manufacturing

A Japanese toilet company has been manufacturing key parts in the chip industry for years. And now it is going to be key in AI

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Toto, world famous for their toilets with a trickle that we usually miss so much when we return from Japan, has been quietly manufacturing key components for the semiconductor industry for decades. Just like account Financial Times, an activist fund has focused on that part of its business, and the market is starting to pay attention. What has happened. Palliser Capital, a UK-based activist fund, has sent a letter to Toto’s board of directors arguing that the advanced ceramics the company works on are being ignored and underestimated by the market. The fund, which owns a stake among the 20 largest in the company, according to share from FT, calls Toto “the most underrated and overlooked AI memory beneficiary.” What is important. Toto is not just a bathroom company. Since 1988 it has been manufacturing the so-called ‘electrostatic chucks’ in series.‘ (electrostatic jaws), high-precision ceramic components used in the manufacture of NAND memory chips to hold silicon wafers during the production process, controlling temperature and avoiding contamination. This business, which they fit within their “advanced ceramics” division, already represents around 42% of the company’s total operating profit, according to data from Bloomberg. The connection with AI. He data center boom for artificial intelligence has skyrocketed the demand for memory chips. Companies like Meta, Amazon or large memory manufacturers (SK Hynix, Samsung, Kioxia) are accelerating their production to face a widespread shortage. That translates into more demand for the components that Toto manufactures. The company’s ceramic technology is also specially adapted for cryogenic etching, a process that is expected to gain popularity as memory chips become more complex and layered. Business tips. According to share The fund also criticizes that Toto is not explaining well to investors the importance of this segment and that the allocation of internal capital is not prioritizing this lucrative sector. The fund proposes that the company expand its ceramics business, sell cross-stakes in other companies and make better use of its 76 billion yen in cash (about $496 million). If Toto did all that, Palliser estimates the stock could rise more than 55%. The market had already started to move. Toto shares have accumulated a revaluation of more than 60% in the last year. Just like share Bloomberg, at the end of January, after the support of Goldman Sachs, which raised the value to buy pointing to the memory shortage as a tailwind, the stock rose 11% in a single day, its biggest rise in five years. Be careful with the warnings. The idea that Toto would have that competitive advantage before other competitors can be at that level comes from Palliser himself, who has an obvious interest in making that narrative credible. Tom’s Hardware points out that while electrostatic jaws play a real role in advanced manufacturing processes, whether that translates into sustained growth still depends in part on large memory manufacturers committing to expanding production and, for now, they are being cautious faced with the risk of oversupply if the AI ​​market cools. The phenomenon is not exclusive to Toto. Japan has a long history in chip production, which has led companies with very different profiles to develop businesses related to semiconductors almost without anyone noticing. Just like share Bloomberg, Ajinomoto, known for its broths and its mastery of umami, makes insulating films for chips based on its expertise with amino acids. Kao, a cosmetics company, has a silicon wafer cleaning business. The AI ​​business is revaluing companies that, a priori, had nothing to do with it. And Toto is the latest example of this. Cover image | Taylor Vick and Upgraded Points In Xataka | What future awaits artists with the rise of AI? In Ireland they see it so black that they are already preparing a basic income

is already manufacturing the “Formula 1” of carbon fibers

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Carbon fiber is a material widely used in industry, from aeronautics to motorsports to wind turbine blades or bicycle frames. But there are fibers and fibers: While the industry standard is the T300 and T700, there are high-performance ones like the T800 or T1000. If we talk about the best and the most advanced, the high-performance aerospace grade T1100 comes into the picture. Of course, it was only manufactured in two countries: Japan or the United States. China is about to change that. An industry located in two countries. More specifically, in the T1100 producing industry, the Japanese Toray Industries It is the absolute reference (they invented that nomenclature). Then there is Hexcel in the United States, with its counterpart the HexTow IM10. In the United States there is also a Toray plant in Alabama, which the Japanese company advertisement back in 2022 with one goal: to meet the demand of the US defense sector. That’s if we talk about industrial scale, because in the laboratory Russia, South Korea wave India They are making their first steps. And of course, China. China makes a virtue of necessity. The Asian giant has achieved a milestone: going from the laboratory to the production plant with a 95% success rate in the city of Langfang, according to CGTN. They explain that, to ensure stable production, Shenzhen University worked hand in hand with the Changsheng Technology company since 2023. Why is it important. To begin with, because you can produce small laboratory samples, but the difficult thing is to scale to industrial volumes. This is what happens with a good part of the promising materials. But by combining state capital, university laboratory and factory research side by side, China has achieved a brutal synergy in the development of new materials: CGTN mentions expressly advances every 3 or 4 months and more than 30 rounds of iteration examining hundreds of factors to eliminate defects and reach mass production. The fact in itself is a milestone, but what is truly important is the consequence: technological independence. Once launched, China’s aerospace and defense programs will no longer be limited by the supply of this carbon fiber from abroad. T1100 carbon fiber is strategic. It is the material strongest structural (in strength-to-weight ratio) and lightest that humans can produce on a scale: it has a tensile strength of 7,000 MPa and a thickness of just five micrometers. It is seven times stronger than steel while weighing only a quarter as much, it synthesizes a scientist from Shenzhen University for CGTN. And it is essential for the manufacture of fighter aircraft, satellites, rockets and civil aircraft. It is, therefore, a strategic and sensitive material due to its dual civil and military use. For this reason, Japan and the United States have strict export controls. That is, if you want T1100 grade carbon fiber to cover your fighters, for example, you have to check out if everything goes well, because obviously such a strategic material is subject to geopolitical diplomacy. This point is important because How about GPUs?the United States may block its sale to China. And in fact, does it. Also Japan, via Wassenaar Agreement. In perspective. Toray launched the T300 in 1971quickly making this carbon fiber the industry standard. Forty-three years later, the Japanese company announced the T1100 in 2014. China, on the other hand, had to wait until 2008 to have his own T300, but he has stepped on the accelerator and in just 18 years he has caught up. In Xataka | Xi Jinping’s “made in China 2025” plan is becoming a reality: this is how he is conquering the key technologies of the future In Xataka | China has a metamaterial capable of making its fighters invisible. “It is the key to winning future wars” Cover | CGTN

Ukraine is proving that kamikaze drones are the future of warfare. And that is why Spain is going to start manufacturing them

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Europe has been talking about defense as an abstract concept for years, but the war in Ukraine turned the threat into something physical and quantifiable: drones, missiles, loitering munitions and a logistics chain under constant fire, forcing NATO to assume that the modern battlefield is a “death zone” where those who do not mass produce are at a disadvantage. And in that equation an unexpected nation has emerged: Spain. The new shield of Europe. To that strategic pressure after the invasion of Russia and the appearance of his ghost fleet An even more uncomfortable factor has been added: the political tension with the United States and the growing sense that the Western security umbrella is no longer It is not an automationbut a negotiation. In this double impulse is born the rush for a European defensive shield (perhaps that repeated drone wall), and not only in radars or interceptors, but in industry, stocks and real response capacity, where manufacturing speed matters as much as quality and where technological sovereignty becomes a survival requirement. The unexpected actor: Spain. In this scenario of rapid rearmament and need for autonomy, Spain aims to go from being a country that buys to being one who producesand also do it with a weapon that defines contemporary war: the kamikaze droneor loitering munition, which watches, waits and strikes with precision at costs much lower than manned aviation or traditional missiles. The move is ambitious because Spain does not compete from the heavy industrial tradition of other European partners, there is no doubt, but from a commitment to the most demanded segmentscalable and urgent of the moment: cheap, numerous, quickly upgradeable platforms and capable of saturating defenses. The political and military thesis seems clear: if Europe’s immediate future is decided by who can produce and replenish drones the fastest, then a country that leads that manufacturing not only wins contracts, also influence. Comparison of UAVs in the international market The Indra-Edge alliance. The core of the movement was in the news yesterday with the agreement between Indra and Emirati giant Edge to create a joint venture focused on the development, production and full lifecycle support of loitering munitions and smart weapons, with an estimated order book of about 2 billion euros annually. There is talk of manufacturing drones and sustained capacity: design, assembly line, maintenance, replacement and scaling, something essential in a type of war where systems are consumed at an industrial rate. Indra relies on experience Edge on suicide drones to accelerate the technological leap, while underlining that the real value for Europe is in pproduce in European territoryfulfilling the logic of sovereignty and reducing dependencies and deadlines in a market that is moving due to urgency and not by comfortable calendars. Castilla y León as a military-industrial hub. The bet has taken concrete form with two plants in Castilla y León: in Villadangos del Páramo (León), a production facility dedicated to drones and loitering munitions will be built, with an investment of about 20 million euros and a forecast of up to 200 jobs at full capacity. Another plant focused on micromotors will be installed in Boecillo (Valladolid), a critical component that defines autonomy, reliability and production capacity. The combination is revealing: it is not only the “final product”, also, and very important, the control of key pieces, which allows manufacture without bottlenecks and sustain a high exit rate when the strategic environment demands constant replacement. The objective is for Spain to not only be an assembler, but also part of the industrial heart that makes war with drones possible. Defense turns it into a state program. The Ministry of Defense has presented the project as part of the Industrial and Technological Plan for Security and Defense approved in May 2025, and has stated that the León factory will produce “the most advanced drones that can operate today in Europe and NATO.” Beyond the owner, what is relevant is that the new company would already be born with valued contracts around 2 billion of euros, with a workload committed to covering the needs of the Spanish Armed Forces and also other European armies, and with a performance horizon in 2026 and 2027. The implicit message is that Spain wants to be in the industrial layer that supports the European defensive shield, not as a secondary actor, but as a real supplier of a capacity that decides tactical survival on the front. Politics gets on the drone. The announcement, furthermore, is made with a staging in the Senate and in a pre-electoral context in Castilla y León, where the local impact (those 00 jobs distributed between León and Valladolid) turns the defense industry into territorial policy tool. The narrative mixes national security and reindustrialization: Small areas such as Villadangos del Páramo appear as recipients of a project of high technological value, while it is presented as a historic turn for the Spanish industrial base. At the same time, it is linked to other military initiatives in the community, emphasizing that rearmament It is not only a strategic debate, but a map of investments, works, infrastructure and employment that reorders public priorities. The real game. Finally, the movement also gives clues about the future of Europe with Ukraine as a mirror: the defensive shield It is no longer measured only in troops and doctrine, but in the ability to produce cheap, intelligent and massive systems, with short innovation cycles and controlled supply chains. Somehow, Russia has imposed the pace of the threat, and Washington has added the political pressure of not depending eternally on an external guarantor. In this scenario, Spain tries to occupy an unexpected gap: become the protagonist of the European loitering ammunition, the tool kamikaze which not only serves to attack, but also to deny space, saturate defenses and impose costs on the adversary. In a Europe that has belatedly discovered that modern war is also won in factories, Spain wants are in their territory. Image | Khamenei.ir In Xataka | Europe faces … Read more

Europe is the world leader in heat pump manufacturing. The only problem is that Europeans don’t use them

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Not to get grandiose, but Europe has never had so many renewables underwayhad never made so much clean technology and never had talked so much about energy independence. And yet, winter has arrived again and the ritual is always the same: turning on the heating still means burning imported gas. Although if we reach this point it is not for lack of alternatives, because they are there. The problem is much more mundane: in much of the continent, heating with electricity it’s still more expensive than doing it with gas. The energy shock that changed everything. A recent EMBER report has detailed how Europe abruptly lost access to cheap Russian gas and had to replace it with much more expensive liquefied natural gas in a highly volatile global market. The result was an unprecedented price shock: an accumulated extra cost of 930 billion euros during the energy crisis. More on fossils. Far from being a problem caused by the green transition, the document indicates that the impact was concentrated precisely in the sectors most dependent on imported fossil fuels. Energy-intensive industries reduced production and, in many cases, never returned to pre-Ukraine war levels. This reading coincides with that presented by researcher Jan Rosenowwho rejects the idea that dismantling climate policies would make energy cheaper. The problem, he maintains, was not going too fast, but rather having delayed electrification for decades and having kept gas as the pillar of the system. Here the central contradiction emerges. According to EMBERheat pumps are a mature, efficient and strategic technology: they produce between two and three times more heat than a gas boiler for each unit of energy consumed. Even if that electricity came entirely from a gas plant, the net fuel savings would still exist. However, in practice, the technological advantage is diluted in the bill. In most EU countries, electricity costs 2 to 4 times more than gas for the end consumer. The average electricity-gas ratio in the EU is 2.85, and in some member states it exceeds 4. The problem: the pricing structure. As pointed out in the consultancynon-energy costs —taxes, tolls and public policy surcharges— can represent up to three quarters of the final price of electricity, while gas maintains a much lower tax burden. The result is an obvious distortion: the most efficient technology appears expensive and the most polluting technology appears affordable. You save but not. For an average home, this anomaly has a direct effect, since changing systems reduces energy consumption, but it does not always reduce the bill. And when that happens, adoption slows down. Furthermore, the data confirm that this is not a cultural or climatic issue, but rather an economic one. In countries like the Netherlands, where electricity is only slightly more expensive than gas, heat pump sales are soaring. On the other hand, in Germany, Poland or Hungary —where electricity can cost more than three times as much as gas—, adoption is much lower. The lever that remains to be activated. Solutions exist and many are immediately applicable: transferring the costs of electricity policies to public budgets, reducing electricity VAT, taxing fossil gas more coherently or implementing specific rates for heat pumps. From there, technological deployment is no longer a promise, but a reality. In fact, Europe leads the global heat pump industrywith manufacturers such as Bosch, Vaillant, NIBE or Danfoss, and with industrial projects that already operate on a large scale. These are not prototypes or pilots, but rather functioning infrastructure. Real limits and tensions. None of this eliminates obstacles. Europe still need gas to stabilize its electrical grid. The infrastructures are stressed, the flexibility of the system is insufficient and any cold winter can send prices skyrocketing again. Added to this are the physical frictions of the transition. The massive expansion of offshore wind in the North Sea is generating unprecedented conflicts between countries due to the so-called “wake effect”, which reduces the production of neighboring parks. Electrification is not only a matter of political will, but also of technical coordination and supranational planning. The anomaly that Europe has not yet corrected. Europe already has the technology, the industry and the climate goals. What it has not yet corrected is a basic anomaly: fiscally penalizing electricity while de facto subsidizing fossil gas. As long as that distortion persists, heat pumps will continue to advance more slowly than data, engineering, and economic common sense would allow. As the EMBER report concludeselectrifying heating is not a green whim, but a strategy for energy security, industrial competitiveness and price stability. The transition is not about inventing new machines, but about deciding which energy is made cheaper and which is left behind. And today, in Europe, that decision continues to be reflected—very clearly—in the invoice. Image | freepik Xataka | While the US and China dominate different sectors, Europe leads an unexpected leadership: heat pumps

Volkswagen is going to stop manufacturing the combustion Polo due to new emission regulations

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The future of the Volkswagen Polo will be electric or it will not be. This is what Thomas Schäfer, CEO of Volkswagen, has come to say. The company’s head believes that there is no way to launch a future combustion Polo if emissions requirements do not change. And the European Commission’s proposal changes the situation very little for this type of car. Electric or electric. “Offering new models with a gasoline engine in the size of the Polo and below does not make sense considering future emissions regulations. They would be too expensive for our customers. The future in this segment is electric.” The words are from Thomas Schäfer, CEO of Volkswagen, in an interview with the German media Auto Motor und Sport. In it, the top executive of the brand points out that it makes no sense to launch a new Volkswagen Polo with a combustion engine because the development costs could not be amortized if the car is to be kept at a competitive price. Why does an electric car have less autonomy than advertised? It must be taken into account that the disappearance of the Polo It has already been advanced in 2022 when it was thought that the car would die. Then it was already said that the company was not going to invest money in developing small cars with combustion engines and it seems that the idea remains. The Polo ID. In 2022, Volkswagen was considering eliminating the Polo name. As the years went by and seeing the public’s reception, the company has finally decided to call the electric that comes to occupy this space as Volkswagen ID.Polodiscarding the ID.2 designation finally. At the moment, little is known about the car, other than that it should start at less than 25,000 euros and that will be manufactured in Spain. That and throughout the Volkswagen Group they have the same approach to the combustion car: there will be no new cheap options. Seat, for example, will not launch combustion cars of this size to renew the current Ibiza but it will not do the same with electric until they are cheap enough. The regulations. In his statements Schäfer points to the emissions regulations that Europe has ahead. To start, Volkswagen has until 2027 to record its average emissions of cars sold since this year below 93.6 gr/km of CO2 if you don’t want to incur heavy fines. According to data collected by Motor.esthe Germans had the possibility of receiving more than 1.5 billion euros in fines on the table. These emissions must be halved by 2030 and non-existent by 2035. But hadn’t they changed? At the moment, no. Although everything indicates that there will be subtle changes. However, with the European Commission proposalthose who benefit within the Volkswagen Group are Audi, Porsche or Lamborghini since the cars with combustion engines that can be sold will be very expensive. And the proposal has to be approved by the European Parliament and the Member States (the Council of the EU). However, if it goes ahead, which is most likely, the important changes will be the following: The emissions. To get an idea of ​​the impossibility of complying with these limits by selling small combustion cars, a Volkswagen Polo with a 1.0 three-cylinder engine and 80 HP emits 119 gr/km of CO2. The company would have to sell more than a dozen electric cars to offset each sale of a combustion Polo of this type. Something unthinkable. And small cars are the ones that less profit margin left to a company. That is why the amortization of developments must be achieved by selling a very high volume of cars. If not, the price must be raised and the car is anticompetitive in a part of the market that is more susceptible to price changes. That leaves Volkswagen’s hands tied. The development of a platform for small electric vehicles to comply with emissions regulations has already eaten up money that cannot be invested in launching a new combustion-powered Volkswagen Polo with another stream of money in development included with such a short commercial life ahead. In fact, if Volkswagen does not sell enough electric vehicles He is not even interested in selling the current Volkswagen Polo. On the horns of a dilemma. The biggest problem this leaves us with is that the client finds himself between a rock and a hard place. For a purely technical issue, buying a four-meter electric car can be a very good solution for everyday life. Having a plug at home is perfect and the more kilometers we travel daily, the cheaper it will be for the customer. But the owner of an electric car of this type has a problem when he goes on a trip. And the price savings you are going to pay with discomfort. An electric car of this size is leaving us with versions with batteries of between 40 and 50 kWh to meet the 25,000 euros mark and that leaves us with real autonomy on the road of between 200 and 250 kilometers in the best of cases. This situation is causing the small electric car to not gain enough traction in the market. And if this type of car doesn’t start, the industry has a problem because emissions limits are already on the table and They need to multiply electric sales to comply with the figures that Europe has put on the table. Photo | Volkswagen In Xataka | I went out for a weekend with the Renault 5. This is all that awaits anyone who buys a cheap electric car

The industry has stopped manufacturing for people, it does it for machines

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On October 1, 2025, the average price of two 8GB DDR4-3200 modules was $60. Today that price is 110 dollars. Things are worse for DDR5 memory: at the beginning of September the average price of two 16GB DDR5-4800 modules was about $100, but now the price is approaching $250. In just a few months those prices have skyrocketed and we know perfectly well who is to blame: the AI. what has happened. He who warns is not a traitor: at the beginning of October we were talking about how A perfect storm had brewed with AI and data centers. This storm was going to cause notable increases in the prices of NAND and DRAM memories. And indeed those prices have skyrocketed in an astonishing and worrying way. The average price of DDR5-4800 2x16GB modules has multiplied by 2.5 in less than two months. Source: PC PartPicker 307% more. The consulting firm TrendForce, specialized in this type of market analysis, indicated this week how the price of DDR5 memories has increased by up to 307% since September, but the worst thing is not that: the worst thing is that these prices are going to continue rising and it also affects DDR4 modules, although somewhat less (“only” 158%). In fact, in a graph they showed how two 8 GB DDR4-3200 modules had gone from $30.55 to $34.42, 12.67% more expensive… than a week ago. More information. The well-known website PCPartPicker It offers among its services an analysis of the price evolution of different components. The graphics of DRAM memories were quite boring because they were almost always relatively flat, but now they have gone crazy and very unfun. In all types of memory analyzed, the increase in average prices confirms the TrendForce data. The curve is more worrying for DDR5 modules, but it is clear that all are affected. NAND are going the same way. NAND memories have the same problemand that will make SSD drives also increase in price. The demand for data centers is causing end users to suffer the direct consequences, and prices are expected to grow significantly. Khein Seng Pua, CEO of Phison—one of the largest manufacturers of this type of chips— warned that “recently all NAND companies have begun to increase their sales prices by around 50 or 75%” and warned that all this will make “the supply of NAND chips very tight for many, many years.” Or what is the same: prices that will rise but will not fall in the medium (or long term). A vicious circle. The news is terrible for those who were thinking of updating their equipment with more RAM or more storage capacity. The upward trend in prices will not relax at least in this quarter, and may continue for much longer due to this AI fever. Data centers need AI GPUs, AI GPUs (often) need HBM memories, and HBM memories cause manufacturers to put RAM on the back burner. Bad time to upgrade or build a PC (or maybe it’s a good time). It’s a vicious circle that will make upgrading or building a PC right now a bad deal. But of course, it can also be seen from another perspective: maybe waiting is even worse and this is “a good time” or at least, “the best of bad times” in the medium term. Of course the threat is there. Most expensive smartphones and laptops in sight. Of course this can also directly affect the new smartphones, tablets, PCs and laptops that appear on the market from this moment on. Price increases in components clearly impact the manufacturing costs of these devices, and it would not be strange to see significant increases in all types of devices. In fact, Khein Seng explained that some manufacturers could decide to do a kind of “reduflation” of their products by lowering specifications in order to maintain sales prices. Image | Andrey Matveev In Xataka | Samsung has its biggest competitor at home. His future with chips depends on his rivalry with SK Hynix

In 40 years they have gone from manufacturing printers to manufacturing the future

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Exactly 40 years ago, HP packed up its original facilities in Terrassa (Barcelona) and moved to land on the outskirts of Sant Cugat del Vallés (Barcelona) to expand facilities that the success of your printers left small. We have visited those same HP facilities in Spain and, although the machines that manufactured printers have been turned off a long time ago, we have discovered the equivalent of a small Silicon Valley in Spain from which you imagine what will the technological future be like. From growing cereals to generating ideas The center located in Sant Cugat del Vallés celebrates 40 years since, in 1985, the company moved its facilities, taking with them the 30 employees that made up its staff at that time. In those years, the facility was designed as a production center for its printers. However, in 2000, production was relocated to Asia. Given the new situation, the center was on the brink of closure. The Sant Cugat facilities, already with more than 800 employees, of which 200 were engineers, were reinvented, transforming the center into a factory of ideas and a laboratory of innovations that has not stopped growing in its four decades of existence. Currently, the center has 11 buildings that house 2,600 employees of 60 nationalities, of which 800 are engineers who work hand in hand with other companies to develop new practical solutions for their businesses. “In 1985, there were farms here and now this space has become the Silicon Valley of the city,” Helena Herrero, HP president of Southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told us proudly. No wonder, she was part of that team that made possible its transformation into one of the two largest HP R&D centers in Europe and the worldcomparable to that of HP’s headquarters in Palo Alto. Recreation in Barcelona of the Hewlett Packard garage in Palo Alto Symbolic testimony of this spirit of development is the detailed recreation of the famous garage where Hewlett and Packard created HP 85 years ago in Palo Alto that welcomed us. In that garage not only was Hewlett Packard born as a company, but it served as inspiration for the creation of that ecosystem of companies that we know today as Silicon Valley. As happened in Silicon Valley, around the recreation of that garage, HP has created a center for innovation and development of new ideas and products that will be decisive for the future in areas as diverse as Formula 1, prosthetic medicineculture, construction or work efficiency. This center registers more than 150 patents a year for HP. Ideas that have come true and we have been able to see and touch One of the peculiarities of this HP center is that companies come asking for help to solve a problem and the HP teams work with them to find innovative solutions. The most recent example is the collaboration of these engineers with the Ferrari Formula 1 team. In this case, the challenge was to lighten the weight of the car as much as possible without compromising the aerodynamic sliding of its body. Daniel Martínez, head of the large format printing division and director of the center, told us that the Sant Cugat engineering team developed a latex print that was then applied to the body of the vehicle like vinyl. This sheet reduced its weight by 17% compared to conventional paint without compromising aerodynamics. In our visit to this HP ideas laboratory We saw that engineers are developing solutions in other, much more futuristic areas in which robotics and printing come together. It looks like a Roomba, but it actually draws plans That idea born within these walls has given rise to the project SitePrinta hybrid between a printer and a robot vacuum cleaner that print on the ground the dimensions of the plans of work. Combining a complex system of positioning and inclination sensors, they allow the robot to determine its position in space and detect unevenness in the terrain, providing additional information to the construction team. 3D printed metal parts Another real application that has been developed in this avant-garde center in Barcelona has to do with the 3D printing development with new techniques and materials with technology Metal Jet. Among its novelties, the use of generative AI to simplify the design of the parts to be printed or the development of 3D printing with metals to manufacture high precision mechanical parts and components. One of the pieces that personally surprised me the most about this technology is the possibility of combining, in the same continuous printing job, flexible materials, with a rubber-like texture, and rigid areas with the hardness of a metal. These technological solutions open a whole range of opportunities for the field of prostheses and cast replacements with 3D printing. New turn towards the future: AI As a symbol of the innovative spirit and reinvention of this center in Sant Cugat, HP has rehabilitated a 15th century farmhouse that was in a state of semi-ruin on the land occupied by the enormous HP technology campus, and has converted it into La Masia Experience Design Center, the spiritual center of its new stage with the creation of the HP AI Innovation Hub. The Masia in its original state. Source: HP With this new hub focused on AI, the Barcelona facilities become the reference center in Europe for the development of AI LMM models that HP will use in its future products: from AI agents premises on their computers to videoconferencing assistance systems, to give some examples that are already on the market. Interior of La Masia Experience Design Center after its reconstruction The new AI hub will collaborate transversally in 14 business units of the company and with all the development centers that the company has throughout the world, especially with its headquarters in Palo Alto, where there is also a team specialized in AI development. As happened in 1985 and later in 2000, with the creation of the HP AI Innovation Hub, … Read more

Intel has been manufacturing chips for decades only for her. His only salvation is to make chips for all others

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Let’s make a trip to the past. The year is 1997 and Steve Jobs has just returned to Applebut the state of the company is terrible and its future, uncertain. To try to save her Apple began to look for strategic alliances, and that was when she announced an absolutely unusual with Microsoft. Bill Gates’s company would invest 150 million dollars in Apple And both would collaborate on several fronts. That unique agreement seemed impossible. Both companies were large rivals, but the truth is that both won with that alliance. Now it seems that we could live an analogous situation with two other companies that are also large rivals. On the one hand Intel, which is as low as Apple was in 1997. On the other TSMC, which dominates in the semiconductor market like Microsoft did it in the software then. According to The Wall Street Journalboth companies are negotiating a possible alliance that is certainly surprising, but has very interesting ramifications. If TSMC helps Intel’s “salvation”, That will give you an advantageous position in future agreements with the US government. This government is now the owner of 10% of Intel’s shares, and for better or worse to get along with Intel, it means getting along with the administration. Taking into account the current policy that practically forces to manufacture chips and components in the US to get rid of tariffs, that potential alliance becomes profitable. Not just that. The agreement also favors TSMC interests when avoiding possible antitrust. How is it going to be a monopoly when you are helping a competitor not go to pique? As They demonstrated Apple and Microsoft, eliminating competition is not the only way to win the game. A promising transition The Historical crisis For which Intel has been going through his new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, to make very difficult decisions. The mass layoffs They are part of that strategy, but the company has also attended a deep restructuring that It is “chopping”. But there is even more. In fact, Intel’s strategy seems to be recognized and Accept the failure of the era of “exclusive chip”. The firm has admitted that manufacturing by and for it had no route, and now wants to focus on a business model on which it is A chips factory for third parties. That is exactly what has placed TSMC where it is. If the alliance with TSMC is completed, a unique strategy would be confirmed by Intel in which in a few weeks we have lived a unique opening to alliances of all kinds and condition: SoftBank injected 2,000 million dollars USA bought 10% of Intel for 8,900 million dollars Nvidia invested 5,000 million dollars Apple is a candidate for a collaboration agreement And now TSMC could also follow those steps All these steps certainly open an escape for an Intel that seemed to be against the strings. If such alliances fruit, Intel will only lack his two great future objectives. The first, fulfill your promises With the 14th node to which everything has opted. The second, Get customers For that node. And that is where those agreements can be very useful. Image | Intel In Xataka | Intel has confirmed that the 20A node will be skipped to reduce expenses. The 18A node will enter production in 2025

The main car manufacturing countries, exposed in a devastating map that shows the Asian domain

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It depends on what car segment let’s put the magnifying glass, but I know esteem that in 2024 They sold Between 75 and 85 million vehicles worldwide. It is a growth of more than 2% compared to the previous year, and if you have wondered which country is the one that manufactures the most cars, this map responds to perfection and highlights its own name: China. There are also trend changes that should be analyzed. Asian domain. Prepared by Visual Capitalist With data from the OICA (International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers), we can see in blue the countries that dominate cars manufacturing. China produced more than 31 million Of vehicles in 2024, the United States more than 10.5 million and Japan more than eight million. Among the three, 54% of all vehicles built during the past year, but we put the focus on Asia. Apart from China and Japan, India with six million and South Korea with four million are two other countries of that Asian “axis that contribute to the domain of the area in exports worldwide. All have more or less stable production compared to the previous year, being Japan that stars in a 10% decrease in production, but staying between the powers. The opposite case is Thailand, which closes the Top 10 with 1.4 million vehicles produced, assuming a 20% downturn compared to the previous year.

The Samsung chips manufacturing subsidiary walks on the tightrope. Tesla will save her from collapse

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Samsung has reached an agreement with Tesla. An important agreement. According to Bloombergthese two companies have signed a commitment that will run until 2033 and for which the subsidiary specialized in the manufacture of integrated circuits of this South Korean company will produce for Tesla chips for a value of 16.5 billion dollars in its Texas plant (USA). Not bad at all, especially if we are in mind that Samsung urgently needs that its semiconductor division Increase your presence in the market. Jay Y. Lee, the president of this company, sent in the middle of last March An internal statement in which it synthesizes with great precision what this company faces: “Our technological advantage has been compromised in all our businesses. It is difficult to see that efforts are being made to boost great innovations or assume new challenges. There are only attempts to maintain the status quo instead of generating disruptive changes. “ The Samsung subsidiary specialized in the manufacture of semiconductors is largely the company’s engine, and to recover health it is essential that its competitiveness increases. However, to carry it out it is necessary that its integration technology of 2 nm pelee from you to you both with the equivalent lithography of Intel, and, above all, with that of TSMC. However, Samsung’s starting point is favorable. And it is because He has been working in which it is undoubtedly The most important photolithography in its history. The 2 nm are crucial Samsung has led for more than three decades the industry of integrated dram circuits, but the rise of the artificial intelligence (AI) has triggered something that just two or three years ago would have seemed unthinkable: now it is also the South Korean SK Hynix the manufacturer of integrated memory circuits that LEADS THE HBM Chips Market so much (High Bandwidth Memory) that work side by side with the GPUs for the The one of the DRAM memories. Chips manufacturers need the candlestick performance of their avant -garde nodes to be at least 70% In current circumstances it is evident that Samsung needs to trace as soon as possible. And it seems that it is in it. At the beginning of 2025 several South Korean media anticipated that Large scale manufacturing of 2 nm chips It had already begun in the company’s South Korean plants. However, this does not mean that Samsung already has everything tied. Chips manufacturers need The performance by wafer of his avant -garde nodes is at least 70%and, according to the South Korean newspaper Munhwa Ilbothis company currently moves in the range of 40 to 50%. Even so, the Japanese chips designer for the preferred networks (PFN) and a South Korean company specialized in the design of neuronal processing units (NPU) They were already interested in early 2025 in which Samsung manufactured his designs in his new 2 nm node. There is no doubt that at the delicate moment this company is going through, having several agreements tied before its competitors initiate large -scale production with equivalent photolithographs is very important. However, this is not all. And is that just five months after that news the South Korean medium Chosunbizwhich in the matter of semiconductors does not usually give stitch without a thread, said Samsung I had already started the evidence In its 2 Nm node For Nvidia and Qualcomm. This test process does not guarantee that Samsung is finally going to manufacture integrated 2 Nm circuits for these two US companies, but their interest in the technology of this South Korean company is an oxygen ball. There is no doubt about that. Image | Samsung More information | Bloomberg In Xataka | This is the chips war: a former SK Hynix employee is suspected to deliver stolen technology to Huawei

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