market

China and Nvidia star in the “great technological divorce” of 2026. A bureaucratic hell that is erasing it from the market

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Talking about Nvidia is talking about artificial intelligence glue. The GPU giant has invested millions financing cocompanies like OpenAI or Anthropicbut along the way has not forgotten startups or to make purchases for strengthen your position in the market. The problem is that it is missing out on a potential $50 billion market: China. Because Nvidia is eager to enter China, but it is trapped between bureaucracy, the Trump Government, Xi Jinping’s Government, and the smuggling of its graphics cards. The great divorce. In a very short time, Nvidia has gone from dominating the Chinese GPU market for artificial intelligence to losing it completely. The restrictions of the Trump Administration and the intensification of the trade war between the powers left Nvidia out of the game. Either it would adapt its GPUs and create less capable versions of those it sold in the West or it would not be able to sell in China. For a time, Nvidia was selling the H20 to adapt to the new rules, but it is something that has taken its toll. As AI needs demanded more powerful GPUs and own chinese industry with Huawei, Cambricon and Moore Threads was developed, Nvidia was being left out of the game. Official quota. In the middle of last year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pressed Donald Trump to see reason: it was better for Nvidia to be able to enter China both to make money and to slow the accelerated development of the domestic industry, one that Western restrictions had given wings to. In the end, the US gave in previous tariffs of 25% and one condition: all GPU orders from Chinese companies to Nvidia would be reviewed one by one. There is a problem: the US body in charge of reviewing these export licenses has decreased by 20% in recent months, which is causing delays of months when it comes to fulfilling an order. From when a Chinese company asks for Nvidia GPUs until they are given an answer, the ‘chinese dragons‘They have already released some product. The result? Huang points out that Nvidia has gone from being a leader in China to have a 0% quotapainting the situation as a true drama and pointing directly to the strategies of both China and, above all, the United States as the cause of his company falling into the offside of the large Asian market. Furthermore, it is China itself that encourages its companies to, to the extent possible, use Chinese hardware that they is developing at accelerated rates. “Official” fee. But the fact that Huang claims that his market share in China is 0% does not mean that there are no GPUs for AI in China because it seems that there are H100, H200 and even B200 due to something very simple: smuggling. Despite the proprietary technological solutions they are developing, it is evident that a large part of the AI ​​industry is built with Nvidia GPUs and that implies that the tools are very well optimized for them. There are several occasions in which Nvidia AI chip smuggling networks have been reported, with modest seizures on occasions (just tens of millions of dollars) and somewhat larger seizures on others (hundreds of millions in a few months). Chinese companies obtain these chips through indirect routes from Hong Kong and Singapore and, although Nvidia tries to trace the origin, the clandestine flow and opaque chains make the task complex. trapped. Someone is lining their pockets and that someone is not Nvidia. And the problem is that Huang’s pressure had an effect, but the solution they gave him is not as agile as the market needs. Returning to the issue of bureaucracythe United States Office of Industry and Security, which is responsible for reviewing these export licenses, reduced its workforce by 19% in 2024. Specifically, those who develop standards linked to the semiconductor industry and review licenses have decreased by 20%. The result is an average of 76 days to resolve export requests, something that is extending so far this year and which is disastrous news for both Nvidia and others deeply involved in the AI ​​segment, such as AMD. From China, things are not much better, since companies must make it very clear why they need Nvidia AI chips and cannot meet their objectives using national alternatives. Jensen, almost excluded. In any case, it is evident that Huang does not like to be missing the AI ​​party in China, in the same way that he is going to miss the new trip of Donald Trump and other executives to a summit between Trump and Xi Jingping that will be held between the 13th and 15th of this month. Or so it seemed. This is an event in which conversations will focus on agriculture and commercial aviation, so a priori Jensen didn’t have much in mind. But of course, alongside Trump are CEOs like Elon Musk, Cristiano Amon or Tim Cook, among others. And, although it seemed that he was not invited, as we see in South China Morning PostIn a message from Trump on his social network, it was confirmed that Huang will finally accompany him on the trip. In the end, it’s about money. Jensen Huang doesn’t want China to have the best chips because He wants to save those for the United States.but it is a very large market in which Nvidia can offer chips strategically: it makes money while making companies opt for its product instead of that of the Chinese companies themselves. In Xataka | Nvidia’s superpower is not having money, it is making everyone work for it: Foxconn is the latest to join

Anthropic does not offer its services in China. So China has invented a black market for Claude tokens

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Claude has become in the most desired model by the most demanding developers and engineers, but it is not available in mainland China for regulatory and safety reasons. The demand there remains notable, and to satisfy it, an underground token economy has emerged that allows local developers to access models such as Claude Opus 4.7, avoiding all the measures imposed by the blockade. No paying with Alipay. One of the measures that Anthropic imposes to prevent the use of its models in China is to only accept international credit cards such as Visa or Mastercard. Their payment gateways reject local payment methods like Alipay or Wechat Pay, giving Chinese users a first and important hurdle. One that they have already overcome. Virtual cards. What they are doing in China to overcome this problem is using virtual credit cards (VCC) like DuPay or WildCard. With these services it is possible to obtain Hong Kong or US credit cards financed with cryptocurrencies or through local transfers. This makes it possible to deceive the billing systems of Anthropic and other companies that offer banned services to Chinese users. SMS verifications They are also solved through “SMS farms” that also avoid this problem and even others such as identity verification that also have implemented in Anthropic. The “Transfer Stations” arrive (中转站). Another problem is that even overcoming that first barrier, latency and micro-cuts mean that the use of Claude in China is affected by continuous connection problems. To avoid them, so-called “Transfer Stations” have emerged, which are nothing more than servers that act as a bridge between foreign servers and Chinese users. These gateways receive requests from China and forward them to Anthropic servers as if they were coming from an authorized location. The latencies are also relatively low, which means that for Chinese users the experience is basically identical to that of a user in the US or Spain, for example. These stations are publicly known and do not only appear in listings on GitHub: there is a ranking with the best. Claude is almost free in China. The surprising thing about these methods is that they don’t just give Claude access in China: they do with ridiculous prices which can be 10 and even 5% of (growing) original price of the service thanks to those transfer stations. The question, of course, is how it is possible to access Claude at those prices. The almond tree trick. Thanks to the transfer stations, developers can access Claude at a price of 1 yuan for every dollar of tokens, or in other words, up to a 90% reduction in the official price. It is something that is discussed publicly and that makes it clear that several methods are used to achieve this: Mass purchase of capacity, Use of accounts created with stolen or fraudulent cards, Use of promotional credits, and A simple hook: providers lose money with Claude, but they manage to attract developers to whom they then sell more profitable local models like DeepSek. Am I really using Claude? One of the growing risks in the cheap token market is direct fraud. Some Chinese resellers have been caught red-handed offering what they call the “Claude API” when in reality what they were providing were much cheaper and mediocre models. For a user to detect this type of deception it’s very difficult unless you are working with complex tasks or you have already used models and know more or less what to expect from them. For victims, the effect is clear: they believe they are paying for the intelligence of Opus 4.7 when in reality they are receiving answers from a low-end AI model. Goodbye to privacy. When a user purchases tokens at one of these transfer stations, they completely give up the confidentiality of their data. All queries and responses end up passing through the intermediary’s servers, which can and apparently does use them to sell them to AI companies that use them to post-train their models. So everything they do and say when using these models is filtered and used as training data without the user knowing. A double business. For these providers, this business of reselling conversations is especially interesting in the face of the famous “distillations” of US models that take advantage of this data to “copy” the capabilities of those models and apply them to Chinese models. Anthropic can read us, but (theoretically) it doesn’t. It is true that the conversations we have with Claude (from Spain, for example) are also stored on Anthropic’s servers, but the company makes it clear in your privacy policy that does not use that data. In fact, we can even explicitly prohibit the company from using them in the privacy settings of Claude’s account. The game of cat and mouse. At Anthropic they know very well what is happening and they are trying to prevent it. For example, they have begun to intensively block IP ranges associated with VPN services or data centers known to be used in these transfer stations. Even so, Chinese providers usually respond with an “elastic” architecture that allows IPs of domestic residences to rotate, making the traffic appear completely normal. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | There is a thing called “Ornn price index”, it is out of control and it is bad news for everyone

With the RAM market impossible, the inevitable happened: counterfeit DDR5 tablets

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Make a reference to ‘The Simpsons‘At this point it’s complicated because the new generations may not get it, but there is an episode in which Springfield declares the dry law and, when they knock it down, the mayor asks the mafia how long it will take for alcohol to flood the city. The answer: five minutes. And that is exactly what is happening now with the RAM memory: where the market does not reach, counterfeiters enter Because after the DDR5 memories that are really DDR2 come the DDR5 memories with plastic chips. In short. The truth is that I did not imagine that we would reach a point where there would be well-crafted scams with all the intention of deceiving buyers of a RAM memory stick, but the truth is that we have been there for a few months. It was at the end of 2025, at a time when the RAM crisis was beginning to tighten (but it was far from the current moment) when it was reported that an Amazon Spain buyer received a kit of supposed DDR5 memory from Ireland that was nothing more than a DDR and DDR2 chip with a sticker on top. It was quite tacky, but you realized it instantly and you could always claim a refund because Amazon covers it in these cases. The problem is that there are scams that may be a little more ‘worked’ and that involve unsoldering the chips from a RAM tablet and replacing them with plastic parts. This is what, as we see in Digital Trendshas just happened to some users in Japan, who report the sale of memory tablets that do not correspond to previous generations, but are carefully designed to appear to be legitimate RAM when, as we say, it is a PCB with imitation chips. Or directly the entire pill being fake. An example of an auction stick ram. He original message It has moved a lot on Twitter and describes a full-fledged scam. Through stores like Yahoo Japan, users sell used RAM sticks as “junk” or “untested” in batches and at affordable prices. This is a practice that is also done with processors that we can find in stores like Wallapop and it may work… or it may not. That is why there are those who risk buying. In this case, a frog came out. The SO-DIMM modules (for laptops) had stickers that looked legitimate from Samsung or SK Hynix, but were nothing more than labels cloned from real memories used to cover the supposed chips. Instead of being DRAM memory as such, these are modules made of fiberglass that obviously do not work. In some cases, there are real circuits, but they correspond to lower-grade recycled chips. The important thing is that, be it one case or another, it is obviously not what you are paying for, but they are made well enough so that a person without knowledge cannot identify why the new memory module they have paid for does not work. Even a quick inspection can fool someone who has changed a few of these pads. It is no longer that they clone real stickers with their serial number and so on, but rather the dedication to produce those fiberglass “chips” screen printed like a legitimate one. One supposedly made by SK Hynix Another from Samsung (with SK Hynix chips, curiously…) One of the chips made with fiberglass Meteoric. Unlike the December 2025 fake RAM case, these pills are being sold in auctions on Yahoo Japan and there are already users with the fly behind their ear, which causes them not to bid and the modules to no longer be sold. But in the end it is the consequence of a market that is really impossible and in which scammers enter with promises of components at better prices than those we can find on the market first-hand. Because building a PC today is extremely expensive due not only to RAM that has been able to increase up to 400% in some cases, but for some SSDs that have also explodedgraphics cards that are beginning to be scarce and segments such as processors and the motherboards that are moving to the hoarder we’ve been talking about for months: AI hyperscalers. As I say, with prices through the roof, scams appear. with head. And (again, I didn’t think I had to give recommendations to avoid falling into a scam when buying a RAM pill), the important thing here is to have common sense. It really is like any other scam attempt: if the thing is too good to be true, we have to tune our antennas to see if they want to sneak it in. The first thing is to buy in stores and platforms that provide certain guarantees to the customer, but also look closely at the photos, compare serial numbers and ask for more photos from the seller if we are not 100% sure. And if the price is very good and we are not convinced by the explanation that the person may not know the market situation, ask as much as possible and do not trust the first thing they tell us. The RAM with a sticker that appeared in December last year. Image from VideoCardz. In the end, it is curious, but buying second-hand memory pills can become something that validates criminology, just like buy retro games on cartridge through Wallapop. Images | Taki, ri In Xataka | Nothing will be the same again: the price increase of the Nintendo Switch 2 in less than a year draws a new horizon

The PC market is mortally wounded because of RAM. Excellent news for Apple’s plans

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If there was something missing from Apple’s catalog, it was undoubtedly the cheap MacBook. The non-Pro MacBook died a long time ago, the last attempt at a MacBook without a surname did not work and that role of “affordable” laptop fell into the Macbook Air. That laptop was still missing to stand up to the 800-900 euro market that Windows dominated at will and it turns out that Apple had the answer at home: the iPhone. Its processor, rather. Because that’s what he is macbook neo: the guts of a iPhone 16 Pro in a laptop chassis. In our analysis We lowered a bit what was being said about the MacBook neo, but pointing out that it was not only a very interesting device for a wide range of users, but a blow to the PC market. This is something that Apple does not want to miss and it seems that they have bent MacBook neo orders. However, they now face the “neo dilemma.” Stop or pay more, the neo dilemma To no one’s surprise, The MacBook neo worked like a charm in its first week. 699 euros for a perfect laptop for students, or for those of us who want a second computer, is an option that is difficult to reject. Because there are cheap laptops, but not with these battery features, system speed and, above all, build quality. For find something similar in Windows You have to go to more expensive models. In the midst of a memory crisis, furthermore, those 699 euros for the basic version seemed even more appealing. And it seems like Apple expected it to do well in the market, but maybe not so well. Tim Culpan is a former Bloomberg reporter, based in Taiwan and has a very interesting newsletter. Most importantly, you have some sources at the heart of the factories that produce components for these equipment. On your speaker, Blame point that Apple had planned a total shipment of between five and six million MacBook neo. Tim Cook described the reception of the laptop as “a demand through the roof”, showing himself very satisfied with its performance, and Apple was at a time when it had to take a decision to ensure the future of the device. The reason is that this laptop uses A18 Pro chips… different. They are the processors of the iPhone 16 Probut they were not suitable for the high standards of the iPhone. In this case, it implies that instead of six GPU cores, they had five. This happens with many other processors that are renamed or derived from more affordable products. They had a lot due to leftover shipments and they converted them into the guts of the laptop. These processors were practically “free” for Apple, but now Culpan points out that those in Cupertino had to decide whether to let the inventory run out or ask TSMC to manufacture a new batch. They have chosen the second. in a new publicationCulpan claims that Apple now aims to have a base of 10 million unitsdouble that initial forecast. But of course, ordering TSMC to manufacture a new batch of A18 Pro would mean having to pay a significantly higher price to build the laptop. This would greatly narrow the profit margin they have per unit sold. Although Apple to be TSMC’s second customerthe Taiwanese foundry does not work for free, obviously. A few days ago, Tim Cook pointed out to investors that Apple had been able to avoid the first wave of the RAM crisis due to the amount of stock accumulated, but that is over. After loading memory options both from Mac Studio as of Mac Miniit is evident that not even Apple is untouchable. Here, Culpan points to two scenarios. One is to eliminate the basic option of 256 GB of memory, which costs 699 euros, leaving only the 512 GB option for 799 euros. It would be the move they have already made with other products. The second letter is raise the price of both optionsbut giving some extra to “compensate”, such as extended free storage in the cloud for a period of time. We have already seen this strategy in the PC segment. The problem is that it doesn’t just increase the memory. Aluminum is also increasing and, no matter how little it increases, anything that increases the cost of a manufactured unit is something that will have an impact on the sales price. And there is another question. Since the MacBook neo was being manufactured with those A18 Pros that were not the best, when ordering a new batch you enter a scenario in which it is possible that the new MacBook neo are “better” than the ones we had until now. Simply because they have all six GPU cores intact. TSMC is not going to make them limited on purpose. Apple has the option of software limit one of the GPU coresbut in the end that is the least of the company’s problems at the moment. All components, including processors, have increased in price since the initial order a few months ago. If we are seeing something in the industry, it is that, in case it was not already clear, It is the user who ‘eats’ the problems either due to price increases or due to the impossibility of acquiring products because they simply do not exist. And something that we are also observing is that Apple is in that “neo dilemma” because they are seeing that the consequences of launching a product with an attractive price and a good value on a daily basis translates into they take it away like hot cakes. And all this within the context of the brutal component crisis that we are experiencing. In Xataka | Tim Cook optimized factories and processes, John Ternus builds things: what we can expect from the “new Apple”

The rental market is so broken in Spain that more and more tenants are facing a reality: record overcrowding

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In Spain he increasingly lives more lonely people. And every time he lives more people crowded also. I know: it sounds contradictory, but that is the curious reality drawn by the studies that are in charge of ‘x-raying’ the country’s homes. As paradoxical, counterintuitive and even ironic as it may be, statistical observatories such as the INE or Eurostat confirm that while a part of Spain is forced to live in overcrowded conditions, sharing a house or even fourththe number of single-person households is growing at such a speed that in a few years they will probably be the most common in Spain. That tells us a lot about how the country, its society, the economy and (also) the residential market are changing. Overcrowded Spain. Among its many functions, Eurostat is responsible for reviewing every year how the overcrowding data from the different countries of Europe. Said like this, the concept ‘overcrowded’ may sound subjective, but its technicians have a clear guideline to distinguish what is (and what is not) a home. ‘overcrowded’. In general terms, a home is considered saturated when it does not have a room for each couple, for each adult or for each two young people of the same sex. In Spain that is a reality they deal with more and more people. Especially if we talk about people who live in rented houses. A percentage: 9.5%. The data from Spain leave two clear readings. The first, positive one, is that in our country the overcrowding rate It is much lower than that of other European nations. At a general level (if we take into account all types of housing, owned and rented, both in the free and regulated markets) Eurostat calculates that 9.5% of the population Spanish resides in ‘overcrowded’ houses. Although in practice this is equivalent to millions of people, it is far from the 16.8% average of the 27 EU countries or the ratio of states such as France (10.8%), Italy (24.3%), Portugal (12.7%) or Germany (11.7%). That’s the positive part. The negative part is how the indicator has evolved. In Spain the overcrowding rate has not stopped growing in the last five years until it is at its highest level in the last decade. For reference, in 2018 marked 4.7% and in 2016 it was at 5.4%. The EU average has advanced at a much slower pace. In fact, it has been practically stagnant for years. around 16.8%a value somewhat lower than that recorded in 2016, when it was around 18%. A tenant problem. The Eurostat data They reveal something else: although there is no market that escapes overcrowding, not everyone suffers from it equally. Its incidence is especially high when we talk about people who reside in homes rented at market prices. That is, without taking into account protected housing. In that case the overoccupation rate shoots up to reach 20.5%. What does that mean? That a fifth of Spanish tenants who have rented houses on the free market live in what Eurostat considers overcrowded conditions. Once again, the figure is below the EU average (23.8%) or the rate of nations such as Italy, but it exceeds the indicators for France (18.6%), Germany (18.3%) or the Netherlands (8.3%). And again too stands out for its evolution. Beyond the comparison with the rest of the EU, the reality is that this 20.5% is considerably above the 12.5% ​​in 2016 and represents the highest value since at least 2014. Spain General overcrowding rate Overcrowding rate among tenants in the free market 2016 5.4 12.5 2017 5.1 12.4 2018 4.7 12.8 2019 5.9 16.3 2020 7.6 18.8 2021 6.4 15.4 2022 6.6 14.9 2023 7.6 17.5 2024 9.1 20 2025 9.5 20.5 What is the reason for this increase? A sum of factors, as stated this week The Country in an analysis on the increase in overcrowding in Spain. One of those (crucial) elements is how the housing market has performed in recent years. Idealistic reveals that in general the price of rents has almost doubled in the last decade, at least if we talk about nominal values (without taking into account the effect of inflation): from €7.7/m2 in April 2016 we have gone to €15/m2. In highly stressed markets, such as the one from Palmathat increase has been even more pronounced. The increase in housing prices (extended to both the rental and purchase markets) directly influences the behavior of families. Not only does it limit the options that those looking for housing can choose from, it also complicates emancipation and assume the rent of an apartment without sharing expenses. Not to mention that the imbalance between supply and demand can lead some landlords to opt for renting single rooms and makes it difficult for families who, after growing up (due to reunification or the birth of children) aspire to a larger apartment. A more populated country. There is another key factor. The increase in the overcrowding rate coincides with the general growth of the Spanish registry. According to the INE, at the beginning of 2026 they resided in the country 49.57 million people. Not only is this 440,000 more than a year before, it also represents “the maximum value in the historical series,” in words of the INE. This growth is also supported by immigration, which broke its own record. In January, the foreign-born population exceeded the ten million of people. Why is it important? Although inflation may have led some families to rent part of their homes to make mortgage payments more bearable, it is not unreasonable to think that this increase in migration explains in some way the rate of overcrowding. The economist José García Montalvo remember in The Country that the foreign population tends to group together in support networks and part of the migrants who arrive in Spain choose, at least at first, to settle in the homes of people they already know. “So where three live, five end up living,” he illustrates. In any case, the phenomenon … Read more

Folding bicycles are the market niche to be exploited. And there is someone who knows this better than anyone: Lidl

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Leave the house, get on the bike, take a train, get back on the bike and get to work. This is what is called intermodal mobility, in which two or more means of transport are taken to reach a destination in the shortest time possible in the most efficient way possible. It is everyday life for thousands of European citizens and it is, without a doubt, one of the big bets of governments and city councils throughout our continent. Because burning liters of fuel loaded into a five-seater vehicle that occupies more than four meters in length and more than one and a half meters in width is, of all things, less efficient in a city. In that work for intermodalitythe electric scooter has gained decisive weight in recent years. The boom in this product has forced countries like Spain to adapt certain regulations to assimilate its arrival. In our country, the DGT has been forced to define this vehicle as an object that You must go on the road or bike pathshaving to leave the sidewalk. The electric scooter, in fact, has overshadowed another key market niche in intermodal mobility: the folding bicycle. This means of transport is highly efficient because it allows travel to a public transport station, easy transport of the vehicle and the possibility of storing it in a very small space at our destination. At the moment, the folding bicycle is a vehicle that is still difficult to see in our cities but there are those who trust in its possibilities: large stores. From the supermarket to work There are reasons to use the electric scooter over the folding bicycle but, lately, the latter is beginning to gain in importance over the former. And the electric scooter is being banished from public transport after a handful of fires that were difficult to put out that led to severe problems in transportation in cities like Madrid. The folding bicycle is a good solution because it is usually a light product but also has the advantage of being able to fold enough to leave it in most of the jobs. It is also a good option for those who travel in a caravan but do not want to drag a large bicycle into the center of cities or towns. It is not easy to find data that clearly points to the penetration of folding bicycles because most statistics do not discriminate the data between this and any other type. Despite this, there are analysts who point out that the market is going up and that its growth will be just over 7% until 2034. The growth, point out in this reportaims to be extraordinarily high in large US cities, with increases of more than 30%. However, this is also because they are cities where car culture is still much more rooted than in Europe. Netherlands, Hapon, and Belgium They are the most repeated countries when talking about this type of bicycles. And the combination between Bicycle and public transport are very entrenched in areas where this means of transport and the train are combined daily. In fact, it is one of the reasons why The Netherlands has more bicycles than inhabitants And a good number of citizens have two bicycles that they park at the train station next to their home and another in the city where they work. In bikepormadridfor example, explain well the problems of cycling when the station is very busy and the space to travel with it is limited. And in both cases, the time it takes to find a space in the gigantic Danish or Dutch car parks and the limitations on moving them inside the car can discourage their use. That is why the folding bicycle is a very interesting alternative which has the advantage of being able to move easily, an incentive to have only one vehicle and, above all, for countries where Spain often lacks the safe and well-conditioned spaces to store bicycles yes they have them in other parts of Europe. Large stores are aware of the market niche that the folding bicycle still represents. Surfaces like Lidl either Carrefour They bet on it with options for less than 1,000 euros and Decathlon remains the undisputed leader when it comes to offering options, with bicycles from just over 200 euros to more than 2,000 euros. The true differential point of the electric bicycle is 1,000 euros and below. Figures collected by Cyclosphere they point out that the demand The number of bicycles has cooled in Spain in recent years and those focused purely on urban mobility are the ones that have fallen the most. Here, The electric scooter has done a lot of damage to the bicycle and that is why the range of less than 1,000 euros is the most interesting because when the customer spends more money they usually opt for other options such as electric, road or mountain bikes. The great advantage of the folding scooter, as we said, compared to the electric scooter is that its transportation and storage capacity at the destination is very similar but, in addition, the cyclist has the greater stability of the bicycle. A clear advantage in terms of security. But it can also be taken on public transport, a space that is increasingly closed to electric scooters. Photo | Rex Lovic and Mateus Jud In Xataka | There are scooters that go fast, there are scooters that go very fast and then there are scooters like The Turbo: at 160 km/h

US sanctions have left its current market share at 0%

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In just two years Nvidia has gone from leading the GPU market to artificial intelligence (IA) in China to not sell practically anything in this country. In fact, Jensen Huang, the CEO of this company, has confirmed just a few hours ago now Its market share in this Asian nation is 0%. This dramatic scenario for Nvidia is the result of two decisive strategies of the governments of China and the United States. Early October 2024 the Chinese Administration sent to its AI companies a recommendation asking them to use chips produced in China as much as possible. Ten months later this recommendation became a requirement. And the Chinese Government is already forcing state-owned data centers throughout the country to use at least 50% Chinese integrated circuits in their servers. The Administration led by Xi Jinping has made this decision because it can afford it. And it is that It already has three very clear alternatives to Nvidia: Cambricon Technologies, Huawei and Moore Threads. This panorama has led Jensen Huang to decide to openly criticize the US export policy. AND has done it on several occasions during the last few years. The head of Nvidia is not enough to be the most attractive option for his Chinese customers; It also has to deal with the decisions of the US Government. US sanctions on China are destroying Nvidia Jensen Huang holds that the US will not protect its technological hegemony by blocking AI chip exports; According to this executive, what Donald Trump’s Government must do is ensure that the American AI ecosystem is dominant worldwide. The current scenario proves him right, but at the moment nothing indicates that the US Administration is going to bet on its strategy. At least not in a consistent way from a practical point of view. And the US Department of Commerce does not give the slightest respite to American AI chip designers. When these companies receive an order from one of their Chinese clients must apply for an export license to this government entity and indicate which GPU they intend to send to China, their specifications and which client is going to use them, among other relevant information. The Office of Industry and Security is also responsible for carrying out investigations into the tariffs deployed by the Administration led by Donald Trump. Once the bureaucracy has been put in place, Department of Commerce technicians analyze export applications in the framework established by current regulation and approve or deny the sale of integrated circuits to China. This is the usual procedure, so there is nothing new up to this point. However, Nvidia, AMD and other American AI chip designers face a very serious problem: the Commerce Department takes several months to process their export licenses. The staffing of the Department of Commerce has been drastically reduced in recent months, and in the current context this scenario represents a very serious problem. The Industry and Security Office of this entity is not only responsible for processing export licenses linked to AI chips; is also responsible for carrying out tariff investigations deployed by the Administration led by Donald Trump. And with fewer personnel than in 2024 and 2025 it cannot cope. According to Bloombergthe Office of Industry and Security has lost 101 employees in recent months, which represents a 19% reduction in staff compared to what it had in 2024. Curiously, the staff specifically dedicated to developing standards linked to the semiconductor industry and reviewing applications for export licenses has decreased by 20%, although at the moment it has not emerged what is the reason for this staff drain. Be that as it may, during 2025 the Office of Industry and Security took an average of 76 days to resolve export requests, but this period is increasing in 2026. Very bad news for Nvidia and AMD. Image | NVIDIA More information | Tom’s Hardware In Xataka | The US remains committed to stopping China. Now it has targeted the second largest Chinese chip manufacturer

Back Market makes it a little easier for us to renew tablets

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Apple devices are by far the hardest to find at a good discount. For this reason, any way we can get an iPhone or iPad at a good price is always welcome. One of the stores that makes this easier for us is Back Marketwhich has a very large catalog of refurbished devices. The best? That now all their iPads will have an extra 5% discount. We will tell you more about this promo. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A promo that will only be available from May 4 to 10 Let’s go in parts. This new promo is as simple to explain as it seems: from May 4 to 10 we will have an additional 5% discount when purchasing an iPad at Back Market. The only requirement we have to access this promo is that we do a purchase of more than 100 eurossomething we are going to do with almost any Apple tablet we buy. And beyond the price, what do Back Market iPads offer? The entire catalog of this store is made up of refurbished devices, but with 24 months warranty. In addition, we will have a 30-day free trial in which we can see what the device offers and, if it does not convince us, return it. All without forgetting that shipping is free and that we can even finance our purchases. Let’s take as an example the iPad Air with M2 chip launched in 2024. This, in ‘Excellent’ condition and in its 11-inch version with 128 GB it is available right now for 443 euros. If we wait for the promo to start, then we can get it for 420.85 euros. It is a very interesting option if you are looking for an iPad Air at the best price and you don’t mind not having a more modern version. It’s just an example, but the same applies to the rest of the iPads you have in Back Market. You just have to access to the section of these tablets in the store and choose the one that best suits you. The good thing is that you have models of all kinds: from the latest iPad 11 even a 2022 iPad Pro. Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Pedro AznarApple In Xataka | Best iPhones. Which one to buy and recommended models based on budget, tastes and quality-price In Xataka | Best tablets. Which one to buy and 8 recommended models for all pockets and needs

Anthropic is one step away from being worth as much as Samsung. And what the market is buying is not Claude

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Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is exploring a new round of financing that would value it at more than 900,000 million dollars. If it closes, it would surpass OpenAI as the world’s most valuable AI startup. Altman’s company set its needle at 862 million last month. The figure more than doubles the 350,000 million it had in February. In just two months. Why is it important. The valuation no longer reflects Anthropic’s sales. It responds to a bet on what the company can become in five years or a decade: a provider of something resembling an essential service. Anthropic bills Claude for subscriptions and accesses to its API. That business exists, grows quickly and has reasonable margins. But it does not by itself justify a valuation that is close to that of Samsung, the Korean megalodon that manufactures everything from the chips we carry in our pockets to the ships that cross the ocean. The context. What the market is buying with Anthropic, and as often happens in the stock market, is not the present, but a hypothesis: that a very small handful of laboratories will control the foundational layer on which the software of the next decade will be built. And that Anthropic will be one of those few. And it will do so in a very profitable way. The logic, on the other hand, is the same that led to overvaluing telecos during the bubble dotcom or to the electric companies at the beginning of electrification. Whoever owns the basic infrastructure sets the rules. Google has already committed 10 billion to the previous valuation, with another 30 billion conditional on objectives. Amazon has put in 5 billion and plans to inject 20,000 more. An IPO could come before the end of the year, around October. Between the lines. That Google and Amazon, two of the largest cloud companies in the world along with Microsoft, finance a company that also sells through them says a lot about how they understand the moment. They are ensuring supply, it is not just an investment in a supplier. It is the difference between buying shares in an oil company and buying a field. Anthropic is, for these hyperscalersa deposit. Yes, but. The hypothesis has its cracks. The models are commoditizing faster than it seemed a year ago. The technical difference between Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini It is measured in nuances, not in generational leaps. If foundational AI ends up being a commodity (something like electricity or water coming out of the tap), current valuations are unsustainable. If it ends up being an infrastructure with network effects and high barriers to entry (something like an operating system), they may even fall short. The market is paying for the second hypothesis. Time will tell. The money trail. Anthropic recently announced, with restrained fanfare, Mythosa model capable of detecting and exploiting vulnerabilities in critical software. The company deemed it “too dangerous” to release and has only given it to a closed group of companies for internal testing. Even so, it has been accessed by unauthorized users. That is exactly the reason why some investors pay these figures: such a model is not sold but granted. And whoever decides to whom it is granted has regulatory power de facto that not even a Samsung, at least outside of South Korea, has ever had. The big question. What happens if the bet goes wrong? A valuation of 900 billion means that Anthropic has to generate, at some reasonable point, revenues in the order of tens of billions a year with very high margins. It is possible. But it was also important for Cisco to maintain its 2000 valuation, and it has needed 26 years to tie. The difference is that this time the buyers of the bet are the companies themselves that depend on the result. This reduces the risk of a sharp correction. And he postpones it. In Xataka | There is a thing called “Ornn price index”, it is out of control and it is bad news for everyone Featured image | Xataka

The chip industry has its own Lego black market. ASML created it by accident

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Rick Lenssen works as a data analyst at the Dutch company ASML and builds Lego models on the weekends. It could have remained there, a mere hobby shared with his children if the company that employs him did not design and manufacture the lithography machines necessary to produce microchips, one of the key elements of current technology and one of the key suppliers of TSMC, Samsung or Intel. Now, his Lego designs imitating the original machines reach four-digit figures on eBay. 380 million in 851 pieces. It appeared in the ASML online store at the end of November 2024: a Lego model called TWINSCAN EXE:5000, measured 35 centimeters long and cost $227.95. It reproduced the high numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet (High-NA EUV) lithography machine that the company delivered to Intel in late 2023 and that allows chips to be printed from its 2 nanometer node. The actual equipment weighs 165 tons, has more than 100,000 parts and had to be transported in three Boeing 747s. The Lego set reproduced it in the style of the popular toy brand, it included a purple ray that represented ultraviolet light and a minifigure with the full clean room suit that technicians wear. The product sheet, perhaps anticipating what was to come, already warned that multiple orders from the same customer would be cancelled. Brick Lenssen. This is the nickname given to Rick Lenssen, a 39-year-old company employee who became interested in Legos. by chanceafter taking his children to a toy fair in the Netherlands. His first personal project was an exact replica of the ASML campus in Veldhoven: two years of work, 2,500 euros out of his pocket and 25,000 pieces, with details as obsessive as the peregrine falcon that nests on a roof of the complex, accompanied by a pigeon that, according to him, acts as food. He designed everything first on the computer and assembled it in the attic of his house. Where do I put this. Lenssen then encountered a drama that will be familiar to any Lego fan: what to do once you finish building the set. He offered it to the campus itself, but they didn’t want it. Lenssen wrote to ASML’s CEO on a Friday night, and within hours he wrote back saying he loved the set. To get the model out of the attic, it had to be dismantled piece by piece (like the real ASML machines), and company workers loaded it into a van. Today it is the first thing visitors see when they arrive at the company’s reception. It’s official. The jump to merchandising officer arrived later, with a model of the skyline of the campus in charge of promoting an internal app, and then the two models of machines. He was not the first: Jeroen Ottens, an ASML engineer who had worked at Lego, I had modeled a previous version. The cheapest model in the current range, the TWINSCAN NXE:3400C, at $166.70, was not born as a commercial product either: it started as internal training tool before becoming a special edition open to the public. It took Lenssen a few weeks to design the current two sets, one with a 61-page instruction manual. Your only compensation is a copy of each model. Employees only. The sales policy is one unit per person and verified ASML email is mandatory. For weeks, some fans managed to place orders bypassing that restriction due to a security hole in networks, and measures had to be taken: in December 2024 ASML began canceling orders from buyers without an actual corporate email. The EXE:5000 file even disappeared and can only be consulted today through the Wayback Machine. The same corporate email restriction covers the rest of the merchandising of the company, yes, much less coveted: sweaters, mugs, pins and Christmas decorations. eBay fever. Of course, speculation was not long in coming, as It usually happens with Lego sets that disappear from the market. Individual sets of those designed by Lenssen have been seen for $600, while the complete collection reaches $4,500. Before closing that section of the store, ASML sold 1,355 units of the latest model (there are 44,000 company employees, possibly not all of them interested in building with toy blocks). Although the comparison is absurd, only six of the real machine have been sold. In Xataka | The great fear of the US is that ASML’s UVP machines will continue to arrive in China. So he is going to intensify his trade war

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