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use them in a place where they are allowed

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like the waters They are very upset about AI chipsTikTok’s parent company has come up with a strategy to circumvent US export restrictions for NVIDIA chips: instead of importing the chips, it uses them where they are allowed. And that place is Malaysia. chip war. From 2022, US export regulations They prohibit NVIDIA from selling their accelerators of most advanced artificial intelligence directly to China. This puts the large Chinese technology companies at a disadvantage, as they see how their American rivals (Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, etc.) have unrestricted access to the most advanced computing power they obtain from NVIDIA. ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, does not want to be left behind in the global AI race and has found a legal, albeit controversial, path forward. What exactly happened. According to account According to the Wall Street Journal, ByteDance is working with a Southeast Asia-based company called Aolani Cloud to deploy a cluster of about 500 computing systems in Malaysia. NVIDIA Blackwellwhich is equivalent to approximately 36,000 chips B200. The estimated cost of the entire infrastructure exceeds $2.5 billion. Just like account In the middle, the servers are assembled by Aivres, a company specialized in building hardware with NVIDIA chips. Aolani, created at the end of 2023 under a holding structure in the Cayman Islands and with capital from Singapore venture capital firms, had already been renting servers from ByteDance with H100 chips in Malaysia since February. The legal key to the matter. ByteDance is not buying the chips or servers: it rents them. Aolani is the one who physically owns and operates them in Malaysia, a country that does not fall under US export restrictions. Under current rules, what is regulated is the destination of the hardware, not who uses it in the cloud. “By design, export rules allow clouds to be built and operated outside restricted countries,” counted an NVIDIA spokesperson told the WSJ. It also added that all customers who use NVIDIA chips undergo internal compliance reviews before receiving their products. On the other hand, the medium points out That ByteDance is not on any list of restricted companies from the US Department of Commerce, so the fact that they are using this hardware does not trigger any alerts at the moment. Qgeopolitical tension. Just because all this is legal does not mean it is politically convenient. Aolani recognized in an internal presentation to investors that it is working with a US law firm to ensure its regulatory compliance, and that it is already considering future regulatory changes that “would likely be prospective, not retroactive.” A phrase that, read in a political key, leaves some real uncertainty about whether Washington may end up limiting this type of business structures in the future. Last month, from Reuters they shared that the US would be willing to allow ByteDance to buy H200 chips from NVIDIA, although the semiconductor manufacturer would not have yet accepted the proposed conditions. Bytedance and its ambition in AI. ByteDance already operates five of the world’s 50 most popular consumer AI apps by monthly active users, according to data by Andreessen Horowitz. They have their chatbot Dolathe platform to generate video with AI Dreamina and Gauthan educational assistant. In terms of video generation, Bytedance went extremely viral with Seedanceits engine for generating videos with AI that has left half the planet crazy for its realism and precision when constructing pieces of text in video clips. The company has research teams in Singapore, San Jose and Seattle, and seeks to fill more than a hundred AI vacancies in the US. “Our goal is to reach the highest peak,” said its CEO, Liang Rubo. Cover image | Collabstr and NVIDIA In Xataka | At Amazon they have realized something: their developers spend more time fixing AI bugs than anything else

Southeast Spain is the driest place on the peninsula and a DANA has just arrived to “rescue” it. It will give more problems than solutions

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Right now, as I write, “the world cup is falling” on Alicante. And that, in itself, is news. Not the DANA that is crossing the southeast right now, which has a moderate entity and is going to leave unremarkable accumulations; No. It could be, but no. The news is thatit’s raining in the southeast and that, for some time now, has become almost a miracle. A miracle that leaves something revealed, Almería, Murcia and Alicante live in a climatic (and emotional) ‘new normal’ for which we have no physical (nor psychosocial) infrastructure. Let’s look at it in some detail. What is happening? At a meteorological level, the situation is very simple. In the early hours of March 10, a DANA detached itself from general circulation and positioned itself between eastern Andalusia and the Alboran Sea. In the next few hours, the epicenter It will be located over the province of Alicante and it will also cause enormous instability in Murcia, Albacete, all of eastern Andalusia and some parts of Valencia. AEMET predicts accumulations of between 30 and 50 mm in Murcia and Alicante, with some very specific areas reaching 80 in six hours. We may see snow above 900 meters. However, it must be taken into account that the DANA is very small: any change in trajectory, can move precipitation from one region to another. Is it normal? If we are honest, it is quite normal. This is part of a very unstable first week of March with storms, DANAs, haze and many more problems. The underlying problem. The problem is that, for months, we have seen how the very abundant rains of January They left aside this corner of the Peninsula. Thus, the Segura basin is the worst in the entire country followed by that of Júcar and that of the Andalusian Mediterranean basins. That is, not raining is a problem. But let it rain too. Because throughout that area of ​​the country, although it may not seem like it, although it is very subtle, tension continues every time a DANA appears on the weather forecast maps. The worst part goes to the areas where it hit the DANA of 2024 (with up to 30% of children with sleep problems and thousands of people suffering from eco-anxiety and fear), but the consequences are there whether we like it or not. Above all, with failures around the corner. Rethink everything to adapt to what is coming. A few weeks ago, AEMET and the University of Valladolid They published a very interesting work in which they explained that without climate change the DANA of 2024 It would have been much more unlikely. The January rains over Andalusia they do not help to calm to the experts. Image | ECMWF In Xataka | In California, the funds discovered that there is no investment more profitable than farmland. Now it’s Spain’s turn

Europe is looking for a place to put its AI gigafactory. Spain and Portugal are showing all their renewable plumage

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There is a concept that should be familiar with: technological sovereignty. The United States is looking for her in terms of semiconductors so as not to depend on Taiwan. China wants her with the same goal and with the intention of strengthen your industry. And Europe is also pursuing it. Within this search is the idea of ​​strengthening European sovereignty in artificial intelligence by building AI gigafactories. And Spain and Portugal are clear about one thing: they want to be that node of European AI. InvestAI. Within this search for independence, the truth is that Europe has a long way to go. On the world stage, they depend on the Dutch ASML to create cutting-edge chipsbut Taiwan and China are the world’s factory and the United States has been a key partner both in software as in space matter. Seeing the recent course of the United StatesEurope has realized that it cannot depend so much on foreign alliances and that its key systems are not European, and it is going to dig deep into its pockets. 200 billion euros is what the European Commission’s InvestAI initiative has to invest in programs focused on the development of artificial intelligence. Within it, there are another 20,000 million saved to build gigafactories. GigafactorIA. Its name is quite revealing and it is about huge data centers with capacity for hundreds of thousands of chips with the objective of both training and inferring artificial intelligence models. The plan was launched a few months ago with the reconversion of seven European data centers in data centers for AI and with one objective: that European companies stop turning to foreign ones. For example, the French Mistral signed with Microsoft to be able to use its systems to train Le Chat. The idea is that this be done ‘at home’. It is estimated that one of these gigafactories may have more than 100,000 state-of-the-art AI processors and they are expected to be optimized to have low consumption, reuse of resources such as water and be a strategic node close to other companies, universities and serve to attract talent. Strategy. Spain has been for a few months tempting American companies to build their data centers in the national territory. Aragon has become one of those strategic pointsbut also Madrid either Tarragona. Now, there are other municipalities that oppose it (something that not only happens in Spain). Within this strategy of European technological sovereignty, Spain has two aces up your sleeve: Mora la Nova in Tarragona and San Fernando de Henares in Madrid. They are the two municipalities that could host one of these AI gigafactories and that would take advantage of the technological and energy infrastructure in the area to accelerate the projects. The information is not new, but now Portugal joins in. As detail From Moncloa, both countries are going to carry out a series of bilateral efforts to be at the energy and technological head of Europe, doing emphasis on the coordination of artificial intelligence projects. Because Spain wants the European gigafactory and Portugal too. The neighboring country is already developing a data center in Sines, and the two countries are playing their cards. Energy. Portugal plays the card that Sines has a good connection with the Atlantic submarine cables. Spain also has a powerful argument: if Europe wants AI gigafactories to be energy efficient, the country has a renewable infrastructure that can help make AI independent of gas or coal. Through the agreement between the two, the intention to collaborate to take advantage of the complementary capabilities and synergies between both countries is put on the table. Problem. There are several. On the one hand, the energy ones. Although Spain is one of the Europe’s powers in terms of renewable energyartificial intelligence demands a lot, a lot of energy at peak times. So much so that not only Big Tech have private projects to open nuclear power plantsbut it has been shown that it is necessary turn to coal to meet demand. Because AI needs sustained energy, but above all fast and immediately accessible in the most stressful moments. And there renewables only comply if there are huge batteries involved. On the other hand, Europe is now building its infrastructure… and it is the worst time. If you want gigafactories to have the latest generation chips, it means buying NVIDIA’s H200s. The problem is that these chips, which are currently leading the way, will be surpassed in the short term by a new generation. NVIDIA is already working at full capacity on Vera Rubinand it is not a more powerful chip, but a paradigm shift. This game of being at the cutting edge of AI is slow because the infrastructure has to be built. But, above all, it is expensive. In any case, the results on which countries will host the gigafactories are expected to be published this spring, and we will see if the Spain-Portugal candidacy convinces the Commission. Images | Moncloa, chaddavis In Xataka | Spain has a plan to capture more data centers than anyone else: “shield” them from energy costs

“The wound is the place where the light enters”

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Can suffering transform us? Is it true, as Rumi, the great Persian poet of the 13th century, said, that “a wound is a place where light enters”? From the pre-Hislamic myth of Siyavash to the Sufi mysticism of the annihilation of the self or the Shiite obsession with martyrdom, Persian and Iranian thinkers have been thinking about suffering as a transformative force for thousands of years. It is a rich, lyrical, wild and sometimes very dangerous tradition. Therefore, it is curious that thousands of years of such a rich relationship with pain comes to us filtered and converted into Instagram stories. What Rumi didn’t say. Let’s start at the beginning: most likely, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi never wrote those words. And, in this case, it should not surprise us either. In 1995, the recently deceased Coleman Bryan Barks published a book titled ‘The Essential Rumi‘ and, without anyone yet being able to explain it, it sold more than half a million copies. The only real problem with this is that Barks didn’t know Persian. He wasn’t even a really specialized translator. He took previous translations, he cleaned them of references to Islam and He adapted the verses to Western taste. It was a huge success that advanced something we are used to today: the probability that a date we see on the internet be false it is getting higher and higher. And yet, the quote has some truth. Because, in effect, today’s Iran is the repository of an ancient tradition that sacralizes transformative suffering. When Yazid I’s army ambushed and murdered Husain ibn Ali and his 72 companions near KarbalaThey had no idea what they were about to do. They thought they were resolving once and for all the thorny issue of Muhammad’s succession, but the martyrdom of the third imam of the Shiites would germinate in a strange cultural substrate: the idea that suffering is not an accident, it is a battlefield. Thus spoke Zarathustra. That’s where you can best see the ‘Zoroastrian substrate‘: in this religion, Ahura Mazda creates the world as a battle in which humans have to take sides. For old Persian philosophy, evil is not something inherent to the world: it is an army that must be defeated. Therefore, suffering, sacrifice and pain are part of the process that, if we are successful, will lead us to good. It is not the absence of love (as it might seem in the Judeo-Christian mentality), it is a definitive ethical filter. That is the archetype, then came its incarnations. When Islam takes hold in Persia, that substrate is there and takes many forms. While for the Shiites, martyrdom is redemptive and intercedes for us before Allah; For Sufi mysticism, suffering becomes a vehicle towards God, towards the annihilation of the ego and its arrival at divinity. To us, today, all these details don’t matter a little to us, honestly. What is relevant is how hundreds of philosophers resolved the “problem of evil“in a completely different way than what we are used to. Evil is not an error that must be explained by appealing to the unfathomability of God, Evil is the path by which the universe is renewed. No self-help. And in this context, Rumi’s dubious quote (“a wound is a place where light enters”) would be much more radical than any self-help manual would be willing to go. Suffering does not make us wiser, stronger, or smarter. It is simply the price to pay: there is no point in trying to justify it. Today, even knowing how dangerous this line of thought is, it is impossible not to look at those thinkers thinking how much of them really remains in our way of living. Image | If you’ve ever thought about “leaving everything and going to the mountains,” these thinkers have a lot to tell you

We are not used to seeing traffic cones that place themselves. They are already testing them in China

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A traffic cone that rolls out of the emergency vehicle alone, is placed in position and forms a safety perimeter before any operator has set foot on the asphalt. It is not a scene that we usually see in our parts, but the truth is that in China they are already testing it and its operation is tremendously interesting. What is happening. Emergency teams in China are testing autonomous traffic cones capable of securing the perimeter of an accident in less than ten seconds. Such as describe Marc Theermann, director of strategy at Boston Dynamics, in a post on LinkedIn, these robots leave directly from the emergency vehicle and move alone to their position, forming a safety barrier without any operator having to cross the road. They can be activated remotely or operate completely autonomously. Click on the image to go to the post The hook: the safety of the operators. Placing cones by hand on a road with active traffic is a truly dangerous task for operators in charge of road maintenance, or those carrying out work on the road. The idea with this technology is simply to eliminate or reduce as much as possible the human presence in the most vulnerable phase of any road intervention. How they work. Researchers from the Center for Research in Technologies, Energy and Industrial Processes of Pontevedra (CINTECX) published a study in 2025 in the magazine Infrastructures that described the design and validation of its “Remotely Piloted Safety Cone”, a robotic system with a similar architecture. The device combines autonomous GPS navigation with RTK correction (a high-precision positioning system), odometry sensors, an inertial measurement unit and ultrasonic obstacle detection. All of this managed by an autopilot and an on-board computer that coordinates movement in real time. The results of the study showed that the most precise configuration managed to stay less than 20 centimeters from the planned route, a more than acceptable margin for this type of operations. Faster than by hand. According to that same studythe estimated placement time per cone with this system is around three seconds, compared to the seven or eight seconds it takes on average for a human operator. In an intervention that requires dozens of cones, the difference is quite significant, especially if this is then combined with systems that can be placed simultaneously and not one after another. And also at night. Best of all, the task can also make it much easier to place cones when there is barely any visibility. And the robotic cones incorporate lighting, something basic for any type of emergency road signage. In Spain we already propose the “less intelligent” version. After the V16 beaconswhich have given a lot to talk about (more for the bad which for the good), the DGT has also explored the use of connected coneswhich would be responsible for notifying in real time of road works or dangers. They would be integrated into the DGT 3.0 platformalong with the V16 beacon, although they are still in the testing phase and very far from implementation. The main difference, as you might expect, is that these cones do not move or position themselves. But it’s already a step. What comes next. The natural step of this technology is not the individual cone, but rather several can be coordinated at the same time, something that we have already seen in tests in China, and that the deployment is reminiscent of that of the drone shows in the sky (less glamorous, but just as addictive to watch). The researchers they point in his study of multi-agent swarms, several robots working together in a coordinated manner, such as the evolution of this technology to apply it in infrastructures. Cover image | Posting on X In Xataka | A company has filled a neighborhood with sidewalk outlets to charge electric cars. Their results are contradictory

The most surveilled place on the planet is not Ukraine or Taiwan. You are on a Canary Island with thousands of sensors pointing to a lethal threat

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For almost three months, between September and December 2021, the island of La Palma experienced the eruption longest and most destructive of its recent history. It happened when the Tajogait volcanoand opened the earth in the Cumbre Vieja dorsal and forced the evacuation of thousands of people, buried entire neighborhoods under lava and irreversibly altered the landscape and life of the island, inaugurating a new stage in which the end of the fire did not mean the end of the volcano. The town that did not stop breathing volcano. In Puerto Naos The lava never arrived, but the volcano did, seeping under streets, garages and foundations in the form of carbon dioxide, an invisible gas that for years kept the neighborhood evacuated and turned daily life into a permanent risk equation. After the eruption of Tajogaite, the ground continued to exhale CO₂ of magmatic origin, reaching in some points extreme concentrationstypical of a lethal environment, forcing the closure of homes, businesses and beaches while residents learned that the danger no longer burned on the surface, but silently accumulated under their feet. Thousands of sensors and an experiment. They counted this week in a BBC report that has approached the enclave that the response transformed Puerto Naos into the most guarded place in the world in terms of CO₂, with more than 1,300 sensors distributed throughout homes, streets, streetlights, beaches, garages and hotels, connected to a continuous monitoring system capable of detecting any spike in real time. This deployment, driven by the CO₂ Alert projectallowed gas to stop being an unpredictable threat and become a measured, interpreted and managed phenomenon, making it possible the progressive return of the neighbors and the reopening of the urban center, always under the premise that normality here only exists as long as the data confirms that the air continues to be breathable. Living with alarms. For years, life in Puerto Naos was reorganized around the sensorswith garages permanently open for ventilation, closed basements, cordoned off areas and neighbors who learned to live with warning beeps as part of the soundscape. CO₂, denser than air, accumulated in the low points and it became visible like a diffuse waterfall in narrow courtyards, killing small animals along the way, corroding metals and remembering that the volcano was still active even though it was no longer expelling lava, molding not only the terrain but also psychology and decisions of those who refused to leave their home permanently. View of part of Puerto Naos Playa Chica, the pulse. In 2026 the problem is no longer general, but surgical: a small strip in Playa Chica and some specific garages where CO₂ continues to emerge straight from the underground through extremely porous terrain, one described by technicians as a “volcanic Gruyere cheese.” All the effort is now concentrated there, not so much to bring the town back to life (because it has already returned) but to close the last point where the volcano still sets the pace, remembering along the way that the eruption did not end when the fire ceased, but when the subsoil stopped breathing its last breath. Extract gas from the earth. The proven solution successfully by experts changes the traditional logic in these situations: instead of ventilating the buildings, the ground has been ventilated, capturing CO₂ underground and conveying it through pipes to controlled expulsion points near the sea, where the gas is quickly dispersed without danger. Not only that. Tests have shown drastic reductionsgoing from concentrations close to half a million ppm to safe levels. In other words, it has been confirmed that the method works and that the pending challenge is not a conceptual hypothesis, but a technical one, a fine adjustment to avoid load losses and guarantee that the system can operate in a stable and permanent way. Close the volcano. Puerto Naos it’s already openinhabited and functioning, but closing the volcano means turning this experiment into a complete a definitive infrastructureintegrate the extraction of CO₂ into the urban network and accept that the island will continue to be a “volcano” even when it seems calm. Perhaps for this reason, no one expects inaugurations or epic endings to what happened, just a silent moment in which Playa Chica leaves to be an exception and the air will once again be just that, demonstrating that on the island of La Palma the volcanic forces not only have shaped the earthbut also the way in which a community has learned to live, monitor and resist over it. Image | Eduardo RobainaHyperfinch In Xataka | Gran Canaria is increasingly at risk of blackouts. And he already has an idea on the table: imitate Russia in the Arctic In Xataka | The Canary Islands and Galicia have set off the Navy’s alarm bells. Russia’s ghost fleet has arrived in Spain with warships

why interior design occupies the place of fashion today

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There was a time when status was measured by the cut of a lapel or the logo on a handbag. Today, the true statement of intent is not in the closet, but on the living room shelf. The scene is typical: a dinner at home does not begin until the table, perfectly “staged”, has been captured by the lens of a smartphone. Decoration is the new language of identity; a space where we project who we are with the same urgency with which we previously chose a outfit to go out into the street. The exposed shelter. The border between private and public has jumped into the air. If before the home was the place where “we took off our shoes”, now it is the stage where we “put on the filter.” An example of this phenomenon It’s the rise of the breakfast nook. What started as a functional gesture to organize cups and coffee makers has ended up being a “symbol of the aspirational home” that floods our morning stories on social media. This phenomenon is not coincidental. As detailed in the S Moda supplementthe house operates today with the codes of the street style: millimeter poses, studied corners and carefully filtered light. We no longer decorate to live, but so that our life “is sustained before the eyes of the eyes.” voyeurs of the networks”. The landing of the brands. The market has read the change with surgical precision. According to a report by Business of Fashionhome design is a $643 billion global market that has reached a higher cruising speed than fashion after the pandemic. Large luxury brands no longer see furniture as an accessory, but as a central piece of their ecosystem: Luxury as an architect of lives: Brands such as Hermès, Bottega Veneta or Loewe use fairs such as the Mobile Show from Milan to demonstrate that its aesthetics can encompass everything, from a bag to an armchair worth thousands of euros. The Democratization of Style: Real change comes from affordable fashion. As Modaes points outMango Home is emulating Zara Home’s strategy, positioning its home line in the segment premium with openings in strategic locations to elevate the brand. You no longer buy a quilt, you buy the “universe” of the firm. Even home care has become a beauty routine. Actress Courteney Cox, through her brand Homecourthas turned detergent and linen sprays into objects of desire. As explained in Forbestheir intention is to make mundane tasks like doing laundry feel like “a self-care ritual” and for the jars to be so pretty that they don’t have to be hidden. How did we get here? To understand why we are obsessed with making our living room “instagrammable”, we have to look back. We could place the starting point in the birth of Pinterest in 2010, a platform that created the first global archive of domestic aspirations. However, the real turning point was 2020. Seeing ourselves locked up, our homes became our offices, gyms and leisure centers. How do they explain from the Somos Nido studio For the supplement, space stopped being something external and became part of our mental health. At the same time, the real estate crisis has played a psychological role. According to psychologist Noelia Sanchointerviewed in El Mueble, faced with the impossibility of buying a house, we invest in objects to generate an emotional bond and reaffirm our identity in an unstable world. The rebellion against the “dictatorship of the neutral.” In recent years, a search for simplicity and homogenization has prevailed; an aesthetic of beige spaces designed for the algorithm. But the trends of 2026 already propose a rebellion against that coldness. Pantone’s recent selection of the color ‘Cloud Dancer’ (an ethereal white) as Color of the Year 2026 has sparked debate. According to Architecture and Designinterior designer Virginia Sánchez admits “not being a big fan” because she considers it a somewhat cold tone. To prevent homes from looking like empty clinics, experts recommend accompany this white with rustic materials and warm woods. In this context, furniture with character regains its throne. Pieces such as mango or walnut wood sideboards and grooved fronts — like those proposed by the firm sweeek— they come back strong to provide that personality and “exoticism” that extreme minimalism had stolen from our living rooms. Living is the new dressing. The rise of interior design tells us that we are no longer satisfied with being spectators of beauty; we want to live inside it. Whether through tablescape —the art of decorating the table in an almost theatrical way— or choosing a designer lamp, we are trying to regain control of our immediate environment. Fashion has moved from the catwalk to the sofa because, in an increasingly digital and ephemeral world, the home continues to be the only place where we can build a refuge that, in addition to being beautiful on a screen, makes us feel good when the camera turns off. In the end, the question is no longer what we wear to be seen, but what atmosphere we have created to be ourselves. Image | Unsplash Xataka | The bidet is dead. The square meter killed it and Scandinavian design buried it

the pieces come from the most unthinkable place

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They have been so many the occasions in which Ukraine has intercepted a Russian drone, has opened it and has found that Moscow had little less than the name, that it seemed difficult for kyiv to be surprised again by an “unboxing” of the enemy. It so happens that Ukraine has been demanding help for weeks to combat a very special Russian missile. And when he managed to intercept one, the surprise came again. A modified shahed. The appearance on the Ukrainian front of a new armed Russian Geran-2 drone with an air-to-air missile It marked a new turn in the evolution of the conflict and in Moscow’s constant adaptation to a battlefield increasingly dominated by unmanned systems. According to Ukrainian military intelligence, this model (derived from the Iranian Shahed-136) has been seen for the first time equipped with a soviet missile R-60originally designed in the seventies for combat fighters. This is not a mere technical curiosity, but a deliberate attempt to introduce a direct threat against helicopters and airplanes Ukrainians dedicated to air defense and drone interception tasks, expanding the role of the Geran-2 beyond the classic suicide attack against ground targets. The military logic of the missile on a drone. The main objective of this modification, according to the Ukrainian evaluation, has been degrade effectiveness of Kyiv’s tactical aviation, forcing it to operate with greater caution against swarms of drones. In fact, this adaptation has been a pain in the ass for kyiv helicopters. As? By integrating an infrared-guided R-60 missile with a range of approximately 10 km, Russia introduces the possibility that a traditionally vulnerable drone, can fight back if it detects a nearby helicopter or aircraft through its cameras. This represents a clear trade-off: the missile takes up space and weight, which reduces the drone’s internal explosive charge and, therefore, its destructive capacity against ground targets, but in exchange increases its potential survivability and its value as an aerial deterrent tool. UK report on Shahed missile upgrade The “allied” pieces. And here comes the moment when Ukraine has returned to be surprised. One of the most sensitive elements of the GUR report is the confirmation, when dissecting this evolution, that this new Geran-2 contains the majority of components manufactured outside Russiaincluding elements from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, China, Japan and Taiwan in the equation. This pattern, like we have been counting many times, it is not even much less newbut it once again highlights the limitations of international sanctions. Despite export controls and technological restrictions, civilian components (chips, sensors, electronic systems) they keep coming to the Russian military industry through gray markets, intermediaries or countries that evade or laxly apply control standards. Sanctions, loopholes and a doubt. Ukraine takes time alerting of the magnitude of the problem. In one of the massive attacks this fall, President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that they had identified more than 100,000 components of foreign origin in a single package of 550 drones and missiles launched by Russia. The figure illustrates not only the persistence of gaps in the sanctions regime, but also the industrial scale that Moscow has achieved in the production and adaptation of drones, relying on technologies that, in theory, should be out of its reach. Testing ground. Although the use of armed drones with air-to-air missiles It is striking, the truth is that it is not completely unprecedented in this war. Ukraine has also experienced with the integration of surface-to-air missiles in naval drones, managing to shoot down Russian aircraft over the Black Sea. The conflict has thus become a real-time laboratory where both sides test improvised combinations of cheap platforms and inherited weaponry, adapting them to new missions with surprising speed. Drones as a strategy. we have been explaining throughout the months. The introduction of this armed Geran-2 coincides with a sustained investment of Russia in drone operations, both in national production as in the creation of new launch infrastructures. Beyond the immediate impact on the battlefield, the message is strategic: Moscow seeks to complicate every layer of the Ukrainian defense, even at the cost of sacrificing some of the destructive power of its drones, and demonstrates that, despite sanctions, it continues to find a way to combine foreign technologyinherited weaponry and mass production to sustain their war effort. Image | Kyiv City State Administration In Xataka | A day later the satellites leave no doubt: Russia fortified a bridge, and a Ukrainian drone made science fiction a reality In Xataka | If Europe thinks that the end of the war in Ukraine is the end of its problems with Russia, Finland has just woken it up

Europe is looking for a place to light its “artificial sun” and Spain only has to defeat Italy and Germany to achieve it

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For decades, nuclear fusion has been the distant horizon of energy: an almost mythical promise, always thirty years ahead. A future without a map. In full electrification of the economy and with demand pushed by the digital industry and data centers, Europe has begun to set coordinates for that promise: where to build the first commercial centers. For the first time, the “artificial sun” is no longer just a scientific experiment and it becomes a problem of territory, infrastructure and industrial planning. And in this new European energy map, Spain appears among the best positioned countries. A new path. Gauss Fusion, the European company created to power the first generation of commercial fusion plants on the continent, has completed the first comprehensive European study of potential sites for this technology, in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich (TUM). The study culminates in a map that did not exist until now. A map that indicates 150 industrial clusters and up to 900 potential sites spread across nine European countries. Behind each point there is an analysis of geology, seismicity, meteorology, refrigeration, access to the electrical grid and existing infrastructure, aligned with standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Spain on the horizon. It appears as the third country with the most identified clusters: 17, only behind Germany (53) and Italy (22), and ahead of France, Austria, the Netherlands or Switzerland. This is not a political decision or a formal candidacy, but rather a strictly technical diagnosis: where it would be possible to build a first-generation fusion power plant if it had to be done tomorrow. “That Spain appears as the third country with the most potential clusters is due solely to technical criteria,” emphasizes Milena Roveda, CEO of Gauss Fusion, in an interview with Xataka. “The study follows an objective methodology consistent with international standards. There are no strategic weightings or quotas per country,” he emphasizes. And that nuance is key. The map does not look for winners or distribute investments: it identifies where the minimum physical and industrial conditions already exist to host a fusion power plant. But why Spain? On the one hand, its fusion ecosystem. Spain is one of the European countries with greater historical involvement in ITERhouses the headquarters of Fusion for Energy in Barcelona and has achieved key industrial contracts for national companies. Added to this is the role of CIEMATuniversities with leading groups in plasma physics and materials, and the beginning of the construction of IFMIF-DONES in Granadaa critical infrastructure to validate materials for future reactors. On the other hand, their regulatory experience. “Spain has a nuclear regulatory body with extensive prestige and experience,” highlights Roveda. From an industrial point of view, Roveda insists that Spain should not limit itself to being a host: “It has the potential to be a key piece in the merger value chain. Companies like IDOM already have demonstrated that can design and deliver extremely complex systems. Where could these clusters be? The map does not draw isolated points, but rather broad areas. The study identifies regional clusters capable of containing multiple viable locations. In Spain, they appear spread over a good part of the territory – from Andalusia and Extremadura to Castilla y León, Aragon, Catalonia, Galicia, the Basque Country and the Valencian Community – and are concentrated in industrial areas with high electrical demandgood network connectivity and, in some cases, close to old energy enclaves that could reuse part of their infrastructure. Frédérick Bordry, CTO of Gauss Fusion, explains to Xataka that the objective of the map is not to select a specific place, but “to have a broad database that allows collaboration with authorities, companies and other interested parties.” The final decision, remember, will not come until the end of 2027. What would a commercial fusion center be like? Talking about commercial fusion is no longer talking about experiments like ITER. Gauss Fusion works with the concept of a GIGA plantcapable of producing 1 gigawatt of electricity. This implies very specific industrial requirements. “Assuming an efficiency of 30%, a plant of this type must safely evacuate about 2 GW of heat,” explains Bordry. In practice, this requires access to rivers, reservoirs or the sea, as well as robust electrical infrastructure. Unlike fission, fusion does not produce chain reactions, is self-limiting, does not emit CO₂ and does not generate long-lived radioactive waste. “Due to its safety features, it could and should be integrated near urban and industrial centers,” says Bordry, even supplying waste heat for industrial uses or district heating. This aspect connects with a trend that is already seen in Europe: heat recovery in district heating networks, as happens in Finland with data centerseither the use of large industrial heat pumps. The process now enters a delicate phase. According to Gauss Fusion, the goal is to reduce the European map to between two and five final locations by the end of 2026, and make the final decision in 2027. But the technical criteria will not be the only ones. “Political will, the regulatory framework and social acceptance will be essential,” emphasizes Roveda. In his opinion, Europe needs policies that promote fusion as a new industrial engine, and regulations “adapted to the real risk of these facilities.” Social acceptance will also be key. “Transparency and citizen participation are essential,” he says. “We have to explain well what fusion is and what it is not.” A project that covers a lot. For Bordry, no European country can tackle a project of this magnitude alone. The merger will require a continental industrial alliance, something that Roveda defines as a “fusion Eurofighter”, in which Spain should play a central role, not only as a location, but as a technological and industrial supplier. In a context in which European electricity demand could grow up to 75% by 2050fusion is beginning to be seen not as a distant promise, but as one more piece of the energy puzzle, complementary to renewables, storage and electrification. An open closure, but with a … Read more

The microprocessor that advanced the Intel 4004 was not in a computer, but in a secret place: an F-14

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We are used to thinking that the history of microprocessors begins with the Intel 4004. Even those who are not experts have it associated with it as the first big chip that inaugurated the era of personal computing. But that is not the only possible story. There was another design, less known and outside the commercial circuits, that began operating before the 4004 reached the market. It did not appear on a computer or calculatorbut in a F-14 Tomcatand for almost thirty years it was invisible to the public. What that plane had inside was a processor designed to do something that no commercial chip did at that time: automatically calculate speed, altitude or wing position while the pilot maneuvered. That system, known as MP944, had been in service since 1970, when the 4004 had not yet been introduced. Its context was completely different from that of Intel, because it was not designed for the market or to be licensed, but rather to fulfill a requirement of the military program marked by the tensions of the Cold War. A secret microprocessor in the bowels of an F-14 The novelty was not only that it made calculations, but that it did so automatically and digitally, something unusual in on-board systems from the late sixties. The MP944 processed sensor readingsapplied aerodynamic equations and provided data that influenced the behavior of the plane, reducing the pilot’s workload. It was not a passive assistant, but a module capable of interpreting those readings and providing results fast enough to be integrated into actual flight control. That is why it was considered a technology ahead of its time. The declassified documents in the nineties show that the MP944 combined advanced MOS technology with a 20-bit parallel architecture capable of executing pipeline calculations, something unusual for its time. Its frequency was 375 kHz and it could process specific mathematical operations efficiently enough to be integrated into real flight systems. According to the figures collected in Holt’s work and in the subsequent review by Tom’s Hardware, this performance placed the MP944 clearly ahead of the 4004 in number of instructions executed, although it was never intended as a general-purpose commercial chip. They were two different approaches: one for a military aircraft, the other for a commercial device. When Holt’s work came to light decades later, He argued that the MP944 should be considered the first microprocessoreven though it was not on a single chip nor had it been marketed. Intel engineers, such as Ted Hoff and Federico Faggin, disagreed and argued that 4004 was the first in integrating all the essential functions of a CPU in a single piece of silicon and with general use. Russell Fish, a former Motorola engineer, reviewed the MP944 documentation and described it as an advanced microprocessor for its time, while Richard Belgard saw it as an overly specific system, designed only to keep an airplane in flight. Holt maintained that the reason no one knew about MP944 for years was because his work had been classified and subject to military restrictions. He said he spent decades requesting the release of the documents and was only able to do so when, in 1997, he won the support of Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren for the Navy to authorize their publication. With the documentation now available, the Navy qualified that version and maintained that Holt’s work had not actually been classified, but that what was missing was the company’s authorization to release the records. Garrett AiResearch admitted that they were no longer clear about what had happened, because the people who managed the case had left the company. When the information became available, Russell Fish claimed that MP944 was so advanced for its time that, had it been known, could have accelerated the development of the sector by up to five years. The creators of the 4004, such as Federico Faggin and Stan Mazor, openly disagreed and pointed out that the merit of the commercial microprocessor was to integrate all the essential elements on a single chip and make it viable for multiple applications. Richard Belgard qualified this position: he recognized the technical value of the MP944, but saw it as a system designed for a single purpose, without the capacity to open its own market. The debate about which was the first microprocessor is not resolved with a date, but with a definition. The 4004 was the first to hit the market as a commercial, integrated and programmable chip, and that merit explains its place in manuals. The MP944, on the other hand, previously demonstrated that it was possible to process data digitally and feed control systems in real time, even if it was done while locked in an airplane and outside of public space. One opened an industry; the other anticipated capabilities. Both represented different ways of understanding what a microprocessor could be. Images | DVIDS (1, 2, 3) | Thomas Nguyen In Xataka | The United States wants to be sovereign in AI. AMD’s new supercomputers will be part of the plan

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