western pharmaceutical industry is facing its own “moment Deepseek“: The appearance of a more agile competitor, cheaper and (at least on paper) equally good. A small panoramic. Historically, Europe was always the great world pharmaceutical superpower. However, in the decade that goes between 1995 and 2005, the situation changed: the US made a very strong biomedical commitment and managed to advance the old continent. That has not changed in the last 20 years. In fact, according to the latest edition of the ‘The Pharmaceutical Industry in figures‘(The 2023), they say that the 90 new molecules, 28 were American compared to 17 of European origin. The surprise was another: that China had managed to put 25 on the table. And although that, alone it changes (almost) everything; There was something else. In autumn, summit therapeutics announced that its drug He had surpassed Keytruda, a well -known Merck immunotherapy against lung cancer that moves more than 30,000 million a year. To get an idea of ​​the bombing: only that news catapulted Summit to the top positions of world biotechnology (with a stock market capitalization of billions) even though … it has no approved drug. As David Wainer explained“China’s rise in biotechnology has been managing for years, but now it is impossible to ignore it.” In 2020, less than 5% of the large pharmaceutical transactions worth 50 million dollars or more were related to China. “In 2024, that figure had increased to almost 30%,” According to the journalist. Why does this happen? Although everything has some speculative air, experts agree that There are some key factors behind Of all this: Lower costs: both for the ease of access to highly qualified labor and low cost and access to thousands of people for optimized clinical trials. Minimum bureaucracy and less security obstacles that accelerate the market arrival process. And what consequences can it generate? That may be what most matches all this with What happened to Deep Seek: That the uncertainty about what may be doing in China, makes investors think much more if it is profitable to finance new projects. What is the point of spending hundreds of millions on something they can do in China for a dozen (And what, in fact, are surely doing even if we don’t know it)? And Europe? While innovation seems to go to China, Europe is still changed. Successes like Novo Nordisk and Ozempiceven invisible that we are losing a career that we should not lose (it is more, that we have been losing it for years). Josep Borrellformer high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has passed years saying that “When the pandemic arrived we realized that in Europe there was not a single gram of paracetamol.” That was something that did not worry anyone because Europe had always thought it was a problem of productive outsourcing. Now we are discovering that, along the way, we were outsourcing much more than that. Image | Mika Baumeister | Deepseek + Philipp Katzenberger In Xataka | Ozempic is sweeping. So much that it is a problem for supermarkets and sugary drinks

China is devouring the televisions market. So much that Panasonic considers abandoning it

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Samsung is the manufacturer who has been selling the most televisions for 18 years. His imperturbable leadership in such a competitive market is unusual, but This domain is being threatened. And not for its compatriot LG, the company with the one that has dealt with more intensity during most of his reign. TV manufacturers that are growing most in the world market They arrive from China. And they seem willing to snatch Samsung his throne. According to the consultant Counterpoint Research During the third quarter of 2024, Samsung’s fee in the global televisions market was 15%, while Chinese and TCL companies reached 12%. However, it is interesting that we also observe the trend. The Samsung quota was slightly reduced to the second quarter of 2024, while that of Hisense increased by 19% compared to the same quarter of 2023. Panasonic is making a very difficult decision in uncertain times Hisense seems unstoppable. His growth has allowed him to place second only behind Samsung during the third quarter of 2024. In fact, he has surpassed TCL. And these two Chinese brands have beaten by 2% the LG market share during that same quarter. This “photography” helps us identify in what state is the television market today, but we can do something else. We can investigate the always interesting segment of prémonic televisions. If we stick to the high range the Samsung market share fell from 43% of the third quarter of 2023 to 30% during the third quarter of 2024 Again according to Counterpointif we stick to the high range the Samsung market share fell from 43% of the third quarter of 2023 to 30% during the third quarter of 2024. The interesting thing is that in this same period the fees of Hins and TCl experienced A very different evolution than Samsung’s. Hisense went from 14 to 24%, and TCL from 11 to 17%. It is important that we take this into account because it reflects that Chinese brands do not sell only low -price televisions; They also do well with high -end models. At this juncture and without deviating from the Prémona segment, LG has gone from second position in this category with a 20% market share to fourth position, with a fee of 16%. He has Samsung not only; Also to Hisense and TCl. In recent years I have had the opportunity to Analyze several televisions Of these two Chinese brands, and objectively their technology is very competitive. In fact, they are not only intimidating South Korean companies; Japanese brands are also suffering. And a lot. Yuki Kusumi, the president of Panasonic, declared Yesterday that the company that leads is willing to part with its televisions manufacturing division. “We are prepared to sell it if necessary, but we have not yet decided,” Kusumi said. Panasonic has embarked In a deep business restructuring which seeks to increase its medium -term competitiveness and enhance its agility when making decisions to adapt to the market. A last interesting note: for 2024 the Chinese televisions manufacturers with TCL and Hisense at the head managed to get More than 50% of the Japanese market. More information | Forbes | Nikkei Asia In Xataka | Panasonic has ready its two 2025 flagship televisions. And one of them is committed to a spectacular OLED panel

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