factories

Something has gone wrong in the European automotive industry. The conflict over Nexperia already threatens to paralyze factories

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The European automotive industry is beginning to tighten. Manufacturers have received a clear signal that something is not right: Nexperia, one of the main chip suppliers, can no longer guarantee deliveries. Sector associations warn that the room for maneuver is very limited. This is not a technical problem or a strike, but rather the chain effect of an international dispute that threatens to affect the very foundations of a key industry for the Old Continent. It was on October 16 when the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) officially warned of possible production stoppages if the Nexperia supply interruption was not resolved immediately. According to ACEA, the affected chips are used in electronic control units and current inventories will only last a few weeks. The turning point: a blacklist. At the end of September there was a movement that many in the sector identify as the trigger for the current crisis. The United States Bureau of Industry and Security updated his List of Entities to extend restrictions to subsidiaries controlled by already sanctioned companies. Nexperia, owned by Wingtech, thus fell under the scope of the measures. Since then, tensions have accelerated: The Dutch Government intervened in the company and China responded by blocking the export of certain components. Now, Nexperia’s role in the automotive industry is less showy than that of the large chip manufacturers, but essential. Its chips are integrated into electronic modules and control units (ECUs) of many of the vehicles produced in Europe. The company, based in the Netherlands and with a strong presence in Asia, is characterized by its volume and reliability. Precisely for this reason, the inability to maintain deliveries has ignited both sides of the supply chain. The impact in Europe. Initial warnings have been transformed into contingency plans. ACEA calls for a coordinated response between European authorities and the affected countries, aware that the supply chain is going through a delicate point. In Germany, CNBC points outVolkswagen has formed a special team to evaluate possible risks and keep communications open with its suppliers. One of Nexperia’s facilities in Guangdong The company tries to gain margin with a new supplier. “We have an alternative supplier that could compensate for Nexperia’s lack of semiconductors,” explained to Handelsblatt Christian Vollmer, responsible for Production of the VW brand. According to the media, conversations with that company have been underway for weeks. Although the discovery gives some oxygen, the transition will not be immediate and the risk of interruptions remains on the table. The group assures that, for now, there is no operational impact, but they admit that the scenario could change in the short term. The echo crosses the Atlantic. Concern has also reached the United States. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which brings together manufacturers such as General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Volkswagen, called for a quick resolution of the conflict. Its CEO, John Bozzella, warned Reuters that if chip shipping “does not resume soon,” auto production “will be affected in the United States and other countries.” Some companies in the group recognize that their plants could notice the impact starting next month. Japan takes positions before the coup. Japan is also bracing for impact. The Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) explained that its members have received notifications from Nexperia warning of supply interruptions. According to the organization, the affected chips are part of the control systems of numerous models and their shortage could have consequences for global production. Mitsubishi Electric, which has had agreements with Nexperia since 2023, assured that it is already studying substitutes. A geopolitical board that is already sneaking onto the assembly line. The Nexperia case is no longer understood only as an industrial problem. The intervention of the Dutch Government and the confrontation with its Chinese subsidiary have turned the company into the new point of friction between Europe, Beijing and Washington. The Netherlands justified its decision by the need to protect the strategic supply of semiconductors, while China defended that its subsidiary acts in accordance with local legislation. At the center of the dispute, Nexperia is trying to maintain its activity under two increasingly opposing regulatory frameworks. The factories are on guard. The next few weeks will be decisive in measuring the real scope of the conflict. Manufacturers adjust their inventories and review alternative suppliers, while sector associations maintain diplomatic pressure to unblock the situation. From Sweden, Volvo Cars CEO Håkan Samuelsson explained to the Financial Times thatalthough his company, owned by the Chinese group Geely, does not face immediate problems, “there will be some factories that will have to stop.” He believes that the key is to react quickly and apply the lessons learned from the semiconductor crisis during the pandemic. Images | Nexperia | Caesar Salazar In Xataka | I also carried the bike in the car anyway. Until the DGT reminded me that it could fine me 200 euros

Russia has found a key advantage to multiply the range of its most lethal weapon in Ukraine: Chinese factories

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Last July Reuters was made with some documents that proved the scope of the help from Beijing to Moscow with the war in Ukraine as a backdrop. The proliferation of Russian drones was possible thanks to a system labeling called “industrial refrigeration units” during transportation, one that allowed sanctions imposed by the West to be bypassed through fictitious companies. Now we know something else: that there are entire factories dedicated to collaboration. The invisible industrial alliance. The war in Ukraine has entered a new phase in which Russia’s technological advantage on the battlefield increasingly depends on a network of factories and chinese suppliers. Although Beijing proclaims neutrality, the official customs data show a spectacular increase in exports of critical components (especially fiber optic cables and batteries lithium-ion) that have allowed Moscow to mass-build the wired drones that are transforming the balance of power on the front. These aircraft, operated through ultra-fine glass threads that unwind in flight up to more than twenty kilometers, They are almost immune to electronic warfare and have managed to breach Ukrainian defenses with an efficiency reminiscent of a silent industrial evolution. The Chinese quantitative leap. How much? counted the Washington Post that between May and August, Chinese exports of fiber optic cables to Russia multiplied tenfold, reaching 528,000 kilometers per month, while shipments of lithium-ion batteries climbed to $54 million. In contrast, Ukraine barely received a few tens of km of cable and a testimonial volume of batteries. For analysts, this asymmetry it is not coincidental: China has restricted the transfer of technologies to kyiv and its allies, but has opened the floodgates of the flow towards Moscowtransforming what were simple commercial components into decisive pieces of the Russian war machine. The combination of low cost, high production capacity and speed in developing prototypes makes Chinese factories a material extension of the Kremlin’s war effort, a “precision rearguard” capable of sustaining the offensive even under Western sanctions. The weapon against electronic chaos. we have been counting. Faced with Ukrainian dominance in FPV drones, Russia has found fiber optic models a devastating tool. As they do not depend on radio frequencies, these devices are impossible to block through interference, and their wiring guarantees total control even in environments saturated with electronic warfare. Moscow uses them to destroy logistics lines, command centers and jamming equipment before launching offensives terrestrial. Its scope (coinciding with the advances measured “by sections of cable”) illustrates how this technology defines the very geometry of the front. Since the Ukrainian withdrawal in the Kursk region, wired drones have been the protagonists of precision attacks, such as the registered in Kramatorsk on October 5, cementing a pattern of warfare in which electronic resistance has become useless. The new factories of conflict. After the withdrawal of the giant DJI of the Russian market in 2022, a constellation of minor Chinese manufacturers has taken up its space. Companies like Shenzhen Huaxin Energy either Nasmin Technologyofficially dedicated to civil products, have become major suppliers of batteries and motors for Russian assemblers. The signature Rustakt LLCone of the largest in the Russian military sector, imported from China more than 577 million dollars in pieces between July 2023 and December of the same year, a volume that reveals the scale of covert industrial support. In turn, Russian manufacturers as ASFPV or Stribog exhibit on their websites production lines located in Chinese territorywith personnel, machinery and labels in Mandarin, manufacturing ultralight coils 0.28 mm and 20 km range designed by Chinese engineers. It is a transnational industrial network that no contracts needed formal military to nourish the Russian war effort: the flow of trade is its camouflage. The dilemma of the West. We have also been counting. Despite the sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union, the majority of these shipments are protected by the ambiguity of the products “dual use”whose civil application allows controls to be avoided. For NATO, China has become a “decisive facilitator” of Putin’s war, Brussels accuses it of selectively applying its own export rules and to tolerate traffic of components that supports the Russian military industry. Beijing, meanwhile, continues to proclaim its neutrality, while its industrial system benefits economically from the prolongation of the conflict. Its strategy is subtle but effective: it does not supply weapons, but the infrastructure that makes them possible. A strategic advantage. Taken together, the convergence between Russian ingenuity and Chinese manufacturing capacity has created a war ecosystem that combines improvisation with industrial efficiency. The fiber drones optics symbolize that symbiosis: cheap, adaptable and difficult to counter. By providing Russia with technological independence from sanctions and tactical superiority on the battlefield, China not only strengthens its strategic partner, but also redefines global balance of power around a new form of hybrid warfare, where factories and cables count as much as missiles. The result is a cumulative advantage that, in the long term, threatens to turn the Ukrainian front into a manufactured warfare laboratorysupported not so much by soldiers, but by production lines on the other side of the world. Image | Ukraine Mod, Ministry of Defense Ukraine In Xataka | Europe has found the antidote to Russian drones. So demand for a 100-year-old gun has skyrocketed In Xataka | Europe has been working for three years to isolate itself from Russian gas. Two countries have decided to build a direct gas pipeline to Russia

China’s biggest problem is not the US. It is a “virus” that advances at an unprecedented speed and threatens to empty its factories

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In September, and in front to a data offered by the United Nations that put the future of the Chinese economy in check, Beijing defended itself with an opportunity for the future: the AI. In between, it remained to be seen who was right. Because the main problem of the economy that pull the strings of the planet are pure mathematics applied to a near and most uncertain future. One that indicates that, sooner rather than later, its population will to plummet. Against oneself. The demographic crisis that shakes China today is, to a large extent, the result of a policy that worked too well: the birth control campaign begun in the seventies and crystallized in the policy of only child 1979. What began as a state intervention to contain population growth that was considered unsustainable ended up shaping behaviors, expectations, and family structures for generations. Sterilizations, fines and forced abortions not only birth numbers reducedbut they inhibited the cultural habit of mass reproduction, and when the State began to relax the rules (allowing two children in 2016 and three in 2021) the social response was no longer the same: the fertility rate fell from 1.77 children per woman in 2016 up to 1.12 in 2021and the timid incentive measures have barely reversed the curve. The real cost of breeding. Behind the numbers there are everyday decisions. The economic calculation of starting a family in China is, as in so many other places, considerable: studies estimate that raising a child from birth to the end of their college education can cost on average about $75,000and in cities like Shanghai that figure shoots up to approximately $140,000. These prices, together with long work daysmarket expensive housing and professional expectations, explain why many young people (especially women) they choose not to have children. Surveys and testimonials collected show that for many people motherhood today is equivalent to a professional and personal resignation that they are not willing to assume: “I don’t want to think about sacrificing my life,” summarizes an executive from Hangzhou in the Washington Postand that plea for time and personal autonomy is one of the reasons why symbolic subsidies from the government (for example, some 500 dollars a year for the first three years) are insufficient to reverse the trend. Without weddings and solutions. we have been counting. Demographic decline is accelerated by fall of marriage: in 2024 just 6.1 million of couples registered their union, compared to 13.5 million in 2013, a data that works as predictor of future births when the rate of births outside of marriage is marginal. The State not only offers economic incentives and university courses about “how to flirt”, but has returned to intrusive behavior: officials pressure newlyweds about your plans of pregnancy and control the conversation public about marriage in the media. It is a gesture of urgency that clashes with the autonomy of generation Z, increasingly individualisticfor which getting married and procreating are no longer social mandates but options (among many). That tension between pronatalist policy and cultural change explains why coercive measures of the past do not seem to translate into higher births today. Accelerated aging. While fewer Chinese are born, the older population continues to grow: Life expectancy rises and the population pyramid inverts, which poses a brutal rebalancing in public accounts. Projections indicate that in the coming decades the proportion of elderly will doublewith colossal pressure on pensions, healthcare and long-term care financed by an increasingly narrow contributor base. Demographers warn that this phenomenon can trigger a vicious circle: more resources allocated to the elderly imply less public support for young families, which further reduces fertility. By 2100, according to calculations by international organizations, there will be more people out of working life than within it, a scenario with economic and political implications of systemic scope. The factory of the world shrinks. The problem is not only quantitative but qualitative: the workforce that made China the factory of the planet (born between 1960 and 1980, with a disposition for industrial jobs) has no substitute culture in later generations that they avoid factory work. At the same time, the proportion of Chinese manufacturing in the world total (today located around 30%) will necessarily be reduced if demographics exhaust the labor supply. The official short-term answer is automationbetting on robots and investment in productivity, but substitution does not work the same in all sectors: services, care and certain labor-intensive branches will continue to demand humans. The consequence is that manufacturing companies already they detect competitive pressure in prices and labor costs, and some observers point out that the industrial replacement could move to India, Southeast Asia, Mexico or Eastern Europe, with a multiplier effect on global supply chains. Politics and resistance to foreigners. They remembered in the post that a lever that in other countries would alleviate the labor force deficit (immigration) crashes in China with taboos of cultural homogeneity and political considerations that make the adoption of broad immigration policies difficult. That forces the government’s options and forces it to rely on internal incentives and in robotization. The strain between the economic need for labor and the preference to maintain cultural cohesion places Beijing in a strategic dilemma: either it embraces broader migrations (with all the integration challenges that this would imply) or it accelerates productive reconversion and the displacement of sectors that depend less on the labor factor. State measures. Faced with the abyss, Beijing has been introducing measures: relaxation of family policysubsidies, public campaigns for promote marriage and birth rate, and tax programs limited. But the experts they underline that late policies rarely reorder behaviors already fixed for decades. Louise Loo and other economists they estimate that reducing the workforce could take away about 0.5 points percentages to annual GDP growth in the next decade, a bite significant for an economy that needs to grow to absorb debts and finance its modernization. The challenge is that demographics act over long periods of time: cohorts born today … Read more

In the nineties, no one saw how the Internet would starve factories. Thirty years later, AI is doing the same thing

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On the one hand, the United States government is trying to reverse three decades of deindustrialization with tariffs on China. On the other hand, investment in AI is recreating exactly the phenomenon that destroyed part of the American industry in the 1990s. History repeats itself, but this time knowing what is going to happen. Why is it important. Derek Thompson, business reporter for The Atlantic, has identified a pattern that rewrites what we thought we knew about American industrial decline. China not only stole jobs but American capital abandoned them early. In an interview with the investor Paul Kedrosky for his podcast Plain EnglishThompson presents his thesis: In the nineties, the massive deployment of the Internet and telecommunications absorbed brutal amounts of money. That money had to come from somewhere. He left the factories. Small manufacturers saw financing becoming increasingly more expensive. Just at that time, China was entering the World Trade Organization and trade barriers were falling. It wasn’t bad luck. It was cause and effect. The context. Technology companies are going to spend about $400 billion this year building infrastructure for AI. To put it in perspective: the Apollo program that took the United States to the Moon cost about 300 billion adjusting for inflation. That was ten years. This is a year. Data centers have accounted for half of US economic growth in the first six months of 2025. The forecast is that investment exceeds 500,000 million annually in 2026 and 2027. Meanwhile, American consumers are spending $12 billion a year on AI services. The difference between what is invested and what is earned is abysmal. The panoramic. The problem is structural. If you manage an investment fund with 500,000 million, you have two options: You can distribute that money among a hundred small factories that need five million each. Or you can write ten $50 billion checks to AI projects. The first option means managing a hundred different companies. Sit on dozens of tips. Do constant monitoring. The second means ten meetings a year. The choice is obvious. A manufacturer that wants to take advantage of the moment to bring production back to the US finds that borrowing money is very expensive. Banks compare their project with the returns that AI promises. There is no color. The irony. Trump has built his economic policy on tariffs that force companies to manufacture in the US. But investment in AI is making it more expensive exactly what the tariffs are trying to make cheaper: producing locally. Tariffs raise the price of importing from China. AI raises the cost of financing local production. The net effect may be zero for the industry, but with higher prices for everyone. The figures. Building a modern data center involves… That 60% of the budget goes to NVIDIA chips. The rest is divided between refrigeration, electricity and construction. The physical building is the cheapest part. Geography also counts. Northern Virginia concentrates a good part of the investment. Areas that were rural ten years ago are now surrounded by industrial facilities that operate 24 hours a day. Yes, but. There is a way out that did not exist in the nineties: set up data centers outside the United States. India and the Middle East are receiving huge investments because electricity is cheaper and your neighbors, ahem, complain less. But that makes the original problem worse. If the money goes to data centers in other countries, there is even less left for American factories. Between the lines. Kedrosky uses a simile that sums it all up: a death star that absorbs capital. In the nineties that star was the Internet. Now it’s AI. The factories, in both cases, are collateral damage. The difference is that in the nineties no one saw it coming. Now yes. In Xataka | Spain has a railway giant in the shadows. And he just got the “contract of the century” Featured image | Cemrecan Yurtman

The entire planet looks intrigued at the cars factories of China and Morocco. Meanwhile, another power grows in the shadow: Türkiye

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The European Union has more than A year applying the “compensatory rights” to the Chinese electric vehicles. This rate really applies to all manufacturers they produce in China and then bring their cars to European soil. The goal? That companies manufacture in Europe. But if all eyes point to China, other countries make their way. Morocco is not the only one that is consolidating as the springboard Star to Europe: Türkiye is asking for a step. And it is not something that are taking advantage of Chinese brands: also European. Trampolines. The Chinese automotive industry has a simple objective: to conquer the world with its electric cars. Companies have experience, technology, ships to transport thousands of cars of a tacada and are leaders in the manufacture of the most important: The batteries. China has launched some strategies to meet that plan, such as expand its factories in Europe, associate with European companies and create Kits that are manufactured in ChinaThey are transported disassembled and remembered in the final car on European soil. But, they are also taking advantage of “empty” in those compensatory rights. The combustion car is its ‘Trojan horse’but also countries like Morocco and Türkiye. In both, the labor is cheaper than in Europe and most importantly: they have commercial treaties with the EU, which allows those ‘tariffs’ to skip. Touchstone. It is calculated that The investment in Morocco is about 10,000 million dollarsa figure that contemplates not only manufacturing, but also the exploitation of key minerals for battery production. Morocco has huge deposits and China does not want to miss another portion of a chain that dominates with iron fist. In the case of Türkiye, there are examples like Chery investing $ 1,000 million for a plant in Samsun that will have a production capacity of 200,000 electric and hybrid vehicles every year. SWM Motors too will open A plant in Eskisehir to create hybrids and gasoline, and Byd will have one of its biggest factories In the West in Manisa. Besides, Not only will they be dedicated to manufacturing: In the case of Byd we also talk about an R&D center. Not only China. But it’s not just that China looks at Türkiye: Europe does not lose sight of them either. Brands like Renault and some from Stellantis produce There models for both the local market and Europe (The new Clio, for example). Moreover, the European Union, through funds such as Horizon Europe, intended 1,000 million euros in the 2021-2027 framework for the development of the automotive sector in Türkiye, especially for electric mobility, the development of load infrastructure and initiatives such as the manufacturing and recycling of batteries. Win-Win. Obviously, the situation is beneficial for all parties. On the one hand, China wins a springboard to European soil and the possibility of introducing their cars at very attractive prices in a local market that is upwards. The estimate is that Türkiye is the Major Market Fourth of electric cars for sales in Europe during the first half of 2025, only behind Germany, the United Kingdom and France. This is something favored by the State thanks to reductions and a series of advantageous tax conditions and tax exemptions if an electric car is purchased. And Türkiye, with that money, promotes the transformation of the sector with new R&D centers and strategic agreements with Europe to further reinforce its position. Toggg. And eye, Türkiye, Following The example of Europe put an aggressive tariff on Chinese electric cars, but with a condition: if manufacturers began to invest in local production facilities, they would be exempt from that import tax. But in all this there is an asterisk: Chinese companies, with their high capitalization and strong technology, can offer advanced vehicles at very competitive prices that overwhelm local producers like Toggg. There are already those who points That this competition, instead of healthy, could suppress the growth of the local ecosystem, being a danger if, at some point, Chinese companies decide to leave the market. And the United States? Apart from this issue, it is evident that the country is playing its letters well as the “bridge” between the East and West is, also in terms of critical raw materials to create batteries –part of the rare earth that China controls-. And, if you are wondering what happens to American companies, the truth is that their giants are not investing directly in Türkiye, but they are doing it through the calls Joint Ventures. They do not want to make too much outside the United States (something that recent tariff Otosan to create cars on Turkish soil and sell them both in that market and in the Middle East. In the end, as they say, a scrambled river, fishermen’s gain. And everything indicates that Morocco and Türkiye are those fishermen. In Xataka | Family and friends keep asking me if “it is worth buying a Chinese car.” This is my answer

There are more robots working in Chinese factories than in the rest of the world together. Beijing’s strategy is already a blow of global authority

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Close your eyes for a moment and imagine The country with more robots in its factories. The logical thing would be to think of Japan, and not a few would also include the United States in the quiniela. However, the most recent figures point out another destination and do it clearly: China, where robotics has ceased to be an experiment to become the daily pulse of production. It should be specified from the start: we do not talk about showcase humanoids, but of industrial welding robots, manipulation and assembly, which are transforming how it is already manufactured what speed. The last report From the International Robotics Federation offers the clearest photograph of this phenomenon. In 2024 alone, Chinese factories installed about 300,000 industrial robots, a figure higher than the rest of the combined world. In parallel, the total park exceeded two million active units, well above any competitor. In contrast, the United States added 34,000 new robots in its production and Japan lines around 44,000, confirming the magnitude of the Chinese jump. China not only competes, already dominates China’s hegemony in industrial robotics has not appeared out of nowhere. Since 2017, its factories have installed Between 145,000 and 295,000 annual robotswith a especially strong jump from 2021. Pandemia barely slowed that progression, and in 2024 the figure was again located around 300,000 units. In contrast, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Germany not only started from much more modest volumes, but also registered declines in the last statistics. The next step in the Chinese strategy was not only to install robots, but to manufacture them on a large scale. For the first time, Chinese suppliers sold more than foreigners in their own market: 57% of the 2024 facilities were of local origin. On a global scale, Japan remains the main manufacturing country (around 38% of the world supply, according to IFR). This turn reduces dependence, although it does not equals full technological autonomy Chinese industrial policy has been decisive to accelerate the transition to automation. The initiative Made in China 2025 marked the first great milestone in 2015, with the aim of REducate dependence of imports in key sectors. Six years later, in 2021, the country adopted a specific plan to multiply the deployment of industrial robots. This planning added loans at low interest from state banks and support for technological purchases abroad. The result has been a fertile terrain for the expansion of Chinese robotics. When talking about robotics, the most common image is that of humanoids as Optimus either Figure. However, the figures that place China in the lead correspond only to industrial robots: mechanical arms that weld, assemble or move materials in the production line. The report leaves humanoids out, still in an experimental phase and with very small sales. Even so, the state impulse has generated an ecosystem of humanoid -centered startups, such as UNITREEalthough its weight in the industry remains marginal. The figures that place China in the lead correspond only to industrial robots. The integration of artificial intelligence into the factory is not exclusive to China: Japan, South Korea, Germany or the United States also apply with vision systemsautomated failures and quality control algorithms. What distinguishes Beijing is the scale with which this practice has spread, until it becomes a usual component of its industrial strategy. In many plants, the AI ​​monitors real -time machines, anticipates breakdowns and adjusts processes. This broader and more coordinated deployment has multiplied the impact of automation. The technological jump also depends on the people who make it possible. China has a large number of specialized technicians, from programmers to industrial electricians, capable of installing and maintaining robots in complex environments. Even so, the demand exceeds the supply and salaries of the installers have shot, already around $ 60,000. This talent gap reflects a global bottleneck: automation does not advance with capital and machines, it needs professionals who integrate it into the factory. Chinese leadership in industrial robotics still has clear borders. Although the country already manufactures a third of world robots, it continues to depend on foreign supplies for some key components. High precision sensors and advanced semiconductorsfor example, they are still domain from Japan and Germany, with decades of technological advantage. This deficit limits China’s ability to assemble higher range robots, especially humanoids. Even with a thriving ecosystem, technological autonomy is not yet complete and marks one of Beijing’s pending challenges. Although China continues to depend on foreign suppliers, the weight of its market already conditions global dynamics. By producing and installing more robots than anyone, it achieves economies of scale that reduce automation projects and pressing international prices. Its volume also gives it the capacity to influence technical standards and equipment interoperability. In the supply chain, the center of gravity moves to Asia, forcing other countries to adapt to an ecosystem in which China marks the rhythm, even without still controlling all technology. The map of industrial robotics is no longer understood without China in the center. In the next two years, the attention will be to verify whether to reduce its dependence on key components and if it maintains the rhythm of 300,000 new annual facilities. Beijing does not hide that he wants to extend this model to emerging sectors such as humanoids and reinforce their weight in global chains. For the rest of the world, the question is not whether China will continue to lead in volumebut how to respond to a strategy that combines scale, industrial policy and technological ambition. Images | Simon Kadula | Arthur Wang In Xataka | Qualcomm believes that the 6G will be the final network for AI and has already set it: the reality is that 5G is still in diapers

Now he wants to turn off factories to save his industry

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China is the undisputed leader of world solar energy. Its factories produce almost 90% of the solar cells of the planet and have left European and American competitors out of play. But that overwhelming domain has resulted in a monumental problem: prices for soils, millionaire losses and an excess of panels that the world does not need. Now Beijing prepares a shock plan to “reset” its solar industry. The solar bubble exploded. Between 2020 and 2023, Beijing redirected resources from the real estate sector to what he baptized as “the three new growth industries”: solar panels, electric cars and batteries. The result resulted in a flood of factories and an unprecedented production. In a report for Financial Timesthe Asian giant has registered a manufacture of 588 GW of solar cells last year, more than double the 451GW world demand. The immediate consequence was a price collapse: companies sold below cost to release stock, What caused losses With more than 60,000 million dollars. The solar grade polisilicio – key premium material – sank up to about 50 yuan per kilo. In addition, the social impact was not less. The five largest photovoltaic companies They reduced their templates in 31 %, which represents 87,000 silent layoffs. Of success to venom. The diagnosis is clear: excess capacity and wild competence. What once was the recipe of success – hipercompetitiveness and mass production – has ended in a downward race. Bo Zhengyuan analyst He explained it at FT: “That same ‘animal spirit’ that succeeded in industry is now destroying it.” In addition, the state strategy played a central role. The central government encouraged factories and solar parks as a growth engine, while provincial governments, evaluated by employment and production, resisted any closure of deficit plants. The self -regulation attempt did not work either. In 2024, giants such as Longi, Tongwei and Ja Solar signed a “self -discipline” pact to limit production, imitating oil OPEC. But the agreement was not binding, and while some expected others to fulfill, many increased their production further to gain market share. The result was the opposite: historical excess of supply and sunken balances. Beijing’s plan. With the sector in red numbers, Beijing has decided to intervene. According to Bloomberglarge producers, with state support, plan a fund of at least 50,000 million yuan (7,000 million dollars) to acquire and close more than one million tons of polysilicio capacity. The movement seeks an immediate objective: stabilize prices. Ming Yang, Financial Director of Daqo New Energy, has declared Bloomberg that the sector “already touched background” and should return to profitability before the end of the year. His words were enough for solar actions to shoot: Daqo rose 14 % in Shanghai and the sector dominated the highest increases in the CSI 300 index. In parallel, Gcl Technology proposed to close a third of the industry’s capacity. Its financial director He has recognized Reuters There are no guarantees that the reform is implemented this year, but acknowledged that Spot prices have already begun to rise after the signal of regulators to curb “excessively low” sales. For its part, the Ministry of Industry has summoned executives from 14 companies to demand the closure of underutilized factories and promised stricter controls on new environmental projects and requirements, As Financial Times has pointed out. A geopolitical and technological dilemma. The Chinese solar reset not only has an economic, but also political and geostrategic dimension. According to FTon the one hand, the avalanche of cheap exports has tensed relations with the United States and Europe, while Beijing continues to promote sales to developing countries within its Strip and Route initiative. On the other hand, the sector has not stopped its technological commitment. Despite the losses, the six largest companies invested 3.4 billion yuan in R&D in the first half of 2025 and maintain almost 17,000 employees dedicated to research. In just five years, the conversion efficiency of solar cells has gone from 20 % to 30 %, According to UBS cited in the British media. But the paradox persists: analysts They estimate that it would be necessary to eliminate Between 20% and 30% of the production capacity for companies to be profitable again. An adjustment of this caliber collides with the interests of the provincial governments, which depend on local employment and investment, which complicates the execution of the plan. The light and the shadow of leadership. China built its solar hegemony with speed, scale and low prices. That same recipe today with destroying it. The country faces an uncomfortable decision: let the ultra -opening continue to sink its champions or assume a painful adjustment that closes factories and entertain prices. “In no other sector dominate more than in this one,” Economist Alicia García-Herrero has warned FT. Precisely because of that, Beijing seems willing to reset his sun, although it hurts. Only in this way can it prevent its greatest success story from becoming another victim of its own excess. Image | Unspash Xataka | China broke the solar panel market. Now their companies have had to say goodbye to a third of their employees

Taking the Chinese machines out of their factories

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TSMC and the US government have been stormy relationship for many years. Probably since this Taiwanese chips manufacturer, The Major on the Planetsnatched the leadership of the semiconductor production industry to Intel. “Our goal is to be number 1. Without exception. And to be it you have to spend three times more than your next competitor. ” Morris Changthe founder of TSMC, He pronounced these words In 1997. Intel dominated the chips industry. Currently the market share of this Asian company Broken 60% And in its client portfolio Nvidia, Apple, AMD, Broadcom or Qualcomm, among other US companies are sheltered. This is the reason why the US market is very important for TSMC. However, today This country cannot do without this company. Intel It has advanced lithography nodesbut the competitiveness of his Taiwanese rival is difficult to match. Even so, the Trump administration is exerting pressure on TSMC difficult to support. TSMC has decided to stop using Chinese machines in its avant -garde nodes He has just confirmed it Nikkei Asia. According to this means of Japanese communication, the TSMC Board of Directors has decided to stop using wafering processing equipment of Chinese origin in its most advanced lithography nodes. Its integrated circuit manufacturing plants are full of machines of the Dutch company ASMLthe Japanese Tokyo Electron and the American Apply materialsbut TSMC also uses Chinese equipment. TSMC is a customer at least of the Amyc and Mattson Technology companies Pulin Technology, Naura Technology, Amec (Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. China), Mattson Technology or Piotech Inc. are some of the Chinese manufacturers of lithography equipment and most important wafering processing machines. TSMC is customer At least from Amec and Mattson Technologybut it seems that it will not be for a long time. The decision to dispense with their machines seeks to avoid possible US restrictions that could in interrupt the production of semiconductors. Until now the US government He is doing everything in his hand to prevent the most advanced chip manufacturing equipment from arriving in China, but, according to Nikkei AsiaHe is about to take another step. And it is that several US legislators led by Senator Mark Kelly have proposed to put a law that will prohibit companies that receive federal support and tax loans buy teams of “worrying foreign entities.” There is no doubt that they are very serious. Otherwise TSMC, which He has received subsidies of the US administration, I would not have made this decision even before Senator Kelly’s law thrives. More information | Nikkei Asia In Xataka | Intel was about to snatch Apple as a client from TSMC. Having achieved its story would be another

Intel is closer than ever to be chopped. A giant is interested in buying its chips factories

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The possibility of intelid for a long time. Two years before get out of this companyPat Gelsinger, the former Director General of Intel, He acknowledged that he saw with good eyes The possibility that the network of integrated circuit factories is somewhat broken down from the company’s matrix. At that time, More than three years agothis was already an interesting option to increase the competitiveness of its chips production plants, and in current circumstances it seems even more advantageous. At the beginning of last April Reuters and The Information assured that the Board of Directors of Intel and TSMC had reached a principle of agreement that was pursuing to constitute a joint company that would be responsible for the management of Intel semiconductor factories. Its plan was that TSMC would have a 20% participation in the new company, so presumably Intel would maintain a majority participation. Finally, this initiative did not come to fruition, but the possibility of splitting the Intel chips factories of the company’s matrix is still on the table. And now it is the Japanese investment group SoftBank who, According to Financial Timesis interested in controlling the Intel Integrated Circuit Production Infrastructure. SoftBank has something very important: the support of the US government As we explain yesterday, SoftBank has injected into Intel 2,000 million dollars, which has consolidated it as the sixth main shareholder of this company. According to Reutersthis Japanese company has promised not to participate in the Board of Directors, and it will not buy integrated circuits produced by this American chip manufacturer. However, SoftBank’s plan does not end here. And is that, According to Financial TimesMasayoshi Son, the general director of this investment group, is interested in Intel chips factories. SoftBank has promised not to participate in the Board of Directors of Intel In fact, again according to this means of communication of British origin but currently in the hands of the Japanese company Nikkei Inc., before formalizing the injection of 2,000 million dollars in Intel, SoftBank communicated to the board of directors of this company its interest in its interest in Buy the full semiconductor production subsidiary. A priori it is reasonable to anticipate that the US government would not see with good eyes that a foreign company is done with the total control of Intel chips factories, but SoftBank is not any company. The most important initiative of how many has launched the Trump administration to protect US leadership in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) is The Stargate project. And this plan is led by an American company, Openai, and another Japanese: SoftBank. The company directed by Sam Altman is responsible, in broad strokes, for the development of technology and infrastructure management. And Masayoshi’s company are responsible for financial administration. Stargate will cost no less than 500,000 million dollarsand it is evident that the US government Trust SoftBank. During the next few weeks we will check if the purchase of Intel Prosper Chips factories, but all likelihood the administration will not be an obstacle. Image | Intel More information | Financial Times In Xataka | The next revolution of the chips is approaching. Intel, Samsung, TSMC and AMD already work on glass substrates

thousands of layoffs and goodbye to factories in three countries

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It is no secret that Intel is going through a complicated stage. The historic processor firm It has been dealing with a crisis for years that can no longer hide, and whose consequences begin to become visible. Since last March 18, the new CEO, Lip-bu Tan, has taken the helm After the departure of Pat Gelsinger. And he has done it with decisions that mark a turning point. The layoffs are only part of the plan: what comes behind points to a deeper transformation. A silent cut (and wide) Intel has not announced dismissals as such. But just read between the lines. In its financial report of the second quarter of 2025the company makes it clear that its goal is to end the year with a template of some 75,000 employees. That is a significant reduction with respect to the 99,500 workers with whom it closed 2024, According to Reuters data. In that interval there were already discreet cuts – Intel himself speaks of “template actions” already completed -, so the exact number of layoffs cannot be specified. But the magnitude of the cut speaks for itself. The plan is part of a broader strategy to reduce operating expenses, gain agility and improve efficiency. In fact, the company has recognized 1.9 billion dollars in restructuring positions only in the second quarter, and those measures are already directly affecting its global operations network. Intel adjustment is not limited to reducing template. He has also begun to cut his presence in countries where he had key projects in progress. In Germany and Polandthe company has decided not to move forward with the expansion plans announced in recent years. They were strategic movements with which he sought to strengthen his manufacturing capacity in Europe, but now they are left out of the new map. In Costa Rica, the withdrawal goes one step further. Intel will consolidate its assembly and test operations, moving part of the activity to larger centers that it already has in Vietnam and Malaysia. The message between the lines is clear: less dispersion, more cost control. The company has also announced that it will slow the works in Ohio, one of its star projects in the United States to adapt the expense rhythm to the real market demand. It remains to be seen if that turn will be enough to recover land in front of rivals such as AMD, NVIDIA or TSMC, who have not stopped gaining muscle while Intel retreated. For now, the steps that are taking a transformation process that will be long, uncomfortable and With global implications. Because when a company like Intel shrinks, it is not only about numbers: it is an impact. Images | Intel | Thufeil m In Xataka | Intel’s fall symbolizes the end of an era: the model that dominated technology for 50 years has died

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