gigantic

Waymo’s ambitious plan to turn its batteries into gigantic solar powerbanks

by

The electric car industry has been grappling with an elephant in the room for years: what to do with the millions of battery packs that, while no longer useful to power a vehicle, still retain enormous energy capacity. Now, the answer could come with autonomous driving. Waymo has formalized a strategic agreement with the company B2U Storage Solutions to give a “second life” to the spent batteries of their robotaxis, preventing them from ending up directly in recycling plants to convert them into gigantic solar energy storage systems. The paradox of the robotaxi. To understand why this movement is so relevant, you have to understand how an autonomous car ages. As detailed Wall Street Journalthe life of a robotaxi is nothing like that of a private car. While our personal vehicles spend most of the day parked, Waymo vehicles operate as high-use shared assets. In statements to the financial newspaper, Adam Lenz, director of sustainability at Waymo, explained that this high utilization causes its cars to accumulate kilometers at a dizzying rate, forcing the batteries to be removed from commercial service much earlier than usual. According to data from Geotaba consumer electric car loses just 2.3% of battery capacity per year, retaining more than 81% after eight years of use. Robotaxis, however, suffer much more rapid degradation. But just because a battery no longer offers the range needed to safely carry passengers doesn’t mean it’s dead. The new business model seeks to squeeze the residual value of these batteries to use them in stationary applications, avoiding waste and taking advantage of critical materials that have already been manufactured. “Energy sponges.” When Waymo vehicles can no longer perform, B2U removes the batteries, tests their performance, and packages them in large metal cabinets about 2.7 meters high, similar to small shipping containers. Each of these containers houses dozens of units. From there, they function as true “energy sponges” for the electrical grid. During the day, when there is plenty of sun or wind and prices are low, the system absorbs and stores that electricity. It then injects that energy back into the grid during nighttime demand peaks, just when solar production drops. The economic and energy impact is notable. Freeman Hall, CEO of B2U, details that each reused battery can add between $8,000 and $10,000 in electrical value. Additionally, a single storage container has enough capacity to supply an average home for up to three months. Although Waymo has not specified an exact number of units, the goal in the long term it is to deploy “hundreds of megawatt-hours” of capacity, concentrating initial efforts in California and Texas, two states with great dependence and growth in renewable energy. The figures of an unstoppable fleet. As detailed Ars TechnicaWaymo currently operates about 4,000 vehicles, mainly consisting of Jaguar I-Pace with 90 kWh batteries, to which are being added the new “Ojai” models from the Chinese manufacturer Zeekr, equipped with 93 kWh batteries. This fleet makes about 500,000 trips a week, a rate that will only grow: the Wall Street Journal cites Morgan Stanley estimate which predicts that autonomous journeys in the US will go from 15 million in 2025 to 36 million at the end of this year. However, Waymo’s purely “green” narrative has its chiaroscuros, and the specialized press does not ignore them. Ars Technica Enter critical and necessary information: Although the company assures that its electric fleet avoids 530 tons of CO2 every half a million trips, its recent landing in Austin (Texas) together with Uber raised blisters. There, they used mobile generators from the company L-Charge powered by natural gas to recharge the robotaxis, which generated neighborhood complaints about noise and highlighted the logistical difficulties of operating electric vehicles without adequate charging infrastructure. On the other hand, companies like Redwood Materials (backed by Waymo’s own parent company, Alphabet) are also launching their own second-life storage divisions. All this occurs in a context of absolute record: in the first quarter of 2026, the US installed 9.7 GWh of stationary storage, an increase of 32% year-on-year. Beyond the green posturing. In short, this agreement seals a perfect urban circularity. As Adam Lenz reflectsthe same batteries that today transport passengers through their streets, tomorrow will be supporting the local electrical networks of those same communities. However, behind the obvious environmental benefit is a movement of pure business strategy: this is not just green philanthropy. Waymo depends on the electrical grids of the cities where it operates to be stable and robust to be able to keep its fleets operational 24/7. In the age of mass automation, shoring up the electrical grid with batteries from your own retired cars is no longer just an ecological medal; It is a strict necessity of business survival. Image | Daniel Ramirez Xataka | A man ordered a Waymo to go to the airport. When he got there he ran into a problem: the trunk wouldn’t open.

A gigantic tunnel boring machine 16 meters in diameter is devouring the sea floor under Genoa. It is your solution against traffic

by

Under the port of Genoa, the largest in Italy, there is a machine that aims to devour the sea floor meter by meter. And it does so from the bowels of the earth, 45 meters deep and without interrupting the traffic that passes above it every day. The key is a 16 meter diameter tunnel boring machine that is drilling into the seabed like butter. This is how Italy is solving one of its most entrenched mobility problems, and in the process building the first underwater tunnel of the history of the country. A problem that has been unsolved for decades. Genoa is a city trapped between the Mediterranean Sea and the foothills of the Apennines. It has no room to grow. Its historic center is a labyrinth of narrow streets, and east-west traffic has always been a headache. The solution adopted in the 1960s was to build a gigantic elevated highway, the Sopraelevata Aldo Moro, which crosses the city like a concrete scar. for her About 80,000 vehicles pass through each daybut at a high price: it blocks the view of the sea, generates constant noise and, for many citizens, is a barrier that separates the city from its own port. Its demolition has been stalled for years because no one knows what to do with that traffic in the meantime. Tragedy. The tunnel project was born from an agreement between Autostrade per l’Italia, the Italian Ministry of Transport and local administrations as compensation to the city after the collapse of the Morandi bridge in 2018. That collapse, which claimed 43 lives, left Genoa without one of its main accesses and put the highway concessionaire company under the spotlight. As part of the repair agreement, signed in October 2021, Autostrade per l’Italia, the Liguria Region, the Western Ligure Sea Port System Authority and the Municipality of Genoa agreed to build this underwater tunnel. It is, in practice, the great work of compensation for a city that suffered a tragedy. What is being built. The total route is 4.2 kilometers, of which 3.4 run under the sea floor. It will consist of two separate galleries, one in each direction, each 16 meters in diameter, and will reach a maximum depth of 45 meters below sea level. When completed, it is expected to be Italy’s first underwater tunnel, the largest in Europe (with pardon is being built between Germany and Denmark) and the fourth largest in the world by diameter. Next to nothing. The key: a Hydroshield TBM. Excavating under an active port without interrupting its activity is a monumental challenge. The solution is a TBM tunnel boring machine (Tunnel Boring Machine) Hydroshield type. Each of the two main galleries will be constructed by mechanized excavation with a Hydroshield type back-pressure armored TBM milling cutter, with an excavation diameter of approximately 16 meters. Why this type and not another? In a Hydroshield TBM, the balance in the excavation chamber is maintained through the pressure of water or bentonite slurrywhich stabilizes the excavation face. The extracted material is mixed with these sludge and transported to the surface through pipes. It is the ideal technology for unstable terrain with the presence of water: it allows you to continue drilling without the sea floor crumbling and without the sea entering the gallery. The port above is still working. The gallery measures 15.4 meters in diameter on the outside, but the useful space for circulation is somewhat less, 14.3 meters, because the walls are considerably thick. These walls are built by assembling prefabricated pieces of concrete, as if they were the staves of a giant barrel, joined together with screws and sealed with rubber gaskets so that water does not enter. As if that were not enough, an additional layer of concrete is added inside that further reinforces the impermeability, especially in the sections that are just below the port. The result is a practically airtight tube capable of withstanding the pressure of the sea on its walls. lto logistics of the work. You can’t just place a tunnel boring machine on the seabed and run it. First you have to prepare the ground. The tunnel boring machine was thrown from an attack pit in the San Benigno areaon the west side of the city. To free up that space, Autostrade first had to move a port railway line that ran through there. The railway route, about 700 meters long, has been moved about 70 meters to the south with respect to its previous position, running parallel to the port sopraelevata until passing under it in its final section. Deadlines. Preparation works started in 2023, and work began in March 2024. However, the full tender for the construction of the two main galleries was not approved until January 2026. The specifications set a period of 75 months to complete the entire work. According to the latest Autostrade documents, the TBM will complete excavation work in October 2030, with full completion of the work planned for 2031. Budget. The project started from a budget of 700 million euros, although the mayor of Genoa, Silvia Salis, confirmed that Autostrade now places the cost at more than 1,129 million euros. An escalation of costs that, according to the original agreement between the parties, is covered by a mechanism linked to national highway tolls. Transformation. When the tunnel is completed, it will allow the creation of new green areas (10 hectares, distributed in three public parks) and pedestrian routes that reconnect the city center with the sea. In the San Benigno area, on the new railway gallery already in use, the Lantern Park will be built, which will connect that sector with the city’s historic lighthouse through a bicycle and pedestrian path. In Xataka | Mexico touches the sky with a new and elegant skyscraper of 484 meters and 99 floors: it will be the tallest in all of Latin America

They measure 85 meters, have no anchors and are connected to Starlink: the gigantic "Roombas" sailors who want to save AI from the blackout

by

The rise of artificial intelligence is devouring the capacity of electrical grids around the world, skyrocketing consumption and carbon emissions. And this is just the beginning. As Garth Sheldon-Coulson, CEO of the startup Panthalassa, warned, in an interview with CBS News: “We are still at the beginning of this lawsuit.” To solve this bottleneck, the heaviest investors in the technology sector are looking to the sea. Peter Thiel, the controversial billionaire co-founder of Palantir and PayPal, just led a $140 million injection into Panthalassa. But what exactly is Panthalassa? To understand it, you have to erase the traditional image of an industrial warehouse full of servers. Sheldon-Coulson described it with a rather peculiar metaphor: “It’s like ‘a giant Roomba,’ an autonomous, self-propelled system that sails without anchors across the Pacific.” The anatomy of a marine colossus. Panthalassa will use this newly raised $140 million to complete its pilot plant in Oregon and accelerate the deployment of its new model, the Ocean-3which will be tested in the North Pacific in 2026 with a view to commercialization in 2027, as detailed ESG Today. We are not talking about small buoys. The proportions are colossal. As explained Financial Timesthese solid steel structures measure about 85 meters long. To give us an idea, they are almost as tall as the iconic Big Ben of London or the building Flatiron from New York. In Xataka There is a company that has grown 3,000% in the stock market, even beating the performance of Nvidia: Sandisk The engineering behind. Just as described Tom’s Hardwarethe nodes are shaped like a “lollipop”: a huge white sphere floats on the surface, while a long tubular structure submerges vertically under the water. As the waves pass, the structure rises and falls. This relative motion forces seawater up the pressurized tube into the spherical chamber, where it spins a turbine. Being a continuous cycle powered by an ocean that never stops, the system generates electricity 24 hours a day. But this is where the real twist of the project lies. Historically, the big problem with wave energy has been the enormous cost of laying underwater cables to bring electricity to the coast. According to GeekWirePanthalassa solves this in one fell swoop: it doesn’t send power to shore, but uses it directly on board to power the AI ​​chips. Once the information is processed, the results (inference tokens) are sent back to clients on the ground via low-orbit satellite connections, such as SpaceX’s Starlink network. The end of terrestrial bottlenecks. This approach represents a radical paradigm shift in technological infrastructure. “Panthalassa’s idea transforms a power transmission problem into a data transmission problem,” explains to Ars Technica Benjamin Lee, computer engineer and architect at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to inexhaustible energy, the ocean offers another vital advantage: cold. Traditional data centers spend fortunes and consume millions of liters of drinking water just to prevent servers from melting due to heat. On the high seas, the story is different. As detailed BusinessWirethe ocean provides “free supercooling,” solving one of the industry’s biggest engineering challenges and extending the life of chips. Added to this is the growing citizen resistance. As pointed out Tom’s Hardwarelocal communities are increasingly rejecting the construction of these huge land-based industrial warehouses due to noise, land grabbing and energy diversion. On the ocean, there are simply no neighbors to bother or urban planning plans to navigate. Besides, as highlighted Finance TimesBeing a closed water circuit without external engines or emissions, the impact on marine life is minimal, underpinning its ecological appeal. The challenge of taming the ocean. As revolutionary as the idea may sound, transforming the ocean into a global supercomputer has titanic obstacles: The connectivity bottleneck. As he warns Ars Technicarelying on satellites is fine for “inference” (i.e. returning real-time responses to ChatGPT users or similar), but satellites have limited bandwidth and latency. If multiple ocean nodes are required to coordinate to train a heavy AI model, satellite connectivity simply won’t measure up against traditional fiber optic cables. The fury of the sea. Data Center Dynamics emphasizes that these nodes They will have to survive extreme conditions: hurricanes, corrosive saltpeter and perpetual motion for more than a decade without human intervention or maintenance. They are not alone in the idea of ​​​​wetting the servers. According to Ars Technica, Microsoft has already tested submerging data centers in the seabed with its Project Natickand Chinese companies already operate underwater infrastructure near Hainan Island. However, Panthalassa is much bolder: being floating, autonomous nodes without grounded cables, they completely break the umbilical cord with the continental electrical grid. {“videoId”:”x9sjece”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”CHINA is WINNING the TECH WAR because they planned it that way 10 YEARS AGO”, “tag”:”china”, “duration”:”721″} A bet at the height of desperation. Despite investor optimism, transforming the Pacific into the next computing cloud will not be a cake walk. $210 million (the company’s total funding to date) may seem like an outrageous amount to throw servers into the sea, but it needs to be put into perspective. As highlighted Ars Technicathis figure is anecdotal if we consider that large American technology companies plan to spend $765 billion building terrestrial data centers in 2026 alone. Faced with the desperation of the sector – which has been exploring since reopen abandoned nuclear power plants until setting up servers powered by solar panels in space orbit—the option of floating in the ocean seems reasonable. The ultimate goal of Panthalassa, as shared by its CEOis to deploy thousands of these nodes far from the coasts. If they can tame the waves and satellite bottlenecks, they could have found the Holy Grail of AI: “The cheapest energy on the planet, infinite, clean and beyond the reach of Earth’s bureaucracy.” Image | Panthalassa Xataka | Old chips never die: companies that made “boring” chips are riding the dollar (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news They … Read more

The gigantic Mayrit tunnel boring machine makes its way through the underground of Madrid to transform Metro L11

by

It started on March 26 and in just over a month it has already left behind the first 200 meters of tunnel under the capital’s subsoil. The Mayrit tunnel boring machine advances towards Madrid Río with the objective of completing more than 5,200 meters of gallery before the end of 2027. And all to prepare the ground for the transformation of Metro L11. full throttle. The first month was slower than usual because the TBM was still in the adjustment phase. So has explained it the Department of Transport and Infrastructure of the Community of Madrid. And those first 200 meters have been drilled with the machine still running. However, from now on, Mayrit will reach its cruising speed: between 400 and 500 meters per month, which is equivalent to about 15 meters per day. What exactly is he doing underground. In addition to excavating (logically), as its cutting wheel, equipped with 54 discs, 172 picks and 24 battens, crushes the ground, the machine also places rings of concrete segments that form the final structure of the tunnel. At the same time, extracts about 3,500 tons of earth per day through conveyor belts that extend to the surface, where a hundred and a half trucks are responsible for transporting this material to landfills and disused mining operations. Transfer to the capital. Assembling a 98-meter-long, 1,500-ton machine at a depth of 27 meters is not a simple process. Mayrit was manufactured for 20 months in the German city of Schwana and traveled 2,000 kilometers by land and sea until reaching Madrid. Once here, it took 70 workers three months to assemble it piece by piece inside the future Comillas station. When does it stop and why? Mayrit works tirelessly 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in continuous shifts. But has scheduled stops. The first will be when it arrives at the future Madrid Río station, 1,114 meters from Comillas. There it will undergo a technical review of up to two weeks. Then he will repeat the process in Palos de la Frontera, Atocha and, finally, Conde de Casal. It can also stop at any intermediate point if any part needs replacement, which is scheduled approximately every 1,000 meters. The final destination and when it will arrive. The total route entrusted to Mayrit is 5,227 meters between Comillas and Conde de Casal, where the future interchange is located. The general director of Collective Transport Infrastructure of the Community of Madrid, Miguel Núñez, estimated In statements collected by 20 Minutes that the complete excavation will take between 13 and 14 months. With startup at the end of March, that puts the end of drilling around May or June 2027. Opening to the public will take a few more months, once installations, equipment and testing are completed. The work behind the tunnel boring machine. To complete this section 32,000 tons of steel will be needed210,000 cubic meters of concrete and more than 25,000 segments, whose production began in September 2025 in a factory created expressly for this project. The overall progress of the works already exceeds 50%, according to the City Council, and the investment in this phase amounts to more than 740 million euros. The biggest project behind it. All of this is just a part of something much bigger. The future Line 11 will travel 33.5 kilometers from end to end of Madrid, from Cuatro Vientos to Valdebebas, with 20 stations that will connect points such as Atocha, the airport, Zendal Hospital or the future Formula 1 circuit in Ifema. The complete route can be done in one hour and six minutes. The total investment exceeds 2.5 billion euros and the works will be carried out in four phases until 2031. Cover image | Community of Madrid In Xataka | From devouring diesel to being 100% electric: the incredible transformation of a 650-ton mining excavator in India

Two gigantic submarine cables between Spain and Italy, among the large European electrical interconnection projects

by

The European Union is immersed in a full energy transformation at two levels: the transition towards renewable sources and a structural change deep, so that success depends less on each country’s individual generation and more on the ability to move that energy efficiently across borders. In this framework, the European Network of Electricity Transmission Network Operators (ENTSO-E) works on a continental grid that eliminates technical bottlenecks. An example: the energy island called the Iberian Peninsula. The objective is for energy to flow from areas with surplus to others with deficit, preventing it from being trapped without a commercial outlet due to lack of transportation capacity. With that logic, the ENTSO-E just published its complete portfolio of the Ten-Year Network Development Plan 2026 with almost 200 transmission projects, 22 of them completely new. Among these novelties there are two particularly important for the Iberian Peninsula: they connect Spain with Italy. The cables. Apollo Link and Iberia Link are two high-voltage direct current submarine cable projects that would cross the Mediterranean to connect the Iberian Peninsula with northern Italy. They are independent of each other but share the same mission: to create a direct electric highway between an area with great renewable generation capacity such as Spain and one of the industrial regions with the highest electricity consumption in Europe, northern Italy. None of the projects has support from the transport network operators of each state, Red Eléctrica and Terna, respectively, but rather They are initiatives of private investors of Italian origin whose identity has not been revealed. Why is it important. The emerging continental grid is vital for the decarbonization of the continent as it allows the full use of renewable energy surpluses: Spain is one of the leaders in solar and wind energy (Italy stands out in solar, but not so much in wind) and this interconnection makes it possible that when there is excess production in the Iberian Peninsula, that clean energy can supply Italian demand instead of being left without a commercial outlet due to lack of transport capacity. The foreseeable net flow would be predominantly from west to east, although the connection would also allow energy to be imported from Italy in times of shortage on the Peninsula. But for the Iberian Peninsula it is even more relevant: this future east-west corridor allows its surpluses to be evacuated to the rest of Europe, thus ending its limited interconnection capacity. And also something essential: this connection provides security of supply (as evidenced the blackout) and the possibility of coupling markets to reduce electricity prices for the final consumer. Context. The Iberian Peninsula is considered an energy island within Europe. Its interconnection capacity with France round 3,000 MW, far below of the 15% target of installed capacity established by European regulations. And this has consequences: in times of high renewable generation, prices become negative within the peninsula and surplus energy cannot be exported. In times of scarcity, it cannot be easily imported either. This is just one of the projects that seek to end the energy isolation of the peninsula: they are also on the table the Bay of Biscay submarine cable planned for 2028 and included in all PCI lists since 2013. And under construction is a new northern interconnection of Portugal with Galicia which will add an extra 1,000 MW of exchange capacity. On the other hand, the trans-Pyrenean projects in Navarra and Aragon they are still blocked and with no date on the horizon to unclog them. Retail. Some technical curiosities of both cables: Apollo Link is the more ambitious of the two. It consists of an interconnection between Spain and northern Italy with a capacity of 2 GW planned to enter service in 2032. It would implement the most modern standard for long-distance underwater transmission for bidirectional control and minimize losses, bipolar HVDC technology with VSC converters. It would operate with the standard adopted by the European industry of 525 kV, facilitating interoperability. Its capacity allows it to supply several million homes. According to its promoters, it would generate more than 300 million euros annually in net social benefits. Iberia Link shares the same technology and operating voltage, but has a lower capacity: 1.2 GW. What distinguishes it is its length: 1,034 kilometers of submarine cable between southern Spain and northern Italy, which would make it one of the longest underwater electrical links in the world. It has no published entry into service date. Specifications of both cables. TYNDP map Yes, but. That they are included in the TYNDP 2026 is the prerequisite to qualify for the status of Project of Common Interest that opens the doors to community financing and an accelerated regulatory framework, but for the moment the situation of both is “under consideration”, which means that they are in the study phase and do not yet have European regulatory approval: they will have to pass the cost-benefit analyzes of the ENTSO-E to take the first step to materialize (we will know in the last quarter of 2026). And furthermore, they do not have the support of state operators, nor permits or approved layout because they are in preliminary phases. Likewise, the history of blocking similar projects invites caution. But even if they became a reality, these projects would only partially mitigate the electrical isolation of the peninsula: they are only 3.2GW of the 10-15GW of total interconnection necessary to truly influence the European market. In Xataka | The submarine cables belonged to the teleoperators, and now the big technology companies are controlling them In Xataka | The first great Atlantic submarine cable that connected us to the internet says goodbye for a simple reason: it was too expensive to repair it Cover | ENTSOE

A company wants to sell sunlight on demand using gigantic mirrors in space. We have questions

by

A Californian startup wants to sell solar light at night and, although it has not yet started, many scientists are already putting their hands together. They find it difficult to do it correctly for technical reasons, but they consider that it would be even more serious if these difficulties are resolved. The consequences for people’s health, the environment and the work of astronomers can be devastating. The longest day. The goal of Reflect Orbital is to launch into space a swarm of 4,000 satellites loaded with giant mirrors. These would capture sunlight from the illuminated side of the Earth and reflect it in dark areas. Thus, the solar panels could work 24 hours a day, not only when sunlight naturally falls on them. First steps. For now, the objectives of this startup have been developed only on paper. They already have their first satellite ready, which they have named Eärendil-1, in honor of a JRR Tolkien character. However, They are still waiting for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to of the United States gives the green light for its launch. In principle It is scheduled to take place throughout this month of Aprilbut there is no definitive date. Once in low Earth orbit, this satellite will deploy an 18-meter-wide mirror, which would be capable of illuminating a 5-kilometer patch on Earth. If all goes well, a swarm of 4,000 mirrors could be launched by 2030. The background is not good. There was already a project similar to this developed in Russia in the 1990s. The goal of the project, named Znamya, was to illuminate Siberia in the dark winter months. And they got it. However, the resulting light was so dim and the satellite so difficult to control that the mission was never completed. More than technical difficulties. Fionagh Thomson, researcher in spatial ethics at Durham University, explained in statements to Live Science who does not believe that the project is viable today, since the engineering involved is very complex. They already verified it in Russia. But that’s not all. Both this and other experts warn that a large amount of light pollution would be generated, which could affect the circadian rhythms of living beings in the illuminated environment. It could also dazzle aircraft pilots and make the work of astronomers difficult. Even astronomy enthusiasts trying to look at the sky with binoculars or a telescope could suffer vision damage if they encounter the light reflected from these satellites. After all, the population would not be notified before changing the direction of the mirrors. Worse than Starlink. starlink, Elon Musk’s telecommunications companyhas been receiving criticism for many years for the artificial way in which they illuminate the night sky. However, this company’s satellites accidentally illuminate the Earth. In this case it would be something deliberate and, therefore, even more intense and serious. It’s not worth it. All these risks are not worth it when you consider the results. And many other experts assure that the light that would be obtained would be too dim. The solar radiation that would reach the solar panels, for example, would be a minimum fraction of that which arrives during the day. In order to obtain a sufficient amount of light, an exorbitant number of satellites would have to be launched into space and that would be expensive and even more dangerous. Beware of space debris. If the mirror of Eärendil-1 will measure about 18 meters in diameter, the goal of Reflect Orbital is to launch satellites into space with even larger mirrors, up to 54 meters. In general, they would be giant objects; who would therefore be at greater risk of impacting with meteorites or space junk fragments. The more exposed surface, the more risk. This would not only mean the uncontrolled release of fragments resulting from the impact, it would also cause damage to the structure of the mirrors themselves. A leaky mirror would be even more difficult to control and its harmful effects could worsen. Therefore, although the goal of selling sunlight at night seems feasible on paper, in reality it is complicated and dangerous. We’ll see where all this goes. Image | Reflect Orbital In Xataka | Solar thermal plants are in the doldrums, so now they have two jobs: generating energy by day and hunting asteroids by night

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

by

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

It should be impossible for an iPhone 17 Pro to run a gigantic 400B AI model. Ought

by

The iPhone 17 Pro has 12 GB of unified memory. It is a very decent figure for a mobile phone, but in theory absolutely insufficient to run large AI models locally. And therein lies the surprise: a new project has made it possible for this mobile phone to run locally a model with 400,000 million parameters (400B). And that opens the doors to a promising horizon. Giant AI model, dwarf memory. A developer named Daniel Woods (@dandeveloper) has created, thanks to AI, a new inference engine called Flash-MoE whose code has been published as Open Source on GitHub accompanied by a study about his behavior. woods managed to run locally the Qwen 3.5 397B model (the full version, without distillation or quantization) on your MacBook Pro with 48 GB of RAM. Downloaded the model (209 GB on disk) and developed that inference engine to achieve something that seemed almost impossible. Other developers have gone even further and have managed to run models like DeepSeek-V3 (671B) or even Kimi K2.5 (1.026B!!) on their MacBooks. The speed is slow, no doubt, but they work, they work. It’s amazing. iPhone 17 Pro is capable of running a 400B model. Another developer called Anemll wanted to go a little further and try to run this model with almost 400,000 million parameters on his iPhone 17 Pro with 12 GB of RAM… and he succeeded. It is true that the model is very slow in responses (0.6 tokens per second, very unusable), but achieving something like this opens the doors to a future in which video or unified memory is no longer so critical to be able to use huge AI models locally. a few hours ago doubled the speed at 1.1 tokens per second, reducing the number of experts to four (2.5% quality loss in responses). It is still not entirely usable, but the technical demonstration is evident. Another user has preferred to use a somewhat smaller model (Qwen 3.5 35B) but still huge for the iPhone, and has already managed to get it to run locally at about more than acceptable 13.1 tokens per second. Why it matters. The AI ​​models we use in the cloud (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) are gigantic and run in data centers with thousands of chips and enormous amounts of memory and storage. They are the most powerful because they run on the most powerful machines. Although it is possible to use AI models locally, the models that we can run are much smaller and that makes it difficult for them to behave equally well both in quality of responses and in their speed or precision. This method opens the door to a future in which even on “modest” machines it is possible to run giant AI models that give better answers and allow us to avoid using models in the cloud. Apple already warned. Three years ago a group of Apple researchers published the study ‘LLM in a flash‘ which precisely pointed to that: to run AI models locally it would be possible not only to take advantage of the unified memory of Macs, but also their storage units. The speed would be slow, yes, but this would open up the possibility of running gigantic models locally on machines with much smaller amounts of unified memory. Woods used Claude Code with Claude Opus 4.6 and applied the new methodology “autoresearch” by Andrej Karpathy to implement Flash-MoE based on that research. The result is really promising. Video memory was everything. On my Mac mini M4, for example, I have 16 GB of unified memory. This means that with tools like Ollama you can install and run models like Qwen 3.5 4B locally with some fluidity, but 7B models or others like gpt-oss 20B would be much slower in responding (or would get stuck altogether). Video memory (or unified on Apple devices) is the most important parameter when running local models, both in terms of quantity and bandwidth. If you want to use them fluidly, that’s the limiting factor. It is possible to use “regular” RAM, but the speeds when using it are reduced so drastically that it is often better not to use that option at all. If you have a fast SSD, you have a treasure. Now the limiting factor is our SSD drive, since the model uses it as if it were a kind of substitute for video memory. And the faster the SSD drive on our computer, the better. There is good news here, because lately we are seeing how PCIe 5.0 drives they achieve about 15 GB/s without too many problems, and that speed already gives enough room for maneuver to use much larger AI models locally than we could use before. A promising future for local (and more private) AI. This discovery is really striking for everyone who wants to use AI locally, because it allows you to use huge models without having to make a huge investment in the latest generation graphics cards or, for example, in a Mac with a lot of unified memory: a Mac Studio M3 Ultra with 512 GB of memory, for example, costs more than 10,000 euros. With this new method we could opt for a much cheaper machine that, with a good SSD unit, would allow us to use giant models in a fairly decent way. Not as fast as those other options, sure, but still very decent. It’s a notable step forward in enjoying the benefits of running local AI models, including the biggest of them all: privacy. With this type of local execution, our conversations and everything we tell the chatbot stays on our machine, it does not end up on the servers of companies like Google, OpenAI, Meta or Anthropic. In Xataka | Jensen Huang believes we have reached the “coming of the AI ​​wolf.” It is perfect for feeding a Tamagotchi

Tehran has a gigantic “Plan B”

by

“A single shot at one of our men or ships, and he would make a good deal of Kharg Island. He would come in and take it.” The phrase could have been written this morning on the social network Truth Social, but it is almost forty years old. American President Donald Trump was already fantasizing in 1988, during an interview with Guardianwith taking over the main Iranian oil terminal. Today, four decades later and in the midst of the Third Gulf War, that old script has jumped from the paper to the Pentagon crisis room. For influential figures in Washington, such as Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, the equation is simple: He who controls Kharg, controls the fate of the war. The prevailing idea is that this island of just 20 square kilometers functions as an “off button” for the ayatollah regime. However, this one-dimensional vision collides head-on with a much more complex reality. Washington believes that taking this terminal will subdue Tehran, but they have forgotten that the Islamic Republic has been building a gigantic “Plan B” for years to survive precisely this scenario. Kharg: the untouchable heart. To understand America’s obsession, you have to look at the numbers. Kharg Island is the true economic heart of Iran. Located about 25 kilometers from the coast in the Persian Gulf, its deep waters allow supertankers to dock that the continental coast cannot accommodate. He usually travels there 90% of the country’s crude oil exportsgenerating annual revenues of $78 billion that directly finance the Iranian military. Even though the war began in late February 2026 and the United States and Israel have bombed thousands of targets, the island’s oil infrastructure remains strangely intact, and the reason is economic. Analysts at JP Morgan and Chatham House They warn that destroying Kharg It would cause an earthquake in global markets, shooting up the price of a barrel to $150. “Plan B”. This is where the American strategy breaks down, just as Javier Blas explainsenergy columnist Bloomberg. The idea that capturing Kharg will subdue Tehran is, in Blas’s words, “fanciful.” Iran does not depend on a single faucet. If Kharg falls or is blocked, the regime would immediately activate its network of secondary terminals: Jask: It is the strategic jewel of “Plan B”. Located in the Arabian Sea, it allows Iran to export oil, completely bypassing the disputed Strait of Hormuz. According to Blas, it could pump about 300,000 barrels per day. Lavan, Sirri and Qeshm: These three islands within the Persian Gulf have a combined capacity of another 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day. The treasure of derivatives: Iran does not only live off crude oil. It exports another million barrels per day of natural gas liquids (NGL) and refined products (naphtha, liquefied gas) from terminals such as Assaluyeh, Bandar Mahshahr and Abadan. It is their second most lucrative source of income. As Javier Blas explains, To truly choke off the flow of petrodollars, Trump would have to not only take Kharg, but capture all of these terminals simultaneously. Otherwise, a constant flow of barrels would continue to sustain the Iranian war effort. Besides, as I already explained in Xatakathe war has not sunk the Iranian oil business, it has accelerated it. The failed ultimatum: a step back from Trump? Washington’s strategy until now was shifting from bombing to occupation. As my colleague Miguel Jorge has detailedthe Pentagon is accelerating the deployment of the USS Boxer amphibious group and thousands of Marines to the region. The objective would be to take physical control of the island to use it as a negotiating lever and force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran maintains blocked. In fact, as you have had access AP NewsTrump gave Iran 48 hours to open the strait under threat of “wiping its power plants off the map.” However, hours before the deadline expired, the president backed down. through your Truth Social account: “I am pleased to report that the United States, and the country of Iran, have had, over the past two days, good and productive talks (…) I have instructed the War Department to postpone any and all military attacks against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a period of five days, subject to the success of the ongoing meetings.” Iranian state media, for its part, They quickly denied any direct negotiations and stated that the American president “withdrew for fear of Iran’s response.” The threat of regional destruction. Added to this is the doctrine of “mutual assured destruction” at the regional level. If Trump attacks Iran’s energy infrastructure or takes Kharg, Tehran has vowed to respond with fire. According to AP NewsIran’s Defense Council has threatened to mine the entire Persian Gulf (“like in the 1980s,” they warned) and bomb power and desalination plants in Arab countries allied to the United States, including the Barakah nuclear plant in the United Arab Emirates. Finally, recent history works against the White House. Javier Blas remember that during the campaign of Trump’s “maximum pressure” between 2020 and 2022, Iranian crude oil exports fell by 90%, below 250,000 barrels per day for months. Despite extreme financial pain, the regime did not collapse. To think that they will give in today, when they started from a record production of almost 5 million barrels of liquid petroleum per day (the highest in 46 years), is to ignore the lessons of the past. Washington’s miscalculation. Donald Trump’s fixation on Kharg Island belongs to an era when brute American force rarely met with asymmetrical resistance. Occupying this tiny patch of land in the Persian Gulf may seem like the perfect coup d’état to force a quick outcome, but the reality on the ground is stubborn. By focusing its sights on a single objective, Washington underestimates the resilience of a regime that has been preparing for economic and military isolation for decades. If the Marines manage to plant their flag in Kharg, they will discover that they have not shut down the Iranian … Read more

gigantic boards that monitor war conflicts

by

This Saturday, February 28, Israel, with the help of the United States, began a bombing of Iran. Beyond the news, one of the current obsessions is to be informed in real time about the conflict. And this is where the vibe coding You have shown your best face again. Developers are creating online platforms to follow war conflicts in real time with a level of detail that, to date, was not possible with traditional websites. The obsession with conflict. The war has become a board. One that we not only want to be informed about, we want to monitor it in direct time due to its direct implications worldwide. This is where maps, alerts, and interfaces that “gamify” the information experience gain interest. And in recent times the vibe coding has made it clear. The great war board. The obsession with knowing every detail of the global conflict has led developers to create tools such as World-Monitor. Giant information panels in which the conflict can be followed in real time, through each and every one of the necessary pillars: A global map with alert level legend live cameras Live broadcasts from media such as Bloomberg, CNBC, Euronews Adjustment layers to focus attack zone, military bases, submarine cables, data centers, military activity, ship tourism, trade routes Analysis of country instability, overview of strategic risks Independent feed for each area, news, theme Gamifying tragedy. The case of World-Monitor is not isolated, alternatives such as Situation Deck make it clear that this type of panels situation room They want to offer a gamified experience. A visual experience that is more reminiscent of a tactical command center than a traditional medium. Beyond the moral debate, the work of developers vibecoding desktop solutions that offer a much more refined and updated vision than that of many media. Developers are building tools that, in many cases, are faster and more comprehensive than traditional coverage. In Xataka | Iran is going to need much more from China and Russia: the US has landed its fighter jets loaded with a weapon that changes everything, angry kittens

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.