industry

AI has caused the collapse of even a non-AI industry: gas turbines

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When everyone runs away, Meta’s former CTO stays. While the majority of Silicon Valley investors have abandoned the C thesisfile Tech —tired of promises that do not turn into real business—, Mike Schroepfer just announced that it has raised 250 million dollars to do exactly the opposite. Its background, Gigascale Capitalhas closed its first round with institutional investors to back founders who, in their own words, are “rebuilding the brick-and-mortar economy.” The news comes at a time when the climate technology sector has a difficult reputation. As explained TechCrunch, “Conventional wisdom” has been soured by the “Climate Tech” label. Schroepfer, known in the industry simply as Schrepis challenging the market consensus. Or as the same media describes it: “Zigging when most are zagging” (zigzagging when everyone goes in the other direction). Does this bet make sense? First of all, we must understand the underlying problem: gas turbines, the most conventional electricity generation system that exists, currently have a waiting list that extends until the early 2030s. It is not that there is a lack of green technology, it is that there is simply a lack of energy. And companies trying to connect to the electrical grid are finding it increasingly difficult. The person responsible. And the question is, who has accelerated that demand to this point? Artificial intelligence. The sector has undergone a structural change in recent years, driven precisely by the energy demands of AI. Data centers consume huge amounts of electricity and networks cannot cope. Faced with this situation, many companies are trying to generate their own electricity. As Schroepfer himself notedthe “bring your own energy” model (Bring-Your-Own-Power) will become a decisive competitive advantage in intensive industries. But there is no easy path there either: even traditional turbines have a waiting list. As Pulse 2.0 detailsaccelerated electrification, industrial relocation, AI deployment and increasingly extreme climate events are simultaneously putting pressure on physical infrastructure that has been aging for decades. The business of scarcity. The company, Gigascale, was founded in 2023 by Schroepfer along with Victoria Beasley and Evaline Tsai. The fund emerges from a process that the former Meta executive describes as a systematic study of the climate sector during the pandemic. In three years they have built a portfolio of more than 25 companies in areas ranging from clean energy and grid infrastructure to critical minerals, advanced manufacturing and what they call “physical AI”: applications of artificial intelligence to design, manufacture and deploy real-world systems. Schroepfer’s investment logic does not pivot on environmental virtue, but on competitiveness. Their argument is the following: solar went from producing 40 gigawatts a year to 600 in a decade because it became cheaper. “The companies we support win because they are cheaper, faster and more reliable. This is how adoption scales. Climate impact is the result of systems that work better,” declared in a statement. When the waiting list is the opportunity. The fund’s portfolio already has specific names that illustrate this philosophy: New energy generation: Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Xcimer Energy (which achieved the first flash of its commercial laser system in late 2025) are working to make nuclear fusion a reality. For its part, Radiant is moving toward one of the first commercial deployments of nuclear microreactors in the United States. Infrastructure for AI: Arbor Energy has signed an agreement with GridMarket to supply up to 5 gigawatts of clean, zero-emissions energy to data centers. In parallel, Fractile announced a $136 million expansion to manufacture AI processors specifically designed to reduce electricity consumption. Circular and industrial economy: Heron Power, founded by Drew Baglino – former Tesla vice president for propulsion and energy division – develops industrial power electronics. In addition, companies like Dioxycle have signed multi-year agreements with giants like L’Oréal to convert captured CO₂ emissions into ethylene to make packaging. There is an underlying irony. The world has been debating for years how to decarbonize for environmental reasons. And it turns out that the catalyst that is making the transformation of the energy system urgent and inevitable is not any climate summit: it is Artificial Intelligence. As investors flee the label Climate Tech Considering it too ideological or unprofitable, the demand for energy is so brutal that not even the most conventional gas turbines can cope. The opportunity exists precisely because the problem is real. And Schroepfer, who comes from building the systems that consume that energy, is very clear about it. Image | Unsplash Xataka | From “tokenmaxxing” we have moved on to “tokenwasting”: the level of waste in AI is reaching unprecedented levels

‘solo-maxxing’ is Gen Z’s answer to the stifling dating industry

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It’s Friday night. A decade ago, the routine for a person in their early 20s would have been predictable: choose clothes in front of the mirror, reserve a table at a trendy restaurant and go out in the hope of meeting someone. Today, that same scene is interrupted by a lethal crossroads of notifications on the mobile screen: the notice of rent collection, the status of the bank account and, in the background, the endless catalog of faces on a dating application. By adding up the expenses, the user does the math and reaches a clear conclusion: falling in love is an unaffordable luxury. He cancels the plan, closes the app and stays home. Love is not dead, but its business model has gone bankrupt. Generation Z faces a perfect storm where inflation, the housing crisis, job insecurity and psychological exhaustion after years of digital overexposure have turned traditional romance into a risky sport. Faced with a scenario where a date can cost hundreds of euros and rejection seems more public than ever, dating applications are facing a structural problem: their users are discovering that singleness is not only cheaper, but also much less exhausting. The data paints an uncomfortable picture for the entire romance industry. According to a report by Bank of Montreal collected by Fortunethe total cost of a date in the United States—including dinner, transportation, drinks, and preparations—now reaches $189. Among Generation Z the figure climbs to $205 per meeting, while millennials are close to $252 after experiencing a 32% cost increase. Faced with this emotional inflation, the response has been simple: spend less or not spend at all. A report from Bank of America reveals that 53% of young people from Generation Z He doesn’t spend a single dollar a month on dating. Among those who do, most try to stay below $100 a month. Inflation is not only making the shopping basket more expensive or making it difficult to access housing. It is also transforming the way an entire generation relates to each other. The phenomenon already has visible consequences. a study cited by Newsweek points out that 46% of members of Generation Z do not have any romantic relationship, compared to 28% of millennials and 26% of Generation X. Even large technology platforms are noticing the change. Spencer Rascoff, CEO of Match Group, recently recognized that applications like Tinder can be “intimidating” for those under 30 years of age, in a context marked by the drop in active users and the growing exhaustion towards the traditional model of dating apps. The Spanish case: when rent eats up social life Although many of these trends were first detected in the United States, the Spanish context adds additional pressure: housing. According to the latest data of the Emancipation Observatory of the Youth Council of Spainthe average rental price absorbs 98.7% of a young person’s salary. The risk of poverty among young people who live in rent increases drastically once the cost of housing is taken into account. The problem goes beyond economic figures. For decades, romantic relationships followed a relatively clear sequence: meet someone, become independent, live together and, eventually, start a family. Today that chain has been broken. Spain registers some of the highest ages of emancipation in Europe. Millions of young people continue to live with their parents much longer than they would like, not by choice but by economic necessity. In this context, the problem is no longer just paying for a dinner or a drink. It is also having your own space where you can build intimacy, coexistence or a shared life project. Precariousness not only delays the purchase of a home. It also delays relationships. As Holly O’Neill summarizedBank of America executive, Generation Z is discovering that adulthood has a much higher price than they imagined. However, money explains only part of the phenomenon. The call “paradox of preparation” describes an increasingly common contradiction among young people: they want stable emotional ties, but they feel less and less prepared to initiate them. After years of living much of their relationships through screens, many members of Generation Z perceive dating as an emotionally demanding experience. The fear of rejection still exists, but it is now combined with a constant feeling of public exposure. Social networks have turned every relationship into a small media event. Make a couple official on Instagram using a hard launch or hint at her through a soft launch It can feel like a public statement that is difficult to reverse if the relationship fails. As a result, the first step becomes increasingly complicated. An appointment is no longer requested. Instagram is requested. Then come weeks of messages, reactions to stories, and intermittent conversations that often never lead to a real meeting. The potential connection exists, but the action is suspended indefinitely. The rise of solo-maxxing In this context, a new philosophy has emerged, baptized in social networks as solo-maxxing. Far from presenting singleness as a transitory situation or a waiting stage, this trend redefines it as a conscious choice. Being alone is no longer necessarily interpreted as a sentimental failure, but as a strategy to protect time, money and emotional stability. A MyIQ survey reveals that almost half of young people between 18 and 34 years old consider that being single is more peaceful than being in a relationship. A third say they actively avoid dating to preserve their mental well-being. Behind this trend there is a logic that is difficult to ignore. If each romantic interaction involves increasing economic costs, emotional uncertainty, and a high risk of disappointment, singleness ceases to be a provisional state and becomes a rational decision. For many young people, peace of mind has become an asset too valuable to risk. The crisis is also forcing us to rethink the way people get to know each other. For years, dating apps promised that an infinite number of options would make it easier to find a partner. The result, however, has often been … Read more

DeepSeek is good, pretty and very cheap. And above all, the weapon to create a Chinese hardware industry independent of Nvidia

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The arrival of DeepSeek-V4-Pro It hasn’t caused that much of a stir. like the one caused by DeepSeek R1 a year and a half ago, but we may be facing an even more important model. If that version revealed to the world that China was advancing spectacularly in this race, this other one is beginning to allow us to glimpse something else more interesting. What most people see is a very decent model and above all “low priced”. Which hide the company It’s another more important thing: achieve independence from Nvidia and US hardware. what has happened. Last Friday, those responsible for DeepSeek announced something surprising: their promotional offer with a 75% price cut to use their DeepSeek-V4-Pro model will be maintained permanently. That makes this model offer very decent features (but not exceptional) for a really low price: 1M entry tokens 1M tokens output DeepSeek-V4-Pro 0.435 0.87 GPT-5.5 5 30 Opus 4.7 5 25 Gemini 3.5 Flash 1.5 9 Good, pretty and very cheap. It is true that the performance of DeepSeek-V4-Pro is inferior to that of rival models from OpenAI, Anthropic or Google. Artificial Analysis tests indicate that the DeepSeek model is at a very good level, but it is also much cheaper than its competitors. This is especially relevant for agentic tasks that consume many tokens and that with this model become accessible and very affordable. According to Artificial Analysis, DeepSeek is close to the performance of the best models in the industry, and although it is slower in its responses, it is also much cheaper than the frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic or Google. A different strategy. How is this company going to make money? It does not have subscription plans like its local competition (GLM, Kimi) or the western one (ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro). It also does not have voice or image models. It does not have an AI agent for programming that competes with Claude Code. It publishes the open weights of its models and shares its technical innovations with the industry (and with its competitors). For those who closely follow the company and these decisions, the strategy is clear. DeepSeek’s goal is not to win the AI ​​model race. Their goal is to build a Chinese AI hardware industry that doesn’t depend on Nvidia or TSMC… and get paid their share in that process. Hardware independence. China has a structural problem in this AI race: sanctions and vetoes imposed by the US make you unable to access the most advanced chips nor to ASML UVE photolithography. And since China cannot currently compete in terms of computing power, what its companies are doing is ensuring that their AI models need less computing power to achieve similar results. Efficient architectures. The Mixture of Experts (MoE) and Multi-head Latent Attention (MLA) architectures are two key weapons in this strategy. The first already existed but was adapted by DeepSeek for their model: with it only part of the total parameters of the model are activated to answer the query without losing precision. What MLA does is compress the attention information (the so-called KV Cache) with which the model maintains the context of a conversation, reducing it by 90%. Both techniques allow us to reduce the need to use high-speed HBM memories, something that is also striking in order to reveal DeepSeek’s probable strategy. The importance of KV Cache. As the GDP analyst explains in Xthat use of MLA allows that for one million tokens, DeepSeek-V4-Pro only needs 5.48 GB of HBM memory. Competitors like Zhipo AI, which develops GLM 5, need 60 GB for the same, while Alibaba’s Qwen 3 needs 89 GB. This advantage allows DeepSeek to offer much lower prices to obtain performances similar to those of its competition, but it also means that DeepSeek models can run on Chinese memory chips that cannot compete in speed with HBM modules. Goodbye HBM, hello NAND and SSD. These innovations open the door to the use of NAND memories and even SSD drives to process this data, and there YMTC enters the scenea Chinese Flash memory manufacturer that is slowly becoming a global giant. Also CXMTwhich manufactures DRAM memoriesbecomes an alternative here and the reason is equally interesting: DeepSeek introduced a memory search module in LLMs called Engram which is also intended to avoid excessive dependence on HBM memories. How to bypass the CUDA monopoly. Nvidia continues to have a fundamental element in CUDA to maintain its market dominance, but here DeepSeek too has proposed an alternative. Is called Tile Kernels and these are software cores created with TileLang (a variant of Python for this field) that allow governing advanced AI chips (GPUs). Huawei as an invisible ally. Those responsible for Huawei recently indicated that its new Ascend AI supernodes fully support DeepSeek v4 models. Precisely this provides another fundamental advantage to the company, which thus avoids (at least in part) total dependence on the use of Nvidia chips and prepares to further strengthen Huawei’s relevance in a market in which until recently Jensen Huang’s company was queen and mistress. Open models to attract the hardware industry. US companies continue to maintain their closed and proprietary models, but DeepSeek is one of the many Chinese startups that publish them with open weights. With this, what she and the others intend to do is not only attract AI developers and users, but also create a hardware ecosystem that adopts these architectures. DeepSeek invites its rivals to use techniques such as MoE or MLA precisely so that all these advances become a de facto standard and hardware manufacturers also adopt them and integrate them in an optimized way into their designs. A round of 10,000 million to advance. The company is also preparing a financing round in which they intend to raise 10,000 million dollars and with which they would achieve a valuation of between 45,000 and 50,000 million dollars. Still far from the mammoth valuations of OpenAI or Anthropic (already close to a billion dollars) but certainly … Read more

There is a million-dollar industry selling stoicism on the internet. His recipe for success is to do just the opposite of what Stoicism says.

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“My father is hooked on stoicism.” A few days ago, a Reddit user told thatin the last six months, his father had been deep into all kinds of YouTube videos about stoicism. “He spends hours watching (…) what seems AI-generated self-help garbage, made to validate ego and increase paranoia of the people.” “The strange thing is that real Stoicism seems like it is made to teach you self-control and emotional discipline, but it has become more reactive, cynical and critical,” he explained. And, really, It’s not strange at all. ‘Stoick’ is a soccer player Shiromani Kant The truth is that, today, becoming a Stoic does not mean reading Marcus Aurelius but rather following accounts, buying books, subscribing to newsletters, watching videos and consuming content. A content that, by the way, is adjoining with pop psychology, “CIA manipulation tactics,” mind games, “reading people” techniques, and other genres of conspiracy thinking. We have been hearing for years that philosophy “is back”that masculinity is in crisis and does not stop looking for alternative options, that a handful of ideas from 2,000 or so years ago are changing the way thousands of people face their daily lives. It’s time to treat that “wave” for what it is: a huge lie. No matter where we look (and except for a small group of popularizers that fit in the trunk of a car), Stoicism is neither a real philosophical movement nor a collective practice. Modern stoicism is a niche market for content creators—books, newsletters, subscriptions, merchandising, courses—who make a living precisely from the discomfort they claim to alleviate. The boom of pop stoicism Jan Demiralp As I have told on other occasionsin 1965, during the Vietnam War, the pilot James B. Stockdale He was returning from a combat mission when he was hit by enemy fire. Passed seven years in unspeakable conditions; between torture and humiliation specifically designed to break him from the inside. But he was lucky. In his own words, the only thing that helped him overcome captivity was the memories of a small book that had been given to him during his time at the university: the Enchyridion, the best-known book by Epictetus, one of the great Stoic philosophers in history and to whom the motto “sustine et abstine“(“endures and renounces”). In it, in the EnchyridionStockdale understood that the “reflective mind” could distance itself from brute and instinctive emotion and return to what was experienced with clarity of judgment and equanimity to find peace of mind. Not only did he understand it, but he spent much of the rest of his life spreading and defending it. In general terms, Stockdale is the fundamental piece of the reconversion of classical Stoic philosophy into pop culture; the place where Epictetus connects with late US capitalism. I tell this to make it clear that the fashion for stoicism is nothing new. It has been on the rise for half a century and, at least a decade, completely out of control. What has happened in recent years is that this ‘boom’ has been consolidated as an industry. The r/Stoicism subreddir (where I got the story that opens this text) went from 840 members in 2012 to 610,000 in 2024. On TikTok, the hashtag #stoicism gathers 645,000 posts. Ryan Holiday He has sold more than 10 million copies of ‘The Daily Stoic’, has more than three million followers on Instagram and two on YouTube. And, in Spanish, we also have examples of this genre of philosophical self-help. Philosophical self-help? We might think that calling a philosophy more than 2,000 years old “self-help” is audacious on my part. However, academic criticism specialized in Stoicism has reached (it has been difficult, but it has reached) the same conclusion. Massimo Pigliucci (professor at the City College of New York and one of the most important and rigorous neo-Stoics) coined the term ‘broicism’ in 2019 to discover the ‘masculinist’ appropriation of this philosophical school. In 2022, Mark Dery published “How Stoicism Became Broicism“. This is a very interesting text (and debatable in some points) that very clearly x-rays the problem I am talking about. In 2025, in fact, the researcher Erhan Ağaoğlu published an analysis about stoicism on TikTok which makes clear the identification between this “stoicism” and the patterns of aggression, self-isolation, self-improvement and the vindication of traditional masculinity. There are those who believe that this is problematic and those who argue that it is not. What there is no doubt about is that it is not stoicism, neither classical nor modern, nor of any kind. It is, in any case, ‘ultra-processed pseudo-philosophy’ ready to consume in the context of the attention economy. A very successful one, yes: not all cultural products show that ability to scale in this marked way. Why is this happening? Jaime Spaniol Sociologists who are working on the topic agree that there are, at least, three factors that explain it. The first is the “replacement of traditional frameworks related to the in-person community (religious or not).” The hypothesis is that a sector of the population has emerged (especially young and male) that does not have ‘frameworks of meaning’ to manage adversity. Stoicism, like all the movements that are emerging around it, have become a kind of ’emotional toolbox’ without religious or therapeutic component. The second factor would be a certain “crisis of masculinity.” That crisis is what They have been trying to suture the ‘manosphere influencers’ since Jordan Peterson and it is part of the tectonic movements that are turning Stoicism into ‘pseudophilosophy’. Finally, the ‘platformization of absolutely everything’. That is, the dynamics that facilitate and promote platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or X. Where some people want to see a renewed interest in philosophy, there is a push by algorithms for short, imperative and motivational content. And what’s the problem with all this? The first consequence of this phenomenon is that what we now understand as ‘stoicism’ is nothing like classical stoicism. But surely that is not the most important thing. Because the … Read more

This is how India prepares its next big leap in the chip industry

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When we think about making chips, India is not usually the first country that comes to mind. We think of Taiwan, South Korea, the United States or China, but India often appears in another box: that of software, technological services or the assembly of electronic products. Precisely for this reason this movement is interesting. We are witnessing firsthand how a huge country seeks to advance towards one of the deepest and most difficult parts of the technological chain. The announcement is supported by a very specific alliance: Tata Electronics and ASML have signed a memorandum of understanding for the future Dholera semiconductor plant in Gujarat. The facility, which the release presents as India’s first 300mm commercial factory, has a planned investment of 11 billion dollars and will be aimed at producing semiconductors for a wide range of sectors. The agreement, Reuters points outwas signed on May 16 during Narendra Modi’s visit to the Netherlands, also attended by Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten. India’s commitment to chips is beginning to cease to be a promise The news comes accompanied by some interesting technical data that is worth analyzing carefully. The 300 mm figure may sound like a measurement of the chip, but it actually talks about the silicon wafer on which the semiconductors are manufactured, indicating the diameter of that circular surface, not the size of the transistors or the size of the final chips. It is a standard industrial platform for large-scale production, because it allows working with many units on the same wafer before cutting them and taking them to the next phases of the process. Furthermore, the statement places the Tata collaboration with PSMCPowerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, as the gateway to a technology portfolio that includes 28nm, 40nm, 55nm, 90nm and 110nm. That list helps land the project much better than the 300 mm label, because it tells us which process families the plant plans to handle. In practice, we talk about analog and logic chips for automotive, mobile devices, consumer electronics, connectivity, IoT, embedded memory and other industrial uses. This is precisely where the Dutch company occupies a central position in the semiconductor industry. Their contribution does not simply consist of “setting up machines”, but rather supporting the start-up of the factory with lithography tools and solutions, the phase that allows the circuit patterns to be transferred to the silicon wafers. ASML also speaks training local talent, supply chain resilience and R&D infrastructure. It is a way to accompany Tata not only in the purchase of equipment, but in the industrial learning necessary for the plant to scale. ASML is known for its most sophisticated machines, but that doesn’t mean every deal of yours involves EUV either High-NA EUV. In this case, the available information speaks of lithography solutions for a process-oriented plant that they do not belong to the most advanced frontier. With these data, and in the absence of ASML detailing what specific systems it will supply, the most prudent reading is to place the project in the field of lithography DUV and the support ecosystem that allows stable production. TWINSCAN NXT:1980Di, one of the DUV machines that would fit with a factory like Tata’s This agreement comes at an interesting time for the Dutch company. ASML continues to occupy a central position in the sector, but the adoption of its most advanced technology is not being uniform among its large clients: TSMC, for example, continues to evaluate High-NA EUV, although for now it prefers to rely on current EUVs and process improvements rather than assume the cost and complexity of the new generation. Its executive Kevin Zhang summed it up with a very clear phrase: “I like the technology, but not the price.” In this context, an alliance like Tata’s reminds us of something important: the Dutch firm not only stands out for its most extreme machines, but also for its ability to accompany factories in different stages of industrial maturity. Reuters places the agreement in a broader context than that of a single factory. India has pledged billions of dollars in subsidies to attract semiconductor plants and related manufacturing, with eight projects underway, while Modi has encouraged Dutch companies to invest in areas such as semiconductors, renewable energy, digital technologies and health. At the same time, Dutch companies in the sector look for new markets and more geographical diversification in a scenario marked by export controls and trade restrictions linked to technological rivalry between the United States and China. As we can see, the move does not put India, at least for now, at the top of the semiconductor industry, but it does bring it closer to manufacturing chips at scale with proven processes and sustained demand. That difference matters. The industry does not only live on the most advanced semiconductors, but also on a huge base of components present in devices that surround us, such as everyday electronics and the automotive industry, as well as those that play in another field, such as industrial systems. Images | Tata Electronics | ASML In Xataka | Manufacturing 60 machines a year may not seem like much. In practice, those of the European ASML are setting the pace of AI

TSMC is focusing on the lucrative AI industry, so Apple is looking for a new girlfriend. Found it at Intel

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In 2023, Apple completed its transition and made all Macs in its catalog work with its Apple M-series chips. It was the end of a relationship that began in 2005, when Steve Jobs announced the transition from IBM PowerPCs to Intel chips. Then things went wrong and Apple ended up separating itself from Intel in its products, but once again there has been an interesting twist of the events. Intel does not know how to be a foundry. The integration of the Apple M1 in 2020 was the real beginning of a logical strategy: Apple wanted to design its own chips for its Macs as it had already done in its iPhone or iPad, and the result was extraordinary. The curious thing is that Apple negotiated with Intel to manufacture the iPhone chips, but Intel rejected the opportunity. When Morris Chang, founder of TSMC, asked Cook why he hadn’t chosen Intel to make those chips, responded “Intel just doesn’t know how to be a foundry (chip factory)”. TSMC turns to AI. The relationship between Apple and TSMC has been one of the most important in the semiconductor industry. TSMC makes virtually all of Apple’s advanced chips, from iPhone processors to Mac M chips. That dependence, however, has become uncomfortable for two reasons: Chip shortage: The rise of AI has made the demand for this type of chips extraordinary. TSMC is prioritizing customers with the highest volume and margin in the most advanced nodes, and there Apple competes with NvidiaAMD and other manufacturers looking for 2 and 3 nm chips. Geopolitics: 90% of the world’s advanced chip production is in Taiwanand any escalation of existing tensions with China could paralyze the supply chains of Apple and the vast majority of technology firms on the planet. Diversifying manufacturers is therefore a strategic necessity. Intel gets interesting. It is true that Intel is not the only alternative that Apple was exploring, and Samsung was another candidate to work closely with the Cupertino firm. However Intel has a first important advantage with the 18A nodeits next-generation manufacturing process that experts consider comparable to TSMC’s 2nm process. Apple has been considering this node for entry-level M chips for months. Intel will not be manufacturing Apple’s most advanced chips at the moment, but this is a potential first step so that it can be verified that Intel can indeed accomplish the task and then also manufacture its most ambitious designs. Lip-Bu Tan turns the tables. Intel’s new CEO took over in early 2025and since then the company has taken promising steps when it was in a situation really worrying. has reached agreements with Nvidia to develop x86 chip sets with RTX graphics, for example. It also collaborates with Tesla to manufacture chips with an even more advanced node14A, for Elon Musk’s future TeraFab. Preliminary agreement. Official details of the deal are not yet known, but in The Wall Street Journal they claim that said agreement exists although it describes it as preliminary. It is not currently clear which chip or chips Intel will manufacture or in which photolithographic process. It is expected that the 18A node will be used for those entry-level M chips, but it is not ruled out that the 14A will not be part of this new commercial relationship. Be that as it may, if the agreement is closed as it seems, we would be facing a definitive boost to this new strategy of foundry traditional approach—manufacturing chips for third parties—that Intel is adopting. The circle closes. Intel lost the contract for iPhone chips because it refused to manufacture them for not having enough marginand thus passed up the opportunity to be a de facto partner in probably the most lucrative product in the history of technology. He then tried correct the errorbut he didn’t succeed. Then Intel would lose the Mac chip business, which would be another major setback. Now it seems to be taking flight again, and its promising future—along with other factors—have made Apple want to work with it again. It seems that Intel, after all, is learning to be a foundry. Image | Fortune CEO Initiative In Xataka | The US’s problem in the AI ​​and humanoid race is not China: it is all of Asia and it is greatly disadvantaged

This is how Spain plans to conquer the ocean renewable industry

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The race for clean energy dominance in Europe has a new battlefield: the sea. And Spain has just put on the table a million-dollar declaration of intentions so as not to be left behind. As announced by the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE)the Government has allocated a provisional injection of 212 million euros from European NextGenEU funds to six state ports. The objective of all this is to adapt its logistical infrastructure for the imminent deployment of offshore wind. In this cast, there is a great winner who monopolizes the spotlight. The group formed by the Galician ports of A Coruña and Ferrol-San Cibrao has taken most of the pie of the PORT-EOLMAR programwith a proposed award that is close to 100 million euros (97.4 million for the joint project and an additional 2.5 million for Ferrol). A figure that supports the strategic nature of the region and that promises to transform its coast into the industrial epicenter of ocean renewables. The historical qualitative leap. Until now, Spain’s role was mainly limited to the manufacturing of different components and their storage. However, the objective of this new aid is make a historical qualitative leap: provide ports with the real capacity to build the immense platforms on which the wind turbines sit and, later, launch them into the sea as if they were frigates. Here the great geographical challenge of our coasts comes into play: unlike what happens in the North Sea – where the bottom is shallower and allows structures to be nailed (offshore fixed)—, the great depth of the Spanish and Galician coastline forces us to opt for floating technology. And floating wind requires colossal space. Carla Chawla Fidalgo, director of the Navantia Fene shipyard, sums it up perfectly in statements to The Opinion of A Coruña: “If we want to be able to assemble several units at the same time, we need enormous surfaces.” Since it is impossible to transport platforms the size of a football field by land, shipyards and ports with deep drafts become the “natural allies” and obligatory of this industry. The five titans. The rain of millions will result in an unprecedented physical transformation. At Punta Langosteira (the outer port of A Coruña), the aid will be used to condition some 100 hectares of surface in the southern area and create a new dock that may reach 450 meters in length. This joint candidacy obtained an almost perfect score, exceeding 90 points out of 100. But the bases of the IDAE They demanded an indispensable condition: Public money had to be backed by private industrial projects of comparable investment. And Galicia has responded. As it breaks down The Voice of Galiciathe port of A Coruña already has five firm projects, bank guarantees included, from true giants of the sector: Navantia: The main Galician naval engine is already a benchmark in building foundations (jackets) in Ferrol, but desperately needs land. Its landing in Langosteira is not a move, but a vital expansion to take on the assembly of large floating structures. WindWaves: The former Nervión Naval Offshore (belonging to the Amper Group) is Navantia’s strategic partner. The firm seeks to complement the facilities it already plans in Ferrol and As Somozas with this new space in the outer port. Acciona: The seventh world operator in wind energy, allied with giants such as Orsted and SSE Renewables, requested space to manufacture, assemble and maintain offshore wind installations. Esteyco: This engineering company already knows what it is like to operate in Langosteira, from where it moved 400-ton pieces for a prototype in the Canary Islands. Saitec: The Basque group promoting floating technology SATH is looking for land to manufacture and assemble its own platforms, with a view to expanding its prototypes before the end of the decade. Beyond the docks. The impact of this deployment transcends the simple civil works of a port. If we add public funds to the commitment of these five colossi, we are talking about a formidable financial muscle: the committed private investment is estimated at 180 million euros, which would raise the total impact of the Galician polo to around 280 million euros. At a professional level, the potential is undeniable. leaning in data from the metal employers’ association (Asime)the marine mill industry already generates about 5,000 direct and indirect jobs in Galicia. A figure that could skyrocket with the consolidation of this macroport. This entire movement is, furthermore, a geopolitical race against time. These investments are the necessary ammunition so that A Coruña and Ferrol can compete head to head with neighboring countries that are stepping on the accelerator, such as France, Italy or Portugal. In fact, times are pressing: the Port will close the adaptation project before August, and the aid stipulates a period of execution of the works of 48 months. The green horizon of Spain. The roadmap is drawn. How the IDAE documentation concludesSpain not only has high civil engineering capabilities and a powerful naval sector, but also optimal weather conditions. The ultimate objective is to take advantage of this competitive advantage to turn the country into a “European and global reference center” in the marine energy supply chain. But this massive industrialization does not want to turn its back on the environment. As a finishing touch to this ambitious plan, all this infrastructure is framed under the umbrella of the strategy ‘A Coruña Green Port’. An initiative that seeks to convert the Punta Langosteira dock into the first to achieve energy self-sufficiency from 100% renewable sources. Definitive proof that Spain is not content with manufacturing the wind giants of the future, but rather aspires for the port where they are born to be as green as the energy they will generate. Image | Unsplash Xataka | Japan has realized that it cannot depend on gas, so it is going to set up a mega wind farm on the coast of Tokyo

China is successfully replacing a 19th century industry with drones: skyscraper window cleaners

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When we think of skyscrapers, the Western culture in which we have grown up makes us inevitably associate them with the United States and iconic skylines in cinema such as New York or Chicago, but the current reality is very different: China is the country that breaks the cord, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitatthe world’s leading authority on the classification of tall buildings: it is home to more than half of the world’s tallest skyscrapers. This architectural explosion has created an unprecedented maintenance challenge: having to clean millions of square meters of glass and metal facades. What started as a need for manpower has become a testing ground for advanced robotics and unmanned aviation thanks to a state plan called “Robot+” that automates tasks to compensate labor shortage. One of the most striking recent examples: automated cleaning from Nanchang Railway Station. Goodbye to human window cleaners. The traditional Spider-Man of buildings is disappearing and it makes perfect sense: the risk of accidents and the climatic conditions of cities like Shanghai or Guangzhou have made this profession increasingly less attractive for new generations, so cleaning companies it is difficult for them to find relief: the perfect scenario for automation. Furthermore, the data from cleaning drones is compelling: going from being able to clean 200 square meters a day to 10,000 with a cost between 10 and 20% less, according to the Wuhan startup Aero Technology collected by China Daily. Drones are best suited to difficult outdoors such as corners and nooks and work even on rainy or windy days without risk. And when finished, the drone uses its camera to capture images of the clean surface, which it transmits to ground personnel for review. If it doesn’t comply, give it a review. Why is it important. We have already glimpsed some of the advantages of automating cleaning at height, but one is truly essential: safety. According to the WHOfalls are the second global cause of death due to unintentional injuries, only behind traffic accidents, with about 684,000 deaths annually. In the specific workplace, they constitute one of the main risks in sectors such as construction or industry. especially dangerous are the falls in height. In the United States, OSHA data They return that falls represent between 35 and 39% of construction-related deaths. In Spain, falls from height represented in 2024 12.2% of all work-related deaths during work hours in all sectors and this year alone they cost the lives of 79 people in the Spanish state alone. The other big advantage is price: less labor, less operating time because they clean faster, lower equipment costs, and lower insurance premiums. Aero Technology quantifies savings between 10 and 20% compared to traditional methods, although the drone company Apex is more optimistic for your business, raising the range of savings up to 30 or 50% (although the reason is probably that you consider assemblies like scaffolding). Regarding water consumption, a study by Shanghai University of Engineering has shown which spends 21.8% less. Context. China faces the worst possible scenario in this framework: it is the country with the most skyscrapers in the world, it has a lot of air pollution that quickly dirtys its facades and it also suffers labor shortage for manual jobs. Although if we are looking for pioneers in the drone cleaning segment we have to go to the North American one. Surname born 2014, the Elevation from the Swiss Aerotain AG back in 2015 or the Norwegian KTV Working Dronethe owner and mistress of drone window cleaning is China. China had been preparing the ground for years, as demonstrated by different academic research papers on glass and facade cleaning robotsas this of cable-driven parallel robots from Tsinghua University or this other of fan-powered cleaning robots from the Harbin Institute of Technology. The Asian giant has the academic ecosystem, state financial support and an obvious need. Said and done: China was the one who democratized technology, moving from prototypes and more or less “artisanal” devices to large-scale production with scalable industrial systems and companies like DJI, UAEAV and Foxtech. Today they already produce between 80-90% of the world’s commercial drones and lead an industry that in 2024 was valued at 248 million dollars and has a projection of 1,257 million by 2033. according to Growth Market Reports. The substitutes. China has developed a complete industrial ecosystem that is essentially divided into two major technological aspects. On the one hand, high-pressure cleaning drones that are connected to water pumps that are on the ground, such as the DJI M400 or the solutions of Foxtech Robotics. On the other hand, autonomous climbing robots with sensors and AI navigation (such as robot vacuum cleaners) such as those from OneMovecapable of detecting and adapting to variations in façade surfaces. In between, variants in the form of projects with hybrid platforms such as that of Skybotics Technology Limited or wired parallel systems that offer high precision, such as this from the Faculty of Engineering of Shanghai University with three degrees of freedom. Some of the technologies that can be found in this type of robots are adaptive joints to reduce wind discomfort or “zero distance” spraying to increase pressure, both present in the DJI M400one of the most popular in the sector. Yes, but. Although facade cleaning robots are a revolution for the sector, they are not a panacea: they work best on flat surfaces, they have height restrictions (typically between 60 and 120 meters for wired systems) and although they have more margin than human labor to operate in worse weather conditions, they are not infallible. Finally, the initial cost is significant, which constitutes a barrier to entry for smaller companies because it is not only the drone, it is also extra auxiliary elements such as pumping stations, batteries, software or safety certifications. For example, only the complete Lucid Bots Sherpa kit It costs $75,000.which leads to opting for solutions such as renting or leasing. In any case, and … Read more

Vevo was all over the internet in the 2000s. Today is just another forgotten episode of the old music industry

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In December 2009, two of the biggest record labels on the planet organized a party in New York with Bono as the guest of honor to celebrate the launch of something that, according to them, was going to give them back control of the music business on the Internet, which, as we will now see, was not going through its best moment. It was called Vevo, an acronym for “Video Evolution.” The (r)evolution lasted less than a decade: the fundamental changes in the business and the arrival of a different way of understanding music videos relegated it to the secondary level of nostalgia for millennials which is today. Bad times. In the late 2000s, The music industry was collapsing.. Income from record sales had been falling for years due to the combined effect of piracy and chaotic digitalization, unbeknownst to the labels, and which was very far from the orderly and official moment that it is experiencing today thanks to streaming platforms. For example: YouTube (which had already been bought by Google in 2006) accumulated hundreds of millions of video clip views without the labels seeing a single euro in compensation. Attempts were made to renegotiate the terms of that relationship, without success: Warner Music was the first to withdraw their entire catalog from YouTube in 2008. Ideaca. Doug Morris, then CEO of Universal Music Group and a central figure in the creation of Vevo, envisioned a way to enter the internet and video clip business when he saw his grandson consuming online video clips with advertising, which led him to ask how much money Universal was generating with those reproductions… The answer was obvious: zero. From that point on, Morris pressured companies like Yahoo and MTV to compensate him for playing his videos. He did end up reaching an agreement with Google. Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Vevo! Vevo officially launched on December 8, 2009 following an agreement between Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI, with Warner Music Group joining years later, in August 2016. Vevo would provide the official catalog in high definition, YouTube would serve as a mass distribution platform, and both parties would sell advertising on that inventory. In October 2009, the Abu Dhabi Media Company already had invested about 300 million dollars to operate in the United States and Canada. Immediate result? Spectacular. In its first month it was already the most visited music site in the United States, surpassing Myspace Music. The economic impact was also rapid: according to Vevo’s CEO at the time, the average CPM of an online music video went from $3 before launch to more than $30 in 2013. In 2012, Vevo accumulated 41 billion views annually across its network, with a catalog of around 75,000 videos. By August 2013, Vevo had surpassed MTV in terms of digital viewership: 609 million video views versus MTV’s 261 million that month. Vevo Certified for artists who surpassed 100 million streams became an indicator of cultural relevance comparable to a number one on sales charts. Issues. However, Vevo’s structural problem was not the audience, but your delivery model. Although the company had a turnover of $250 million in 2013, more than 90% of that income was shared between labels, Google and music publishers. Universal and Sony captured 55% of the total and Vevo operated at a loss. It was, in practice, an advertising inventory manager without its own capital: it generated value for its shareholders, the labels and Google, but not for itself as an independent operating entity. In 2014, the company hired Goldman Sachs and The Raine Group to find a buyer willing to pay nearly $1 billion for the company. None appeared. Vevo ruled out the sale and announced that it would seek profitability through its own means. Change of course. In April 2015, Erik Huggers (creator of the famous BBC iPlayer) arrived as the new CEO. Vevo then wanted build your own applications for mobile and connected TV, reduce its dependence on YouTube and eventually launch a paid subscription service. They began developing apps for iOS, Android and connected TV platforms, but it was short-lived: the paid subscription project was canceled in February 2017, and Huggers left the position. Sizes and layoffs took place and the commitment to technological autonomy ended. Coup de grace. In January 2018, YouTube automatically migrated subscribers from Vevo-branded channels (such as “RihannaVEVO” or “JustinBieberVEVO”) to YouTube’s new Official Artist Channels. That same week, YouTube relaunched YouTube Music as a paid subscription service, directly competing where Vevo had tried to enter. Paradoxically, Vevo had broken even that year for the first time. But the proprietary model had never caught on, and without it, there was no reason to maintain the infrastructure. What’s left of Vevo. Vevo has not completely disappearedlike other projects of the time. The company pivoted to the connected television business and FAST channelsthe free shelves with advertising. Its library exceeds 900,000 video clips and generates approximately 25,000 million monthly views. The model is, ironically, the one that MTV never managed to make happen: a free music network supported by advertising, although in the case of Vevo, distributed over the Internet instead of cable. Vevo’s footprint is not entirely negative: it set the standard for the official high-definition music video on YouTube, created the monetization infrastructure that allowed video clips to become a business again, and demonstrated that the recording industry could negotiate on an equal footing with technology platforms. But the fact that the video clips have ended up becoming amateur choreographies on TikTok is something that, of course, the CEO of Universal could not foresee. In Xataka | MrBeast created an extreme survival challenge with the goal that no one could overcome it. Until ‘Juan the Mexican’ arrived

To achieve the milestone of building the largest drone industry without China, Ukraine has found an explosive ally: Taiwan

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In the midst of the Cold War, several Western engineers they were surprised upon discovering that some of the most reliable small electronic components on the world market came from an island that barely made the big geopolitical headlines. Decades later, that silent specialization in manufacturing tiny and apparently invisible parts would end up becoming one of the industrial capabilities most coveted on the planet. The war that changed an industry. For decades, Taiwan was known primarily for making chipselectronic components and invisible parts that ended up inside telephones, computers or servers spread all over the planet, but modern wars are beginning to push that industrial capacity towards another, much more explosive terrain. The Guardian said that what is happening between Ukraine and Taiwan reflects a quiet change that barely existed a few years ago: the creation of a new technological alliance born directly from drone warfrom Chinese pressure and the desperate need to produce millions of cheap, autonomous and combat-ready systems. Ukraine wants to break its dependence on China. The war forced Ukraine to build at full speed a gigantic industry of drones capable of feeding a front that consumes absurd quantities of devices every month. The problem is that much of the global supply chain remains dominated by China: Motors, batteries, navigation systems, electronic components and rare earths continue to depend heavily on Chinese manufacturers. As we said, kyiv began to consider this dependence as a strategic risk When suspicions grew about indirect support from Beijing to Russia and fears grew of possible export restrictions. There Taiwan began to appear as an alternative unexpectedly important. His huge experience in semiconductors, microelectronics, electronic integration and advanced technological production made it one of the few places capable of supplying critical parts without being completely dependent on the West or trapped under direct Chinese control. For Ukraine, finding industrial partners outside of China stopped being a commercial issue and became literally a matter of survival. And Taiwan found Ukraine. While Ukraine seeks to produce millions of drones, gradually moving away from China, Taiwan observes the conflict with another concern: the possibility of one day confronting Beijing on its own territory. That coincidence of threats is creating a relationship ever deeper between both worlds. In fact, The New York Times said what Taiwanese engineers They send drones to Ukraine to be tested directly in combat, American companies transfer designs born on the Ukrainian front to Taiwanese production and former Taiwanese soldiers who today fight in Ukraine return home telling how modern war really works. Many Taiwanese militaries are beginning to discover that traditional doctrines are completely outweighed by swarms of FPV drones, unmanned maritime systems or cheap ground robots capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles. Ukraine is thus becoming a kind of university improvised military for Taiwan, one where the lessons do not come from simulations but from a real front where every mistake costs lives. The new military industry no longer resembles the old one. One of the most profound changes of this war is that military production no longer depends solely on gigantic state factories or large traditional contractors. Ukraine has developed more than one hundreds of local manufacturers of components while constantly adapting its systems to specific front-line needs. Ukrainian companies modify drones, software and guidance systems at a much higher speed to the Western classical industry. Taiwan fits perfectly in that transformation because it has exactly what Ukraine needs to accelerate that production: advanced electronics, specialized chips and flexible industrial capacity. Several Taiwanese companies already operate from Poland or Lithuania to indirectly supply kyiv, while Taiwanese drone exports to Europe have skyrocketed massively. In parallel, American companies are using Ukraine and Taiwan like two extremes of the same industrial chain: Ukraine provides combat experience and accelerated development, and Taiwan provides technological capacity and scalable manufacturing. The obsession with building drones outside of China. Both Ukraine and Taiwan share another priority that is becoming almost an industrial doctrine: building supply chains at the expense of Beijing. The problem is much more complicated than it seems because even many components manufactured outside China still use materials, batteries or magnets that depend from Chinese suppliers. Even so, both territories try gradually reduce that exhibition. Taiwan wants to build a drone industry completely disengaged from China by 2027 and increase its own production of rare earth magnets, while Ukraine continues to shift production within its borders. There is no doubt, the challenge is gigantic because Chinese products continue to be much cheaper and more abundant, but strategic logic is beginning to outweigh the economic cost. In the middle of a war, the priority shifts from buying the cheapest to ensuring the supply chain continues to function when the next crisis hits. Building something bigger than drones. If you also want, the most important thing in this relationship may not only be the production of drones, but the emergence of a new technological and military axis informal between two territories that live under permanent threat from much larger neighbors. Ukraine contributes real experience of war, proven tactics and a brutal speed of innovation under extreme pressure. Taiwan contributes industrial capacitysemiconductors and access to critical technologies that the West does not produce quickly enough. The result is beginning to look like something much more ambitious: an entire international network of distributed military production where private companies, engineers, volunteers and manufacturers work beyond official diplomatic limitations. Even the Ukrainian government recognize as drone factories based on Ukrainian designs are popping up outside its borders, including one in Taiwan. One more thing. Ultimately, what the war is accelerating is an idea that a few years ago would have seemed improbable: that to build the largest drone industry on the planet outside chinaUkraine has ended up finding one of its most valuable and strategic allies in Taiwan. Image | x, Trydence In Xataka | Today in “the war in Ukraine beyond all comprehension”: drone pilots are training with ‘Grand Theft Auto’ In Xataka | Ukraine has barely … Read more

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