plan

When the war in Ukraine ends, Russia has a plan for Europe

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A week ago and in the midst of the peace negotiations that the United States has tried to lead between Russia and Ukraine, the president of Finland issued a warning to the old continent. If peace comes to Eastern Europe, it will be the end of the war, but also, possibly, the beginning of another. Now it has been Washington’s intelligence that seems to be on the same line. The ultimate goal. counted this week Reuters that US intelligence reports have been conveying a less than reassuring message for more than two years: Putin’s objectives in Ukraine have not been moderated or reduced, despite military attrition, economic sanctions and ongoing diplomatic talks. Since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, the assessment of US agencies has been that the Kremlin aims to subdue all of Ukraine and, beyond that, to restore a sphere of influence over territories that were part of the former Soviet bloc, including countries that today they are part of NATO. This reading is neither punctual nor cyclical, but rather a line of analysis sustained over time that agrees widely with the conclusions of the European intelligence services and with the strategic perception of countries especially exposed as Poland or the Baltic Stateswhich are considered the next potential targets if Moscow manages to consolidate its position in Ukraine. Between intelligence and speech. This diagnosis collides head-on with the narrative promoted by Trump and his negotiating team, who maintain that Putin wants to end the conflict and that a peace agreement would be closer than ever. For intelligence analysts, that view ignores both the Russian leader’s own public statements and the logic of your actions military and political. From Washington it is emphasized that Putin has denied repeatedly be a threat to Europe, but the facts (the annexation of territories, sustained military pressure and the refusal to renounce maximalist demands) contradict that discourse. Even voices within the US Congress, such as that of the Democratic congressman Mike Quigleya member of the House Intelligence Committee, have insisted that the conviction that Russia “wants more” is shared by allies key in Europe and is based on solid information, not assumptions. Territorial control. On the ground, Russia controls approximately 20% of Ukrainian territory. This domain includes almost all of the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, the industrial heart of Donbas, large areas of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, and the Crimean peninsula, a strategic enclave in the Black Sea. Putin does not present these conquests as provisional or negotiable: he has formally declared that Crimea and the four occupied provinces belong to Russiaa statement that sets a clear red line for any negotiation. This position turns the territorial debate into the main obstacle of diplomatic contacts, since accepting these demands would mean, de facto, legitimizing a war of annexation and setting a dangerous precedent for the post-Cold War European order. Pressure on kyiv. In this context, Washington’s pressure on kyiv has been increasing. According to sources familiar with the talks, the US proposal would include Ukraine withdraw your forces of the areas of Donetsk that it still controls, as part of a peace agreement. For Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the majority of Ukrainian society, this concession is unacceptable. Not only would it imply ceding sovereign territory under military coercion, but it would call into question future viability of the Ukrainian State and its ability to defend itself from new aggression. kyiv insists that any agreement that does not include real and credible security guarantees would be equivalent to freeze the conflict on terms favorable to Moscow, leaving the door open to a resumption of the war when Russia feels stronger. Security: the great debate. The negotiations led by Trump’s entourage, with figures such as Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, have advanced in defining a package of security guarantees backed by the United States and generally accepted by Ukraine and several European countries. These guarantees would contemplate the deployment of a security force mainly European in neighboring countries and in areas of Ukraine far from the front, with the aim of deterring and responding to future Russian aggression. The scheme would also include a limit on the size of the Ukrainian army, set at around the 800,000 troopsalthough Moscow is pushing to reduce it further, a demand to which some American negotiators are open. To this would be added intelligence support by the United States, air patrols backed by Washington and the ratification of the agreement by the US Senate, which in theory would give the commitment greater political solidity. Mistrust and Russian mystery. Despite these advances, Zelenskiy has publicly expressed your doubts about the real effectiveness of those guarantees, wondering what would prevent Russia from attacking again in practice. Uncertainty worsens because Putin has rejected the presence of foreign troops in Ukraine, even as part of a peace agreement. In parallel, the Russian leader has not offered signs of flexibility: although he declares himself willing to talk about peace, he insists that his conditions must be met and boasts of the territorial advances achieved by his forces, which he estimates at about 6,000 square kilometers in the last year. The lack of a clear response from Washington to these demands fuels the perception that Moscow could be using the talks as a tactical tool to buy time and consolidate positions. Strategic risk. From the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has qualified that Russia, in its current state, lacks the military capacity to conquer all of Ukraine or to launch a full-scale offensive against Europe. However, the reports themselves emphasize that the lack of immediate capacity does not equate to a strategic renunciation. Putin’s political intention, according to US intelligence, remains being expansiveand their calculation seems oriented toward a long war, in which the attrition of Ukraine and the political fatigue of the West work in their favor. That combination of unbroken ambition and strategic patience is what explains the caution (also, if you will, skepticism) of the intelligence services regarding … Read more

Spain turns in the opposite direction to the rest of Europe. Form part of a geological plan: closing the Mediterranean

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Spain and Portugal are dancing to a different rhythm than the rest of Europe. They are moving clockwise and the consequence is clear: a long-term closure of the Mediterranean that connects the Iberian Peninsula directly to North Africa. The convergence between continents is slow, a few millimeters a year (so we will continue needing the tunnel between Spain and Morocco), but one thing is clear: another Pangea is on the way. And the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco will be a unit. In short. Continental plates move. Some separate, others collide, and that continental drift has caused the emergence the Pangea Ultima theory. In 250 million years, there will only be one continent. There is a long way to go for that, but now, some researchers from the University of the Basque Country have analyzed geodetic data that allows them to affirm that the Iberian Peninsula is rotating clockwise. This east-west rotation is driven by the convergence between the Eurasian and African plates, and the conclusion is clear: both are moving between four and six millimeters closer each year. This information is not new, but the researchers’ discovery is to specify the processes that take place at the diffuse boundary of the two western Mediterranean plates. Thanks, Gibraltar. Although the boundaries of other plates are well defined, this does not occur in the Western Mediterranean. There, the processes are much grayer, and there is something called “Gibraltar Arch” which plays an interesting role in this tectonic dynamic. To the east of the strait, the crust absorbs the deformation caused by the collision between the Eurasian and African plates. This ‘Gibraltar Arc’ acts as a buffer, but it has a consequence: in the west of the strait there is a direct collision between the plates, while in the east it is absorbed by the Gibraltar Arc. This lack of buffering from the southwest is what causes the clockwise rotation. Rotational strain rate field. Positive values ​​correspond to clockwise rotation, while negative values ​​refer to counterclockwise rotation. Active and potentially active faults are marked with solid and dashed gray lines, respectively. Double analysis. The researchers combined two types of accuracy analyzes to obtain these results. On the one hand, those of satellite deformation through GNSS system (Global Navigation Satellite System). Analyzing the data, they measured surface displacements with millimeter precision, relying on both permanent and occasional GPS markers. On the other hand, they also analyzed information from recent earthquakes that allowed them to determine the tectonic “stresses” in the area. They are independent data sets, but by crossing them they were able to draw a series of ‘lines’ that have allowed them to better specify the boundary between the plates. So that? Well, to better understand which sectors are in direct collision between plates and which are still more protected by the Gibraltar Arc. And the neighbors? The problem is that, although they claim that it is a rapid tectonic movement, this is true in geological terms. For us it is invaluable, but it also comes into play that we only have satellite data since 1999 and detailed seismic data since the 1980s. Even so, if with such a short range of data we have reached that conclusion in the annual approach, it is because the phenomenon is not in a hurry, but it does not pause either. And the most interesting thing is that this only affects the Iberian Peninsula. It is not that we are going to separate from France, since we ‘drag’ the rest of the continent thanks to the effect of the Gibraltar Arc, but we are not turning in the same direction as other neighbors. Italy, for example, experiences a counterclockwise rotation that exerts pressure in the alpine zoneand in the anatolian plate (where most of Türkiye is), there is also this counterclockwise rotation. Hello, Morocco. While in Turkey the consequence may be more earthquakes or mountain formations, this current speed of between 4 and 6 millimeters will cause, at some point, the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco to unite. This continental collision would close the Mediterraneanbut there is a lot left for it. How much? About 100 million years. They estimate that for 20 million years we will continue at the same speed, but within about 50 million years, things will gain momentum, accelerating the process and turning the region into one of the most active volcanic and seismic areas on the planet. It’s… foolish to worry. present utility. Now, beyond curiosity, the most immediate implication that the researchers point out is a better identification of active faults or areas in which previously unidentified tectonic structures could exist. Asier Madarieta-Txurruka, one of those responsible for the investigation, explains This information indicates where to look for these structures and boundaries to determine what type of folds and faults there may be. Thus, we can anticipate the type of earthquake that there will be and its magnitude in areas such as the Western Pyrenees or the region of Cádiz and Seville in which we know that there are numerous places with significant deformationbut we do not have well identified the active tectonic structures that cause them. And, although there is still a long way to go before the Alps and a new mountain range are founded across the peninsula and all of North Africa to Arabia, knowing better what we have right under our feet is much more useful. In Xataka | We knew that Africa was going to split in half. What we didn’t know was that it would happen so quickly.

Tesla urgently needs to make its electric cars cheaper. And their plan is to produce batteries in Germany

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Tesla will take the production of batteries for its European Tesla Model Y to Germany. This is what the German press agency DPA assures, information that has been echoed by German media such as Handelsblatt. “From battery cells to vehicles, everything must be produced in one place,” a spokesperson told DPA. For now, the statements remain somewhat cautious. The company talks about a three-digit investment (speaking of millions of euros) and that the decision will be confirmed “if the framework conditions are adjusted”. It must be taken into account that Elon Musk already assured in 2020 that they would raise “the largest battery factory in the world” in Germany which, of course, has not been carried out. Tesla’s intentions are to make the production of the Tesla Model Y as cheap as possible in order to face European competition. Right now, the company has to import its batteries to Germany from the United States, an environment that is also complicated in production due to the tariffs that the country has raised on components that arrive from abroad. If consolidated, Tesla aspires to produce batteries worth 8 GWh, a figure that is far from the 50 GWh it aspires to produce. Stellantis with CATL in Aragon. Why does an electric car have less autonomy than advertised? Between the bad and the worst If we take the month of October as a reference (the last analyzed by ACEA), Tesla has fallen almost 40% in sales in Europe in the first eight months of the year. The figure has left the company with 117,000 units sold compared to the 192,439 units it had registered last year in the same period of time. Obviously, its weight in the market has also fallen, to the point that it has been reduced by almost half. Right now, 1.3% of the cars purchased in Europe are Tesla vehicles when the company reached a market share of 2.2% and in 2024 it will make the Tesla Model Y the best-selling car in the world. Suzuki, Nissan or SAIC (owner of MG) have overtaken Tesla this year. However, 2025 is being a fateful year for the company. Especially in Europe where Elon Musk’s political positioning has squandered the brand image in countries like Germany and France. The company is facing new proposals from its rivals that are close in price and already offer a real alternative to Tesla cars. To solve it, and no smaller, more affordable versions on the horizonTesla has launched the Standard versions of its Model 3 and Model Y. They are versions with reduced equipment that try to reduce prices to keep both cars as attractive options. At the same time, yes, the price of the rest of the versions has increased to increase the gap and force the customer who does not want a shortened version to spend more money. The announcement also comes in a strange context in the European Union. media like Bloomberg They emphasize that the announcement has been made at a time when solutions are being sought to lower the limits of polluting emissions, but the truth is that European manufacturers They still need to sell many electric cars even if the measures proposed by the European Commission were approved. What is true is that Tesla is manufacturing its batteries in the United States but they have had to face an extra cost for them because the country has raised harsh tariffs on all components arriving beyond its borders. Although Tesla has been one of the least affected manufacturersthe extra cost appears to be high enough for the company to invest in Europe. And Tesla itself has pointed out that producing batteries on our continent continues to have such a high price that its profitability is doubted. Therefore, the only reason for Tesla to continue investing in Germany and not opt ​​for other European countries such as Spain (as it has done CATL with Stellantis or the Volkswagen Group) is because It already has part of the structure assembled in the German country and it would be a matter of increasing the productive land on their land. Furthermore, it is to be hoped that the European Union will further pave the way for attract investments in terms of battery production. Our continent is still far behind the United States but, especially from China and the most renowned attempts have been a total failure like Northvolt. It remains to be seen to what extent this movement allows Tesla to make its vehicles cheaper and continue to stand up to increasingly stronger European manufacturers. And some Chinese companies that hope that the negotiations between their country and the European Union to lift tariffs come to fruition. What Tesla is surely looking for are more stable policies than those of the United States, something complex in such a changing geopolitical context. Photo | In Xataka | Car manufacturers bend their arm to the European Union: we will have combustion engines in 2035

Torrejón de Ardoz has a plan to control his geese, parrots, rabbits and pigeons. One of 150,000 euros

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With bird flu and the african swine fever grabbing headlines, the Torrejón de Ardoz City Council wants to protect itself against “possible health risks”. The City Council is looking for a company to help it “control” the populations of certain wild species that live in the municipality. Specifically, it has focused on four: parrots, Nile geesepigeons and rabbits, although the list can be expanded. It offers interested firms a three-year contract (extendable) with a budget of up to 150,000 euros. Its mission: quantify, control and capture. What has happened? That Torrejón de Ardoz (Community of Madrid) wants to control the wildlife that populates its fields and parks, especially parrots, Nile geese, rabbits and pigeons. “It is necessary to maintain the population and avoid possible risks to health, public safety, maintain environmental health and the ecosystem,” the Consistory states in your ad to attract companies interested in providing the service for three years. The deadline for submitting offers ended in November. Now the Contracting Platform reports that it is in the “evaluation” phase. The budget: a maximum of 150,000 eurosVAT included. But what exactly do you want to do? “Control and manage” the populations of certain species and anticipate possible “unhealth risks” or damage to ecosystems. Hence the focus is on three types of animals that stand out precisely for their ability to expand: “invasive exotic birds” (a category in which the City Council includes the Argentine parrot, Kramer parrot and Nile goose), pigeons and turtledoves and the European rabbit. “This includes any other wild animal that could cause a risk to health, safety and/or ecosystem,” they require from the Consistorywhich leaves pest control, disinfestation and deratization tasks outside the contract. The objective is for the company to carry out an annual “diagnosis” on the situation of these species and carry out health controls. If necessary, it will undertake sampling, analysis and veterinary tests to detect diseases. Just that? No. The documentation of the contest clarifies that, if circumstances demand it, the company will have to carry out work to control wildlife populations, which includes removing nests, controlling eggs, work with compressed air rifles and cages or capturing specimens. In the case of rabbits, the contract states that the company may control them with the help of ferrets and capillos, as long as it meets certain conditions. Captured healthy rabbits will be moved to preserves. When this is not possible, the contract contemplates euthanasia (in compliance with the animal welfare law), just as occurs with geese. One of the conditions placed on companies is that they have agreements with captive breeding and recovery centers. But… Is it so urgent? This is considered by the Madrid City Council, which recalls, for example, that parrots and Nile geese are “exotic species that can become invasive if control is not carried out” on the population. “Therefore, it is necessary to develop this service to reduce its distribution area, reduce the number of specimens or stop its spread,” prevents. About the rabbits, technicians remember that it is a wild species “capable of colonizing urban ecosystems” and that is already causing “damage” in green areas of the city, especially in groves, bushes, meadows and even in irrigation systems and land. “That is why it is necessary to control the population to prevent the increase and severity of damage. In addition, they can pose a risk to public safety and health,” duck. As for pigeons, the City Council recognizes that they are “adapted” to urban life, but their proliferation can cause annoyance and health problems. Images | Wikipedia 1 and 2 In Xataka | Torrejón de Ardoz thought it had found a golden opportunity by hosting the Madrid macro festivals. Now he’s canceling them.

At Honor they are convinced that they are going to lead the market for folding devices. This is your plan to get it

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“Spain is an open and very good country for foreign brands, but also very challenging due to competition and focus on low prices.” With those words he responds Laurence Li, new Honorary Country Manager for Spain and Portugalto the answer of how he sees the new market ahead. Until about four months ago, Laurence oversaw Honor’s operations in the Gulf regions from Dubai and previously led Huawei’s Consumer Business Group in Latin America. Today you have a huge challenge ahead of you. Honor has been operating for four years in our borders as an independent brand and the executive is clear about how far he wants to take it. Because Laurence Li is firm in his position: “Honor should be one of the top three consumer brands in Spain, not just a mobile brand.” Competing at the top starting with Spain Honor Magic V5 | Image: Xataka At the beginning of the year We had the opportunity to speak with Tony RanCEO of Honor in Europe, who already told us two things. The first, that Europe is going to be the second most important market for the company. The second, that it is not going to descend into the mud of the entry range and low prices, where there are hardly any margins. The company knows that the juicy segment is the high-endthe premium product, and that is where they are going to focus. All this starts in Spain, “a really good market for all Chinese and foreign brands” due to its openness. All Chinese brands have had a very good acceptance in our countryand if not, tell Xiaomi, Huawei, Omoda, Jaecoo, MG or BYD. These companies destroyed their respective markets by offering low prices and competent products, only to later make the leap to premium products once they had established themselves. The case of Xiaomi is the most obvious. Honor is going to save that step by being fully aware of it. “If you are looking for an entry-level phone with the lowest price, other brands would be a better option, to be honest. Now, if you want to buy something of quality, with innovation, that is, a good product, a product with AI, Honor will be the best alternative,” says Laurence. The firm is aware that right now its market share is what it is. The latest data They claim that Apple (27%), Samsung (26.5%) and Xiaomi (23.7%) lead the Spanish market. The fourth brand is Oppo with 5.7% and the fifth position is occupied by Motorola with 2.2%. Honor, for its part, reaches 1.3%. It would help to achieve a better position by launching cheaper products, attacking the already saturated entry range, but the firm’s strategy does not go there. Honor does not want to be a brand linked to low price, but to quality. Honor Magic V5 | Image: Xataka “Right now, people don’t change their cell phones that often. They do it every three or four years, maybe even every five. If you are going to use your cell phone for five years, you would prefer a better product and you would even pay more,” explains Li, who believes that the financing options offered by companies and retailers can help cover the expense. While the low-end market is being pushed by operators with the aim of increasing the number of 5G devices, Li says, the market for “high-end and premium” products is increasing because more and more people want good quality phones and are willing to pay more because it will last three or four years. The logic is clear. Honor’s logic is evident: the customer will be willing to pay more if they know that the product will last longer One might wonder if Laurence Li, coming from the Dubai offices and managing Honor’s operations in the Gulf; and having previously worked in Latin America, he has noticed some difference in consumer behavior. “I don’t think there’s a big difference,” he explains. Quite the contrary, he believes that there is an important similarity between the three cultures. The executive makes the comparison with cars. “In Dubai, and even here, more and more people are buying Chinese electric cars made in China.” In his own words, “more and more people want to buy innovative products and accept Chinese products (…) People want to try Chinese products, and that is a good trend.” What Laurence Li is telling us between the lines is that The perception of ‘made in China’ is changing. What was once synonymous with a cheap and regular product, today is pivoting to a premium, solvent and capable of standing up to the most established brands from South Korea, Japan or the United States. We are seeing it in all segments: white goods, televisions, sound, automotive, mobile phones and, soon, we will see it in household appliances. Lead the market based on folding and artificial intelligence This is Honor’s humanoid robot, developed entirely by them and visible in their store | Image: Xataka If competing in the low range is getting down in the mud and getting dirty, doing so in the premium range means playing in the same league as devices from Samsung and Apple, two names that are not easy to overshadow. One of Honor’s plans to achieve this is to conquer foldables. “We will be leaders in foldable devices, we will be there, we will be the strongest,” says Laurence while pointing out the Honor Magic V5 which I use as a personal phone. In just four years, Honor has gone from being born to launching the thinnest folding terminal on the market. It is a device that breaks with all the conventions that a novice user of a terminal like this could have: the battery lasts, it feels resistant, it is light, thin, it is comfortable to use, it has a good camera and, when folded, it is attached to a conventional mobile phone. Looking at it with perspective, improving a product like this seems complicated. Folding and … Read more

The plan has always been to destroy the International Space Station in 2030. Someone thinks we can do something else

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The International Space Station this that falls. It has been orbiting the Earth since 1998 and was completed in 2011. The plan was to retire it in 2024, but the accounts did not work out and, in 2021, the NASA administrator set a definitive date: 2030. The question is whether it will last that long because a few months ago we already said that members of NASA expressed concern about the accumulation of problems technicians who were accelerating the decline of a seriously aging facility. air leaks, cracks in different modulesabsence of spare parts for critical systems and lack of budget to propose a solution It would be assumed that the Different agencies have been putting patches on for years. NASA has already commissioned SpaceX the development of a ship that would tow it to the space graveyard of the Pacific, but… is there no other solution for the 450-ton, $150 billion station? The answer is yes. At least, that’s what Greg Vialle, founder of a startup called Lunexus Space that is committed to recycling the International Space Station, thinks. Turning the International Space Station into a mine In the middle of last year, NASA had clear that he Point Nemoa remote location in the Pacific, 2,700 kilometers from the nearest pile of dirt, would be the station’s cemetery. There was only one thing I could avoid the dismantling: that ROSCOSMOS, the Russian space agency, refused to abandon the ship. Russia soon changed its mind by commenting that its cosmonauts were passing more time repairing equipment than conducting experiments. Come on, no matter how much they wanted to “annoy” NASA at a geopolitically unstable point, it didn’t work out for them. Everything was aimed at the disappearance of the current ISS, but there are those who have something to say. Lunexus Space is a startup focused on the development of industrial infrastructure in low orbit that reuse structures and space junk to facilitate the construction of goods directly in the lower atmosphere. The goal is to develop a kind of circular economy in low orbit by taking advantage of the tons of material already in space, eliminating the need to re-launch them from Earth. In Space Newsthe CEO of the company has developed an article in which he explains his plan to “avoid wasteful expenses.” Vialle affirms that the ISS has 430 tons of high-quality aluminum, titanium and other materials valuable for future space missions. He estimates the value of the material at $1.5 billion, which would be lost to the ocean floor if NASA’s plan goes ahead. And it also points out the almost 1 billion that NASA will spend on the vehicle that tows the station to its resting point. “It is a fiscally irresponsible plan that loses a strategic resource and a golden opportunity.” What he proposes is “a common sense alternative”: converting old infrastructure into raw materials for new construction. Their calculations highlight that launching a kilogram of material into space costs $3,500, but if they take materials from the ISS, the costs would drop entirely. And, faced with the 1,000 million dollars of the plan to sink it, Vialle suggests that Its recycling process could be carried out for about 300 million dollars to which an equivalent government loan would have to be added to launch the necessary infrastructure, appealing to significant savings for taxpayers while preserving valuable resources. American leadership, of course “How can we wait prospect, mine, refine and transport in deep space if we cannot extract the many tons of cataloged and space-grade materials that are already beginning to manage low Earth orbit?” Vialle appeals. But of course, there is a B side to this plan: Strengthen America’s Space Leadership. By receiving the ISS, the CEO believes that the seeds of “a new industry in space led by the United States will be sown, ensuring our economic and strategic leadership over competitors like China.” China too He has been planning his own station for years. And he compares the move to American manufacturing policy to prepare for the Second World War, japanese strategy in the 1970s that established the country as a technological miracle or Taiwan’s position with TSMC and chip manufacturing. His idea is for the United States to invest in resource management technologies in space, something that is taking its first steps and that, if it reaches a solid program, will make “the nation dominate the future of commerce and defense in orbit.” It is evident that Vialle has known what sticks to play in a moment as sensitive as the current one and, although in his letter he urges Congress to influence NASA’s decision to ‘deorbit’ the International Space Station, the space agency has already detailed that, after a session to evaluate the possibility of reusing the main components of the station, they did not receive any proposals of interest from the industry. On the other hand, the European Space Agency already pointed out that recycling in orbit was “a real challenge” and it was not clear whether the resources used to capture and process waste in space would be profitable. Either way, time is of the essence. We will see what happens with the ‘Recycle the ISS’ movement, but there are four years left and, as more and more voices point out, something must be decided because the installation is on its last legs. In Xataka | Decathlon has just made its way beyond sport: it will reach space with a prototype spacesuit for the ESA

China activated a renewable “Marshall Plan” in 2011. It is achieving more than just decarbonizing the planet

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Between 1948 and 1952, United States destination 13.3 billion dollars at the time to rebuild Western Europe after the Second World War. This strategy was called the ‘Marshall Plan’. China has its own Marshall Plan, one focused on accelerating the development of ‘green’ technologies on a global scale. And it is redrawing the energy map of developing countries. The Green Marshall Plan. It is estimated that, since 2011, China has invested a whopping $227 billion in more than 450 new energy manufacturing projects. Of that amount, around 88% are concentrated from 2022, which shows an impressive acceleration in its roadmap. BRI. One of the centerpieces of the Xi Jinping government’s foreign policy is the Belt and Road Initiative, or “Belt and Road Initiative“The idea was to create a new concept of international relations based on free trade that took the ancient Silk Road as a model (something that China has taken up). Much of this investment in green energy is going to the countries that are part of the BRI, and only in 2024 will China invested 11.8 billion dollars in green energy. In the first six months of 2025, investment was 9.7 billion, which shows another acceleration in the expansion of its green policy beyond its borders. Overproduction as a lever of change. And, if the question is “why,” the answer is “because they can.” Although China continues to extract coal yqwants to become an oil powerhas also strongly supported the renewable energy sector. So much so that they have achieved an overwhelming manufacturing advantage compared to the West. HE esteem that China produces 80% of the world’s solar panels, 75% of lithium batteries and 70% of wind turbines. They have such strong internal competition that their companies have had to create a kind of OPEC to avoid stepping on each other. And, of course, this enormous production has collapsed the market: solar panels have rock-bottom priceshave crushed Western competition and these low prices allow developing countries or countries that want to change their energy model to do so at a lower cost than a few years ago. Proper names. In 2024, China exported technologies related to renewables (panels, turbines, batteries and electric vehicles) worth 177 billion dollars, which is equivalent to 5% of its total exports. Being the factory of the worldit’s outrageous. But of that figure, 72 billion were allocated to developing countries. And not only because those countries are buying from China, but because China is investing, directly, in them. An example is Ethiopia. In 2024, they banned the importation of new gasoline cars with the aim of betting on new energy ones. But at the same time, between 2011 and 2018, China invested 4 billion in the Ethiopian energy sector, with multiple wind farms or the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. This year, another 500 million dollars have ended up in solar manufacturing plants: Chinese companies are establishing themselves in those countries. Another example is Moroccowith battery factories from chinese manufacturers to feed electric cars. In general, China is moving through Africa supporting this energy transition of countries traditionally very dependent on fossil fuels, but they are not leaving empty-handed: they are also building infrastructures that allow them to exploit mines of critical materials, a fundamental leg of the Chinese technological business and geopolitics. China’s ‘Great Solar Wall’ in 2017 And in December 2024 Brazil, like China. HE esteem that 90% of the solar panels installed in Africa are Chinese, and they are also expanding throughout Latin America. On the one hand, with influence: they build infrastructure and are becoming a key player in the railway rebirth of South America. On the other hand, they are installing factories in several countries. And there Brazil has moved very intelligently. The country increased tariffs on all automobile imports to force something that China itself did years ago when Western manufacturers wanted to enter the country: to open factories in its territory. BYD or Great Wall Motors are setting up plants in Brazil. Strange bedfellows. And then there is India. Diplomatic relations between both countries are not at their best and, in fact, India is taking advantage of any excuse to remind China that they also have military muscle. However, on the other side of those tensions, we find a country that is experiencing explosive growth in renewable capacitygoing from 190 GW installed to almost 500 GW projected by 2030. And what is making that change possible is the cmassive purchase of renewable technologies to China. India buys 17% of the solar cells that China exports, which creates a brutal technological dependency, as well as a dilemma: they need green energy with immediate availability, but they also want to develop their own industrial capabilities. And this overproduction in China, with such low prices, makes the goal of national manufacturing less attractive. Taking the role of the US. And, precisely, it was during the COP30 held a few days ago in Brazil, where China’s role was highlighted. In a report by The New York Times point out how, in the Paris Agreement, rich countries relied on poorer ones to begin taking measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In some cases, it remained a simple promise while developing countries claimed their right to industrialization, something for which they have been using fossil fuels. China has seen the gap and thanks to cheap renewables, these developing countries can continue their industrialization in a more environmentally friendly way. And we go back to what we did before: China presenting itself as a pillar of global stability in an event in which the United States has not made an appearance. And while Europe and the US analyze what to do, China continues to expand its influence. Images | POT, Korea Aerospace Research Institute In Xataka | China is the largest power in renewables. Now you have a problem: what to do with all those used turbines and plates

We have been talking theoretically about data centers in space for months. A company already has a plan to set it up in 2027

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The Californian startup Aetherflux has announced which will launch its first data center satellite in the first quarter of 2027. It is the initial node of a constellation that the company has named “Galactic Brain”, designed to offer in-orbit computing capacity powered by continuous solar energy. The underlying promise. Aetherflux presents an alternative to the years of construction that terrestrial data centers require. According to Baiju Bhatt, company founder and co-founder of the financial firm Robinhood, “the race toward artificial general intelligence is fundamentally a race for computing power and, by extension, energy.” The company is committed to placing sunlight next to silicon and completely bypassing the electrical grid. How the project works. The Galactic Brain satellites will operate in low Earth orbit, taking advantage of solar radiation 24 hours a day, something impossible on land. Advanced thermal systems would eliminate the limitations faced by terrestrial data centers, which require large amounts of water and electricity for cooling. In addition, the constellation fits within Aetherflux’s initial plans: transmitting energy from space to Earth using infrared lasers. The competition is already underway. Aetherflux is not alone in this bet. Google presented in November your Suncatcher projecta plan to launch AI chips into space on solar-powered satellites. Jeff Bezos too expressed his optimism on large data centers operating in space in the next decade or two, a goal that Blue Origin has been working on for more than a year. SpaceX also works in use Starlink satellites for computing loads of AI. Musk himself wrote in The real obstacles. Although launch costs have decreased considerably, they remain prohibitive. According to recent estimateslaunching a kilogram with SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy costs around $1,400. Google calculate that if these costs drop to about $200 per kilogram by 2030, as projected, the expense of establishing and operating space data centers would be comparable to that of terrestrial facilities. In addition, the chips will have to withstand more intense radiation and avoid collisions in an increasingly congested orbit. The urgency. Big tech is colliding with physical limits on Earth. From 2023, dozens of data center projects have been blocked or delayed in the United States due to local opposition over electricity consumption, water use and associated pollution. According to the consulting firm CBRElimitations in electricity generation have become the main inhibitor of data center growth around the world. The Aetherflux Calendar. The company, founded in 2024 and which has raised $60 million in financing, plans to first demonstrate the feasibility of transmitting space energy through a satellite that will launch in 2026. If all goes according to plan, the first Galactic Brain node will arrive in 2027. The company anticipates launching about 30 satellites at a time on a SpaceX Falcon 9 or equivalent, although if Starship becomes an option, they could orbit more than 100 data center satellites in a single launch. The long term strategy. Aetherflux hasn’t revealed pricing yet, but promise Multi-gigabit bandwidth with near-constant uptime. Their approach is to continually release new hardware and quickly integrate the latest architectures. Older systems would run lower priority tasks until the life of the high-end GPUs were exhausted, which under high utilization and radiation might not last more than a few years. Cover image | İsmail Enes Ayhan and NASA In Xataka | OpenAI launches GPT-5.2 weeks after GPT-5.1: a maneuver that aims to cut ground on Google’s Gemini 3

Madrid had a plan to put all cars without a DGT label off the road in 2026. It has changed its mind

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In 2024 it was December 12. In 2025 it was December 11. 20 days after all cars without a label were prohibited from entering the city of Madrid, the capital’s City Council has once again confirmed that those who are registered in Madrid will be able to continue driving for another year. That is to say, like last yearwith less than three weeks left before the ban would exclude unlabeled cars registered in Madrid and those registered outside the city, the City Council has extended the extension that will allow them to continue circulating. So, who can and cannot circulate in Madrid? What does the great ZBE that is now Madrid look like? In September 2024, a figure began to move: 1.2 million cars circulating in Madrid were going to be left out if the ban on any car without an environmental label circulating in the capital was activated, as planned, in 2025. This figure was, as we contrast in Xatakafalse. Or inaccurate, at least. In reality, the Madrid City Council estimated that there were 246,000 vehicles that were going to be left out of circulation in the city. This year, The figure that had moved was 300,000 cars which does not seem real because it would imply that the vehicle fleet of gasoline with more than 25 years and diesel with more than 19 years has grown in the city in the last year. In fact, Borja Caravante, delegate of Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility, has assured that prohibiting the circulation of cars without environmental label of registered in Madrid would only affect about 14,000 or 15,000 vehicles, according to words collected by The Country. The Madrid City Council alleges, therefore, that the measure would have a “low impact” and that they therefore prefer to extend the exception to the rule. Whatever the vehicles may be, the truth is that if the ban were applied, no car without a label could circulate in the capital, regardless of whether or not the car is registered in the city. And the thing is, right now, the only cars without a label that can circulate in Madrid are those registered in the city. That is, it is not enough to reside in the capital, it is necessary that the car be registered in the city. If not, there is no possibility of moving with a car without a label except for few exceptions, such as going to a hotel in the city. In summary, right now there are two possibilities for cars without a label and they will remain active next year: If the car is registered in Madrid: it can circulate If the car is not registered in Madrid: it cannot circulate In addition, it must be taken into account that cars without a label (whether or not they are registered in the capital) cannot enter the Central District Special Protection Low Emission Zone (what was previously Central Madrid). Only cars with an environmental label can enter this space. Of these, in addition, the B and C labels have the obligation to park in a parking lot, so only the ECO and Zero emissions vehicles have total freedom of movement. If you want to know more details, in this Guide to know if your car will be able to circulate through the Madrid ZBE in 2026 We clarify all these concepts. Photo | Jordi Moncasi and NuKi Chikhladze In Xataka | The intrigue of cars with the DGT B label: what we know about whether or not they will be able to enter large cities

That the US authorizes Nvidia’s H200 to reach China is not a concession, but a plan. They prefer money to competition

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The chip war between China and the US has mutated from a blockade to a commercial transaction. Donald Trump has announced that he will allow Nvidia export its high-performance H200 chips to China. The authorization carries an unprecedented condition: the US government will receive a 25% commission about these sales. This “reverse tariff” transforms China containment into a source of income, breaking with the strategy of total suffocation and offering a lifeline to Nvidia in its most critical market. End of free blocking. The decision is a direct result of a meeting last week between Trump and Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia. The White House’s logic has changed: it argues that this measure is carried out under strict national security conditions, extending the model to competitors such as Intel and AMD. It is a movement that formalizes what was already intuited a few months ago, when Nvidia managed, after a first meeting with Trump, lift veto on bottom H20 chip. At that time, a precedent was already established of transferring 15% of income to the country, a figure that now scales to 25% for the most powerful hardware. Tap on the image to go to the original post A dose for China. That they chose this chip is no coincidence: the H200 is significantly more powerful than the H20—the trimmed model that China had started to boycott— but it is still behind the cutting-edge Blackwell architecturewhich is still banned. According to advisors such as David Sacks, the North American country seeks to keep China addicted to its technology: if they are denied all access, they are forced to look for alternatives of their own. In fact, Huawei has already admitted that it will take two years to match the performance of the H200, making this chip the perfect tool to slow down Chinese development while monetizing its need. Cracks and black market. The reality is that the total blockade was failing. Recent investigations showed how Chinese companies used shortcuts through Indonesia to access the power of banned chips. Furthermore, the second-hand market had become the main avenue for China get H100 and A100 GPUs off the radar. By allowing the sale of the H200, the US is trying to regain control over a flow that already existed, but in the shadows. At the same time, the Department of Justice announced “Operation Gatekeeper” to dismantle smuggling networks in countries like Hong Kong. China’s response. The great unknown is precisely this, the reception of the news in Beijing. Although Trump claims that Xi responded “positively,” the reality on the ground seems different. China has been for months banning your local businesses buy Nvidia chips to promote its domestic industry. The CAC (Cyberspace Administration of China) came to investigate the H20 looking for rear doorssomething that generated a climate of mistrust that not even the previous July agreement managed to completely dissipate. Jensen Huang, who warned about the danger of an “AI silk road” If the US continued to block sales, with this pact it gets a golden opportunity to not lose a market that represents 13% of its income, although its Chinese clients must now pay the price of American geopolitics. Cover image | Composition with images from Nvidia and RawPixel In Xataka | China has just redrawn the map of strategic minerals: its new rules on rare earths target the United States

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