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Volkswagen lost 6.24 million with each one it sold

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On the walk of fame of luxury supercars, there is a star reserved for a car that, despite the fact that its wealthy buyers had to put 1.7 million dollars on the table to get it from the dealership, every time a unit was sold, its manufacturer lost 6.24 million dollars: the Bugatti Veyron. Bugatti Veyron: an icon of luxury and speed The Bugatti Veyron born in 2005 of one ambitious idea: create the fastest, most powerful and luxurious car in the world. And boy did they succeed. Ferdinand Piëch, the visionary architect of the current Volkswagen group and grandson of Ferdinand Porsche himself. The passion for speed and luxury was in his DNA. This supercar had one of the engines that has given Bugatti the most joy but, unfortunately, in 2024 it became part of the engine history since the brand stopped manufacturing it. It is about its brutal W16 8.0 liters and four turbos, with which it was capable of accelerating like a rocket and breaking top speed records above 406 km/h. This figure became almost a requirement for the desire for “revenge” of the brand for a speed record at Le Mans. The name of the Veyron is also closely linked to the Le Mans race, as it pays tribute to the Bugatti driver and engineer. Pierre Veyronwhich in 1939 won the 24 hours of Le Mans with one of the brand’s cars. The brand took six years in development of the Veyron for the challenge of implementing an engine capable of developing 1,001 HP of power and 1,400 Nm of torque. To keep the temperature of such a beast at bay, engineers had to integrate 10 radiators. The exclusivity of the Bugatti Veyron was not only noticeable when paying the 1.7 million dollars that it cost each unit. Each set of tires, especially designed for the Veyron by Michelin, cost a whopping $38,000 and had to be replaced every 4,000 km. On the track and at maximum speed, the life of the tires was limited to about 15 minutes before disintegrating. Something that they would rarely do, since the 106 liters of their tank were enough for 12 minutes. Without a doubt, a car with maintenance out of reach of many pockets. The Veyron wasn’t just about speed. It was also extreme luxury. Every detail, from materials to workmanship, was of the highest quality. Owning a Veyron was like owning a artwork on wheelsa demonstration that you could afford the best of the best. aspire to one of the special editions The Veyron was already another level, and meant paying more than 2.7 million for some of them. A ruinous business for Volkswagen But here’s the surprising part: despite its million-dollar selling price, Volkswagen lost money on every Veyron it sold. And not a little, precisely. As and how they counted in Technology.orgthe Wall Street financial research firm Bernstein Research, published a report in which they claimed that the Volkswagen group lost about $6.24 million for each Bugatti Veyron that was sold. However, the authors of that report later admitted that this figure should be taken with caution because it was based on rough estimates. Paradoxically, the explanation for this financial fiasco is given by its engineering and design success. Volkswagen spared no expense to create the perfect car and for this They invested 1,620 million of dollars in its development. Latest prototype of the Bugatti Veyron The negative part is that Bugatti only sold 450 units of its Veyron in the 10 years it was on sale, so the investment in R&D was greater than what the brand recovered by selling the cars, which turned out to be a financial fiasco. However, although in absolute terms, the Veyron’s development effort was greater than the income from its sale, the technology that was developed for that engineering gem later served as the basis for the entire a lineage of supercars. His legacy has served to break all speed records one by one until reaching the 490.48 km/h reached by the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ in 2019, as how I collected Car and Driver. Volkswagen was willing to take those losses because it wanted to demonstrate its ability to create the best supercar in the world. Although the Veyron was not a financial success in itself, it managed to position Bugatti as a reference brand on the map of luxury supercars. A “failure” that, in the end, turned out to be a great triumph, although very expensive. A version of this article was published in March 2025. In Xataka | For years no one knew who had bought the most expensive Bugatti in the world: until it became part of an inheritance In Xataka | Mate Rimac takes the first Bugatti Tourbillon to the road: he has fitted it with winter tires to use it as a snow plow Image | Unsplash (Vlad Grebenyev)

It’s been 20 years since we saw its last episode but audiences have not fallen, and 5.9 million viewers continue to watch it every month

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On July 6, 2006, Antena 3 broadcast the last episode of ‘There is no one who lives here‘. Two decades laterthe comedy by Alberto and Laura Caballero gathers a monthly average of 5.9 million unique viewers in streamingon platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Atresplayer and Movistar+with peaks of 8.8 million and a cumulative audience of 10.4 million in the last year. The consulting firm ranks it as the most viewed content in the OTT market in six of the last twelve months. The distribution of that audience between platforms says a lot about where the series is growing today. Prime Video leads with 2.2 million viewers and Netflix follows closely with 2.1 million, ahead of Atresplayer (0.9 million) and Disney+ (0.7 million). The study also wonders about the reason for this sustained success: 37.2% of the viewers surveyed say that the series “disconnects, entertains and never tires”, compared to 15.7% who appeal to nostalgia and 12.9% who consider its plots valid. 72.4% already saw it in its original broadcast, but more than a quarter discover it now. Before being a phenomenon in streamingthe Desengaño 21 building had already achieved marks that were difficult to match. Throughout its 93 episodes, it brought together more than 40 million unique viewers, and its most viewed episode was close to 8.4 million on average with a 43.1% screen share. From that same creative tandem was born ‘The one that is coming‘, which is still broadcast and shares its catalog and number of viewers with its predecessor. There is a very simple logic behind this success, beyond the quality of the series. An already known title saves on marketing and comes with proven success, at a much lower cost than original production. It is the reason why classics like ‘Friends’, ‘The Office’ or ‘Seinfeld’ continue to boast multimillion-dollar licenses: continue to attract people. Added to this is the unequivocally local component of ‘No one lives here’, which after television went to reruns on TDT, especially on FDF, before making the leap to the streaming. And from there, generation after generation continues to be hooked on our most Bruguera series. In Xataka | This remake of a classic on Prime Video is the science fiction premiere of the summer: ‘The Matrix’ or ‘Cyberpunk 2066’ owe it all

880 million and Formula 1 in the spotlight of the great Metro expansion

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When Madrid announced that it will be a Formula 1 World Cup event until next year 2035 the focus was on good connection that you would have by public transportation. Just a few days ago, the Community of Madrid once again stressed this with a controversial video starring Carlos Sainz (Williams driver) in which he claimed that you can get to the circuit from “the city center” in nine minutes when in reality he left a station almost four kilometers from the emblematic Puerta del Sol. Now, the Community of Madrid once again mentions the Madringthe name of the Madrid circuit, in another promotional video. In this case to announce the definitive layout of Metro Line 11, which was not completely confirmed despite the fact that The expansion works in the southern area had already begun. Now, the project is final. The problem is that the “Gran Diagonal” has nothing to do with the original project. And that has raised many blisters in a northern area of ​​Madrid where many have been left out of the project. 880 million euros for a historic expansion Since the project was presented, Madrid was clear that it wanted to completely change the appearance of Line 11. This line only has seven stops spread over about 8 kilometers. With the expansion, the line is expected to measure more than 30 kilometers and will have 20 stops. The Great Diagonal will have a final cost of about 1,100 million euros but it has not been until now when the region has unlocked an expenditure of 880 million euros dedicated mainly to the northern end of the expansion. And here comes the trouble. With the announcement it is confirmed that the line will use two already operational stations such as Mar de Cristal and Terminal 4 of the airport as supports. The rest of the stations are new: IFEMA-Cárcavas, Ciudad de la Justicia, Hospital Isabel Zendal and Valdebebas Norte. In the promotional video, the Community of Madrid highlights that the new Line 11 will connect with the Formula 1 circuit, the Isabel Zendal Nursing Hospital and the future City of Justice. All of them are projects created or defined recently and that have raised controversy over their convenience or not. The health center was built as a “pandemic hospital”in the words of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid. Since the crisis eased, its activity has been very low and it has been studied for a long time how take advantage of it for other medical areas. It was said about Formula 1 that it wouldn’t cost a euro of public money. And the city of Justice is a frozen megaproject that In 2015 it had already cost Madrid residents 105 million euros but what has not yet seen the light. Line 11 aims to be a new handle to bring people to these spaces and events, in addition to the surrounding homes that until now have to deal with the inconveniences of a PAU: gigantic streets that discourage the walk and the use of public transport. But the criticism is especially harsh for those who saw it possible for a new Metro line to reach their homes. Neighbors to the north of Madrid but who are a few kilometers from where the new section of Line 11 will run. And it is that the original design It involved turning off at Arturo Soria (before reaching Mar de Cristal) and heading northwest. Crossing the city to the left and passing under Paseo de la Castellana, one of the main arteries of the city, the new link was projected to the Barrio del Pilar, with its final destination on Avenida de la Illustration. However, In 2020, the detour to the east was already proposedwith destination Valdebebas as it finally happened. Since then, the neighborhood associations They have asked that, at least, the line not stay in Valdebebas and return westwards past the last station currently contemplated to link with the Barrio del Pilar. These associations defend that the initial project would improve the connection of more than 120,000 residents compared to the 30,000 who currently live in the Valdebebas neighborhood. And although the northern zone has focused attention because the modification of the project was substantial, the residents of the southern zone demand new stations that improve their connection with the Metro. And in the southern section, between the current La Fortuna station and Cuatro Vientos, where the line will end connecting with Line 10, new stations will not be excavated either, everything will be a continuous link of more than two kilometers. Photo | Madrid Metro In Xataka | 1,500 tons in weight, 100 meters long and one objective: excavate Metro Line 11 in Carabanchel

The emir of Qatar’s superyacht needed some repairs. Just giving it a coat of paint already costs 13 million euros

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The most luxurious yacht in the Persian Gulf has just returned to the water after missing for months. Nobody knew much about where it had been during all that time or what they did to it, even the manufacturer of the Emir of Qatar’s superyacht. he published it on his Instagram profile. It is only known that it left a German shipyard and that, when it reappeared off Gibraltar, it looked like new. As and how I collected Luxury Launchesbehind that “like new” there is a bill that few ordinary owners could assume: more than 35 million dollars. And we’re talking about giving it little more than a lick of paint. Once again, millionaires show us why only they can afford have these superyachts. A tune-up for a 500 million yacht. He Al Lusail belongs to the sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thaniemir of Qatar, and is one of the largest private yachts on the planet. It is 123 meters long and has capacity for 36 guests served by a crew of 56 people, as collected Yacht Bible. The emir ordered it to the manufacturer Lürssen in 2017, so after almost a decade sailing, it was time to give it a coat of paint. That’s why the yacht mysteriously disappeared from the marinas of the Spanish coast by which he used to be seen before summer. now we know that, during the last seven months, the Al Lusail has been at the Lürssen shipyard in Bremen undergoing maintenance, and returned in time for the summer season. What it really costs to take care of an 8,489-ton ship. According to Lürssen in your publicationthe work included technical reviews, hull inspection, propeller and rudder maintenance, and HVAC system upgrades. Nothing very flashy, but essential on a ship that weighs nearly 8,500 tons. The shipyard did not give exact figures, although according to estimates Luxury Launchesthe price of the full service could rise to about $35 million. Of that amount, a good part goes just in paint. Repainting a yacht of this size requires first removing all hardware, steel railings and window seals. According to they explain responsible for specialized shipyards Boat Internationalpreparation (sanding, treating corrosion, leaving the surface perfect) represents 70% of the work. The paint job, itself, is the easy part. 13 million euros in painting. On a medium-sized boat, the job of repainting the hull would cost, at most, a few hundred thousand euros. But he Al Lusail It is not an average ship, it is the height of a six-seven-story building. Its six decks, enormous glass facades and the curvature of its hull complicate the work and that shoots the final price above 15 million dollars (about 13 million euros), just to leave the exterior impeccable. To that figure must be added the rest of the maintenance work, engine and electrical system checks, renewal of fabrics and furniture in the cabins, etc. In summary, the Al Lusailhas complied with the rule that says that the maintenance of a yacht involves an average of 10% of its price of purchase. Taking into account that its price is estimated at around 500 million dollars, the Emir of Qatar even found this revision cheap. An owner for whom this is pocket change. Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, current emir of Qatar, is a descendant of one of the most influential dynasties of the Arab world and presides over one of the sovereign funds largest in the world that manages assets for about 475,000 million dollars. The emir himself donated one of the Boeing 747s that used as private jetsto serve as Temporary Air Force One in the United States. The truth is that now, with the hull shining and the engines ready, the Al Lusail is ready for another summer in the Mediterranean. And its owner probably won’t even have noticed the damage he left in the box. In Xataka | A single millionaire spent the equivalent of 10,000 tourists on his luxury vacation in Mallorca: the Emir of Qatar Image | Wikimedia Commons (Khamenei.ir), YatchCharterFleet

is going to spend 500 million on the chips of the future

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If you have traveled to Asia to countries like Japan, China or Singapore, it is possible that along your journey you have put your butt on a smart toilet. And it is also likely that that smart toilet was from the TOTO brand. The Japanese firm is famous mainly for its toilets, but the fact that its core is china allows it to be on the front page in the midst of the AI ​​boom and that is not so well known: it has been in the chip business since 1984, manufacturing high precision ceramic components employed in semiconductors. It is not NVIDIA or AMD, but to give us an idea of ​​how serious Toto is and its level of competition, it has just invested a fortune with one goal: to scale its production to the most advanced one-nanometer chips. It should be remembered that IBM just achieved the first chip of that very small size. Towards 1nm chips. Already in February the Pallister Capital fund (one of the largest shareholders of Toto) qualified to a company as “the most undervalued and overlooked beneficiary of AI memory”, highlighting that its chip component manufacturing segment already accounts for more than 50% of its profit. What he also blamed on the Japanese company is the lack of transparency. A few months later, Toto has picked up the gauntlet: just announced an investment of $495 million over five years to scale its business to the most advanced technological horizon in the chip industry: supporting next-generation manufacturing technologies in the nanometer range. Why is it important. The rise of data centers and AI is fueling demand for advanced semiconductors in search of increasingly smaller and more efficient chips. Without advanced materials like those made by TOTO, the miniaturization needed for one-nanometer technology would not be possible. And this diversification is very profitable for Toto. Nikkei Asia collects its astronomical projected figures for this segment: operating profit of 27,000 million yen (146 million euros) for the fiscal year ended in March 2026, an absolute historical record and 32% more than the previous year. It is already what makes the most money for the toilet company. At the state level, this investment is part of Japan’s effort to strengthen its domestic semiconductor supply chain in a context where several countries wish to reduce their dependence on Taiwan and South Korea. Context. Toto began research in the field of advanced ceramics in the 1970s, as Japan’s period of rapid post-war growth was winding down. As relates Toto ceramics business planning department manager Junji Kameshima said, “We wanted to use our ceramics experience to create high-value products.” In 1984 that area was officially established and in 2020 it went from artisanal and low-performance production to playing in the first division. The jump was thanks to Nakatsu’s highly automated plant, with AI systems trained to detect minimal defects: it went from a performance of 50-60% to more than 90% and delivery times were reduced from 180 days to just over 40. Its product portfolio within the semiconductor area was consolidated around three main products: the most important are e-chucks, ceramic discs that hold the silicon wafer during the etching of NAND memory chips. The second are aerosol deposition components, which protect internal walls of the etching chambers. The third are highly durable structural parts used in large LCD panel manufacturing equipment. The three take advantage of a skill acquired making ceramics for the bathroom: ceramic firing of high precision and purity. In detail. This investment of 495 million dollars over five years has three specific lines of action: Expand the machinery at its Oita and Fukuoka plants, already operating at full capacity. Reorient R&D at its Kanagawa plant toward logic semiconductors. Build a new cooking building in Fukuoka, scheduled for January 2027. Part of the investment has already been decided, but the rest will be available depending on market conditions. Thus, if the demand still cannot be met, Nikkei Asia leaks that Toto will consider the construction of a new plant from scratch. Yesyes, but. It seems that days of wine and roses are coming for Toto, based on its solid figures, but there are aspects to take into account. The first is that NAND memory already collapsed a few years ago and could do it again before the Japanese company recovers the investment. On the other hand, this optimistic speech comes from Pallister, one of those interested in Toto doing well (he is an investor). Also, Toto has very few large clients, so a slowdown from any of them can be a severe blow. In Xataka | The fascinating world of Japanese electronic toilets: sensors, microchips and what’s to come In Xataka | Welcome to the AI ​​duopoly: the sector already has a turnover of 80 billion a year, but OpenAI and Anthropic take 89% of the revenue Cover | Toto and Igor Omilaev

ten million robots before 2040

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For years we looked at Japan and thought of robots with friendly shapes, measured steps, and an almost theatrical ability to show us the future. SOHonda’s humanoid, was probably the best symbol of that era: a machine designed to impress, excite and demonstrate how far Japanese engineering could go. But the current debate is different. Japan no longer seems obsessed with recovering that icon, but with something more practical: bringing robots to the real world, where there is a lack of workers and repetitive tasks accumulate, and each unfilled shift begins to become an economic problem. The Japanese plan. METI, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, has put a very specific figure on the table: around 10 million robots deployed in 2040. The goal is part of the revised AI Robotics strategy, a robotics policy with AI to combine artificial intelligence and robotics in machines capable of acting in real environments. The new roadmap expands the focus to 18 application areas and incorporates sectors such as catering, food manufacturing and healthcare. From icon to work. ASIMO did not disappear because Japan lost interest in robots, but because that road was no longer the center of gravity. Honda stopped developing ASIMO in 2018 and withdrew it from public demonstrations in 2022, while part of that learning moved to more applied lines, such as assistance or teleoperation. That transition sums up the current moment well: the country still has robotic muscle, but the question has changed. It is no longer enough to demonstrate that a machine can walk like us; Now you must justify what task you can take on and where you can do it. Much more than humanoid. The 2040 target should not be read as a promise of millions of human-shaped robots. The strategy speaks of a much broader range, with industrial, mobile, healthcare, catering, logistics, inspection, maintenance and emergency response robots. Humanoids appear on the radar of the strategy when they make sense, but they are not the sole focus of the plan. The idea is to deploy machines where they can take on tasks that are repetitive, physical, dangerous or difficult to cover with sufficient personnel. The demographic problem. The underlying reason is not in the fascination with technology, but in the lack of workers. Japan faces structural labor shortage marked by aging, low birth rate and an increasingly stressed active population. According to the Recruit Works Institutethe country could reach 2040 with a deficit of about 11 million workers. In this context, robots stop being a futuristic bet and become a way to keep care, services, logistics, food and production going. A silent power. Context matters because Japan is not starting from scratch. Although today much of the noise about humanoid robots and new AI platforms comes from China or the United States, the country continues to be one of the major global players in industrial robotics. The International Federation of Robotics points out that Japan represented 38% of global industrial robot production in 2023, installed 44,500 units in 2024 and had about 450,500 robots in use. The pending unknowns. The plan, however, still leaves open questions. Japan has set the goal, priority sectors and technological direction, but has not detailed which companies will manufacture this huge number of robots or how much of the deployment will depend on national suppliers or international alliances. We also do not know how the weight will be distributed between industrial robots, mobile systems, healthcare solutions or service machines. The commitment to physical AI. The strategy is not only about deploying more machines, but about improving the intelligence that drives them. At the same press conference on June 30, 2026, METI announced that the consortium formed by Noetra and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology of Japan had been selected to develop a national multimodal foundation model, an AI foundation capable of combining different types of data. The idea is that this base can help build robots capable of interpreting information, combining signals from the environment and acting better in the physical world. Images | Sling In Xataka | The return of Fable 5 has a worrying problem: Anthropic has condemned it to “I would rather not do it”

Talgo’s Avril trains have been a nightmare for Renfe. One that is going to cost another 132 million euros

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Renfe has reached an agreement with Talgo to reform the Avrils and put a band-aid on the wound. This is what he assures The Economist and Europa Press in two articles where the problem that this train has posed for Renfe’s coffers is evident. The company has been trying for months to find a way out of a conflict with the train manufacturer. And he has found her spending more money. The agreement. The information regarding the agreement has been advanced by The Economista medium that ensures that the agreement is pending approval by the board of directors of both companies but that provides extensive information about it. In Europa Press They already state that Renfe describes the decision as “strategic” because it provides “relevant benefits.” The most relevant aspect of the agreement is that Renfe will pay 132 million euros to Talgo so that 15 Avril fixed gauge trains are converted into variable gauge vehicles. That is, they can be used on standard gauge tracks (Madrid-Barcelona) and Iberian gauge (the Galician high-speed section between Madrid and Galicia). Renfe, yes, renounces using these trains in France, how it came to be valued. The agreement maintains Talgo’s obligation to compensate Renfe with 116 million euros for delays in the delivery of the Avril trains and Talgo will also pay the 10.8 million euros that the homologation of the new variable gauge trains will cost. Variable width? Yes, when Renfe ordered the Talgo S106known as Avril, an agreement was reached for the company to deliver 30 units of these trains to Renfe. Half of them would be of fixed width and half would have movable treads to be used on the Madrid-Galicia high-speed line. The great advantage of those Talgo S106 was, supposedly, that variable width. The train can move its tracks and move on standard gauge tracks, those common in European and Spanish high speed, or on those of Iberian wide, a rarity of our country that prevented high speed from reaching Galicia. These trains do not require a transfer and can “jump” from one gauge to another. And do they work? The problem is that the Talgo Avril have been a problem from day one. Talgo has been delayed with deliveries and, as if that were not enough, some of the fixed gauge trains that circulated on the Madrid-Barcelona line suffered serious damage, to the point of generating cracks in the train structure itself. Since then, Renfe and Talgo have argued whose responsibility it is, with the manufacturer accusing Adif of not properly maintaining the tracks. This was the most notorious problem and the one that definitely broke relations between Talgo and Renfe. However, the trains were already accumulating controversies behind them. First, as we said, for their delays. Second, due to the poor rolling quality (with constant swings) and poor quality of materials chosen for the interior. Third, because just a few months after going into operation, the change to the new year caused the trains to collapse due to a software problem. And why are they modified? A few months ago, Óscar Puente, Minister of Transport, confirmed the study to modify the Madrid-Barcelona line and ensure that the journey is less than two hours. In the change, a Spanish invention is essential and buying new trains, with an award that can approach 1.8 billion euros. The trains will have to run at 350 km/h and Siemens and Hitachi are the best positioned. Adapting trains to variable gauge allows Renfe to move those trains to any track that operates with Iberian gauge, which gives it flexibility. The Madrid-Galicia line has to be liberalized but everything indicates that Renfe will continue to be the only one to operate in it because there is no other manufacturer that offers this feature in its trains and Talgo is committed to its production in the medium term. But converting the trains will allow Renfe to relocate the current Avrils on lines that only have Iberian gauge, an interesting alternative when the future trains of the new award arrive. a nightmare. The Talgo S106, known as the Avril, have been a headache for the company. And the problem has gone far beyond the incidents that we mentioned before, they have also meant that Renfe loses the AVLO service, the low-cost option, between Madrid and Barcelona. The company aspired to face Ouigo on this route with these new trains but with the problem of cracks it had to take these trains out of circulation and with it AVLO service disappeared. Now, Renfe will gain flexibility but to do so it will have to spend another 132 million on trains that have arrived late and that have offered mediocre performance. Photo | Andre Marques In Xataka | Spain thought that Spain could manufacture the perfect trains for Spain. The reality: Spain is already looking for trains in Germany

Who are Openchip, the Catalan company that designs RISC-V chips… and has just received 115 million from the Government

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This Monday, June 29, the Council of Ministers authorized an investment of 115.77 million euros in Openchip & Software Technologiesa microelectronics company based in Barcelona and five years old. The operation is channeled by the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETTthe digital SEPI, dependent on the Ministry for Digital Transformation) through the Next Tech facility of the Recovery Plan. It is the largest one-time injection of public capital received by a Spanish technology company in the sector to date. It comes just a week after another move. On June 23, The Generalitat converted part of a 35 million bridge loan into sharesan operation that gave him 5% of the capital and set a implicit valuation for Openchip in around 700 million. With that reference, the 115.77 million from the SETT would be equivalent to a participation of up to 16.54%, which would place direct public control (State and Generalitat) above 20%. Both administrations will have a seat on the council. The Government also included a veto right over any transfer of the headquarters outside of Catalonia. Added to the 111 million already received via PERTE Chip, public support accumulated is close to 262 million. The public supports a good part of the structure. A company that designs, not manufactures Openchip was born in 2021 as a joint initiative of the Catalan engineering group GTDaround 54% of the capital, and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS), the center that operates the MareNostrumaround 46%. Today it employs about 300 people, almost all of them engineers, and operates under a fabless– Designs intellectual property and outsources manufacturing to external foundries. The CEO himself has admitted that this production will leave Europe, which in practice points to where these types of projects usually aim: TSMC. The industrial plan estimates investments close to 500 million to deploy the entire infrastructure. What it designs are processors and accelerators based on RISC-V, the open source architecture that has become the European bet (and, ahem, China) to avoid the dependency on x86 (Intel, AMD) and ARM. Its specific product is a vector accelerator for AI and high-performance computing, integrated into DARE SGA1a 240 million European initiative led by BSC itself that distributes the design between Openchip (vector accelerator), the Dutch Axelera (AI processing unit) and the Czech Codasip (general processor). The goal: a European hardware and software proposal operational by 2028. The schedule, the equipment and the exam This is where it is good for everyone to temper expectations. In November 2025, Cesc Guim (pictured above), CEO and former Intel, said that the company had just sent its first prototype to the factory and that commercial production was planned for 2028. The commercial argument is energy efficiency: its designs promise to reduce electricity consumption by 20% to 30% compared to current alternatives. The real comparison can only be made when there is working silicon, not plans. A few weeks ago, in May, Openchip signed Tobías Martínez as presidentformer CEO of Cellnex for almost a decade. Replaced Carlos Kinder in a change that the company did not officially confirm. His profile provides what a startup of 300 engineers with a round of hundreds of millions was missing: plenty of experience in the capital markets. The operation is sold under the convenient modern mantra of ‘European technological sovereignty’, and the truth is that the framework is real: Europe today designs a minuscule part of the world’s chips, and certainly none of the leading ones. But There remain questions that public investment does not solve on its own: Whether Openchip will achieve a competitive product against rivals with a twenty-year advantage (Guim himself has admitted it). Yes, manufacturing will continue to depend on TSMC, which keeps Europe away from the critical link in a long-term dependence. And whether the intensive financing model, with two administrations on the board and a regional veto over the headquarters, will allow the flexibility and agility that a semiconductor business requires to compete. The State has bought shares, a seat on the council and qualified employment in Catalonia. What remains to be seen is whether the chips arrive. And they work as promised. In Xataka | The Valencia family that made a fortune with guano and Coca-Cola now has another project: photonic semiconductors Featured image | Openchip, Xataka

60 million views and 6 weeks in the top 10

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The first season of the live-action adaptation of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender‘ was met with divided opinions from fans, who in some cases accused it of diluting what made the animated original great. Even so, 61.2 million households watched itwhich led to Netflix to renew the series for two more seasons before its first week on the air ended. Today the second season arrives, and it brings exactly what fans of the original anime wanted: Toph. The truth is that in its first season, the series more than met Netflix’s expectations, after the success of ‘One Piece’: it registered 18.5 million views in its first week. ‘Avatar’ surpassed it with 21.2 million homes and 153.4 million hours watched, reaching that total of 61.2 million homes. It topped the Top 10 in 92 countries for eleven consecutive days. The second season adapts the “Earth Book” from the animated original, the arc considered by many followers to be the most complex of the series. It consists of seven episodes, one less than the first season, although the producers have indicated that the chapters are longer. Two years after that, the narrative axis is the city of Ba Sing Se, capital of the Earth Kingdom. The most anticipated signing this season is Miya Cech as Toph Beifong, the blind teacher who becomes Aang’s instructor. She was selected from 6,000 candidates and worked with a visual impairment consultant to represent Toph’s sensory connection to the terrain around her. Everything is ready for a return in which the waters seem to have calmed down after some very turbulent first steps. Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, creators of the animated series, joined the project in 2018 as executive producers and showrunners. Two years later, they announced their departure, saying they could not control the creative direction of the series. They were succeeded by Albert Kim first and Christine Boylan and Jabbar Raisani for the second season. Raisani and Boylan are responsible for seasons two and three, recorded consecutively between September 2024 and November 2025. In Xataka | ‘The House of the Dragon’ returns to HBO Max with its season 3 and a promise: the biggest naval battle you’ve ever seen on television

German scientists have discovered that the Earth has been receiving radioactive fallout for more than 100 million years due to the violent “kiss” of two supernovae.

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Planet Earth is home to the ocean depths a radioactive plutonium deposit that could only be formed in space, during a violent cosmic cataclysm. Although there are reserves of this radioactive dust at great depths, it has been proven that it continues to rain down on us today. That would lead one to think that it was a recent cataclysm in astronomical terms. However, according to a recently published study by German scientistsit was hundreds of millions of years ago. Two isotopes to understand everything. Plutonium-244 does not exist naturally on Earth. In fact, the only isotope of this element that can be produced naturally in some geological processes is plutonium-239. and it does so mostly in the form of traces. Plutonium-244 is the heaviest isotope of this element. That is, the one with the most neutrons. It is known that it is usually formed by cosmic phenomena during something known as the r process, where lighter atoms quickly absorb neutrons into their nuclei. Generally, the event that usually gives rise to this phenomenon is the kilonova, an explosion resulting from the merger of two neutron stars. In the process, curium-247 is also formed, which is why these scientists have also analyzed its levels. Taking this data into account, they have discovered that the explosion in question must have occurred more than 100 million years ago, but less than one billion years ago. And, also, that the radioactive fallout has not stopped since then. The key is in the ferromanganese crust. Ferromanganese bark It is a layer of the ocean floor which is formed when metals dissolved in sea water, such as iron and manganese, are deposited and solidify. This occurs at a fairly slow rate, with growth of between 1 and 10 millimeters per million years. The deposits do not only have iron and manganese. Mixed with them are other substances that have fallen into the sea at that time. Therefore, this crust is a perfect chemical photograph of the history of our planet. A section with surprise. The authors of this study analyzed a section of this crust extracted at a depth of 4,830 meters in 1976. This had already been analyzed previously and had pointed out something surprising. And, in addition to plutonium, iron-60 was also found, another radioisotope associated with supernova explosions, which has a fairly short half-life of 2.6 million years. This figure means that, every 2.6 million years, half of the initial atoms of this isotope will have decayed. In another 2.6 million years half of what remained and so on. Since it is a fairly short half-life, it was concluded at the time that the kilonova that caused the fall of radioactive dust took place about 3 million years ago. However, the authors of the study just published debunked that hypothesis. Half-life of the study isotopes Curio to the rescue. The formation of plutonium-244 when neutron stars merge is always accompanied by the formation of curium-247. The plutonium isotope has a half-life of 81 million years, while that of curium “only” has a half-life of 15.6 million years. When analyzing the ferromanganese bark sample, these researchers found no curium. Therefore, it must have completely disintegrated. That places the explosion more than 100 million years ago. Be careful, remember that the half-life is the time it takes for half of the radioactive material to decay. Every 15.6 million years, half of it disintegrates, so in 100 million years there should be no curium left, but a lot of plutonium, which only lost half of it 19 million years ago. For plutonium to completely disappear, it would take 1 billion years. What about iron? The reason why there is iron-60 in the sample, despite having a lower half-life than that of curium-247, is that they originated in different events. In fact, the level changes of iron do not coincide with those of plutonium. On the other hand, it has been seen that plutonium continues to appear uniformly in the upper layers, hence it has been concluded that the radioactive fallout has not ended. At least it hadn’t ended in 1976 and that in astronomical terms was before yesterday. And now what? These scientists think that the cataclysm that released this long radioactive fallout must have been immense. Possibly even affected life on Earth. But at the moment it is something that cannot be known. We will have to continue investigating to have the answer. Image | University of Warwick/Mark Garlick | B. Schröder/HZDR/NASA, ESA, J. Hester, A. Loll/ASU In Xataka | Gravitational waves work their magic: we are closer to revealing the enigmas of neutron stars

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