problem

A young man has solved a mathematical problem that lasted 60 years in 80 minutes with ChatGPT. That’s the least interesting thing about the story.

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He is 23 years old, his name is Liam Price and he has no advanced mathematical training. Even so, a few days ago he opened the Erdös problem websitepicked one at random and pasted it into ChatGPT. I didn’t know the history of the problem or who had tried it before. What he received back seemed like a good solution, and after consulting with a friend who was studying mathematics, the two realized they might be on to something special. A few hours later Terence Tao, one of the most renowned mathematicians in the world, confirmed that problem #1196 of Erdös, a conjecture about primitive sets of integers that had not been solved since 1966, had a solution. I had found her GPT-5.4 Pro in just 80 minutes. Not like that. This problem analyzed a question about the behavior of a particular mathematical sum on primitive sets, that is, sets of integers where none divides the other, when those numbers become very large. Jared Lichtman, a Stanford mathematician, had spent years on the problem and had made partial progress, but he and those who had tried before were starting from the same starting point that seemed like the right path. A novel idea. GPT-5.4 used another starting point. He stayed in the airmetic terrain and used a special function called von Mangoldt functiona classic tool of number theory known for its connections to prime numbers and Riemann zeta function. No one had thought about that approach to the problem, and as Lichtman explained when talking about the OpenAI model solution, “The LLM took a completely different route.” The achievement is real, but with nuances. Litchman praised the proposed solution by GPT-5.4, but there is one detail that has been omitted in many comments on this event: the raw output of ChatGPT was, in the words of this mathematician, “pretty poor.” This solution made it necessary for several experts to interpret it, detail it and extract from it the underlying idea that allowed the conjecture to be solved. Price didn’t know he had the solution until his friend read it, and he wasn’t sure until Tao confirmed it. The official repository of AI contributions to Erdös problemsmaintained by Tao himself on GitHub, classify the result as a solution generated in human-AI collaboration, not as a solution developed solely by AI. The distinction is important. A previous scandal. A few weeks ago Sebastien Bubeck, a researcher at OpenAI, posted on X that GPT-5 had “solved” several Erdös problems. That publication exceeded 100,000 views, but the mathematical community and also that surrounding the AI ​​industry criticized that statement. Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, called that statement “shameful.” What had actually happened is that the model I had found solutions to already solved problems on the web. Bubeck finished deleting the original tweet and tried to back down, but all this raised doubts about the validity of the application of AI to solve mathematical problems. AI and the mathematical success rate. Terence Tao and Nat Sothanaphan maintain the aforementioned record of all AI contributions to Erdös problems on GitHub. Each of the entries in that list or table is classified with a traffic light: green for complete solution, yellow for partial progress, and red for failure. In the category of completely AI-generated solutions with no known prior literature there are three green, fourteen yellow, and eight red traffic lights. However, the repository itself adds a unique comment: those who try to use AI to solve these problems and fail do not usually report it, so it is likely that AI has been applied “silently” to a large number of these problems without success, and those attempts do not appear in any table. There is a clear bias here because only successes generate headlines. Trying to measure what matters. In February 2026, eleven mathematicians created the initiative “First Proof“. In it they included ten mathematical problems that arose naturally in their research projects. For each one they included encrypted answers uploaded to a verification site, and they gave the AI ​​systems a week to try to solve those problems that had never appeared in any training data set. Preliminary results indicate that today AI models cannot overcome that barrier autonomously, and what happens is that there are still limits to what AI can really contribute in mathematics. But then, is there a revolution or not? Terence Tao offered a clear explanation as to why GPT-5.4 had succeeded where others had failed for 60 years. What had happened was what he described as a collective blockage of the mathematical community, because everyone started from the same origin because it was “the natural one”, the one marked by tradition. The AI ​​didn’t know that was the “correct” way to start, and that ignorance turned out to be an advantage. It’s not that the AI ​​was smarter, it’s that it had no biases about how to approach the problem. Now it remains to be seen if this novel way of trying to solve problems in unorthodox ways works. This will confirm whether what happened with Erdös’s problem number 1196 was an isolated case or whether a 23-year-old boy has managed to change our vision of how to tackle mathematical problems. Image | Universal Pictures In Xataka | There is a mathematically perfect way to cut a ham and cheese sandwich and it has been discussed since 1938.

Sudden death has increased by 30% in Europe. In Spain the problem is even more serious and silent

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It arrives without warning, unexpectedly and in most cases with a fulminant cardiac origin that leaves patients on the ground in a few seconds and without the ability to respond. These are some of the characteristics that the sudden deathwhich has always been one of the biggest challenges for emergency medicine and that we must increasingly take into account because cases do not stop increasing. And especially in Spain. A new trend. A large study recently published in the journal The Lancent has put figures to this silent reality, pointing out that mortality records in the last decade have increased by 30% in Europe, and the trend in Spain exceeds the European average. How it has been seen. To understand the magnitude of this finding, we must look at the methodology that the research team has followed, which has taken as a source of data from the WHO that come from 26 European countries between 2010 and 2020. In this period, more than 53 million deaths were recorded from many different causes, and of these 2,583,559 were classified as sudden deaths. It is not a minor figure, since this means that almost 5% of the total deaths in that decade fall into this category. And if we look back, we observe an average annual increase of 2.9% in Europe, although if we focus on Spain, this increase rises to 3.3%. It’s not COVID. Seeing that the study ends in 2020 and automatically blaming Covid and the vaccines that were administered is something that may be an idea that many have in their heads, but the truth is that it has nothing to do with it, since the upward trend had already been consolidated since 2013. Which is the culprit. There are several hypotheses on the table here, one of them being the aging of the population, which is much more vulnerable to fatal cardiovascular events. But age is not the main problem, since cardiovascular risk is conferred by having a poor lifestyle that includes a sedentary lifestyle, obesity, hypertension or diabetes, which continue to be silent pandemics that prepare the ground for heart failure. It is also important to highlight that the difference between various countries depends on the effectiveness of health systems, ambulance response times and, above all, the availability of defibrillators (AED) and CPR training of the general population. The latter is something in which Spain is not as aware as in other European countries, where a good part of the population knows how to act in the event of cardiac arrest if it occurs in the middle of the street. Causes depending on age. In the case of the under 35 years oldthe cause is usually a genetic or structural failure that has not been previously detected, predominating electrical alterations of the heart such as the famous Brugada syndrome. The problem is that many times the patient does not present symptoms until the onset of sudden cardiac arrest, having already seen cases in our country in very young people who, for example, They play soccer and suddenly fall on the field. In people over 35 years of age the origin changes and here lifestyle and wear and tear prevail, with acute myocardial infarction causing the vast majority of cardiorespiratory arrests. The Spanish context. The data provided by The Lancent study fit perfectly with the demographic and health puzzle of our country, since if we go to the INE we see that heart diseases (along with oncological diseases) are responsible for half of the deaths in Spain. And although the INE points out that in 2024 deaths from circulatory diseases decreased by 2.4% globally, entities such as the Spanish Society of Epidemiology and Cardioalianza remember an uncomfortable truth: Ischemic heart diseases continue to be the leading single cause of death in Spain. How to improve. The European study does not seek to create alarmism, but rather to light an emergency beacon in terms of public health. Stopping this 30% increase does not involve a magic pill, but rather a dual approach: improving early diagnosis in young people with a family history and, above all, filling our streets with defibrillators and citizens who know how to do cardiac massage. And, in absolute terms, cardiorespiratory arrest is a time-dependent process, meaning that every minute that passes without the patient receiving assistance translates into 10% less chance for your heart to beat again. This makes in 10 minutes It is almost impossible for a patient who has suffered an arrest and who does not receive CPR to come back to life, and this should make us aware of how important it is to know the basics of CPR, since it can truly save many lives. Images | wayhomestudio on Freepik In Xataka | We thought the marathon was heartbreaking. The largest medical follow-up to date has just settled the debate

China already knows how to keep a fleet of drones in the air indefinitely. The problem is that there are too many problems

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Wireless charging in everyday devices It is a resource that provides comfort. In other areas, wireless and remote charging implies a much more powerful advantage: supremacy over a rival. That is precisely what China is testing, how to maintain a drone fleet flying almost indefinitely thanks to a microwave charge injected from a ground system. And they are not the only ones. In short. A few days ago, Chinese scientists from Xidian University published a peer-reviewed article in the journal Aeronautical Science & Technology in which they presented a system microwave emitter that could send energy to an array of antennas installed on the top of a drone to charge the vehicle’s battery in mid-flight. The most important thing is that it works while the ground vehicle and the drone are moving, which eliminates the need for a stationary charge that would make no sense from a strategic point of view. Image of Xidian University How it works. For the system to work, and as we read in SCMPthe researchers integrated a GPS positioning system that allowed a drone and a ground vehicle to be aligned. On the ground there is the microwave emitter and the drone has a series of antennas at the bottom that collect the energy. In tests, the system kept fixed-wing drones in the air for up to 3.1 hours at an altitude of 15 meters. The great challenge was maintaining the alignment between the drone and the ground vehicle to maximize the load, but once the obstacle with the GPS system was overcome, the drone can stay in the air depending only on the vehicle’s fuel. On the other hand, we are approaching it from the point of view of indefinite autonomy, but such a system would also allow drones to have less battery (which, in the end, adds weight) and have more carrying capacity. The BIG asterisk. Defense analysts liken it to a “land-based aircraft carrier” in which an armored vehicle on the ground is both the command and power node, monitoring, charging and providing logistical support to the drones in a manner similar to that of a aircraft carrier It is the lifeline of manned fighters. However, the system has a huge problem: it is extremely inefficient. The Xidian team estimates that the efficiency of the microwave ‘cannon’ is between 3 and 5%. It’s… ridiculous, which means that the vast majority of the energy emitted is simply wasted. Why not a laser? It’s the big question. A laser system is more precise and has a longer range, which opens the doors to other types of missions. However, being a beam of light and not directly the energy that we launch, the laser is very sensitive to interference such as fog and dust. Also, think of the laser as a precision rifle and the microwave as a shotgun: any turbulence or bump in the road would affect the beam, but microwave energy has a wider range of action. China is not alone. Chinese analysts point out that it is a promising concept, but also something that is very far from being able to be applied to satisfy an immediate operational need. What it is, is one more step to find that way to get those drones that are appearing to be a very valuable element on the battlefield, as the wars in Ukraine and Iran, unfortunately, are demonstrating. The advance is important because Xidian has time working in the theoretical framework of the technology, but it is now that they have carried out a successful field test. Now, they are not alone, since the American agency DARPA is experimenting with radio frequency and laser to charge drones remotely, and in Germany, Rheinmetall is also developing wireless charging platforms for unmanned ground vehicles, although in this case, the drones are perched on a platform. In Xataka | Sending electricity without cables seemed like a thing of the future. DARPA has done it again, and the test has turned out better than expected

Madrid has the key mineral underground so that Europe does not depend on China. The problem is that there is a gap above

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Under the soil of Madrid lies a strategic resource that Europe desperately needs to reduce its technological dependence on China. To ensure this supply, the regional government has decided to make a move and protect the future of the Tolsadeco mine. The plan. As they progress in Europe Pressthe Community of Madrid finalizes the procedures to extend until 2037 the mining concession located between the districts of Vicálvaro and San Blas-Canillejas. It is about reactivating an open-air exploitation that has been paralyzed since 2007, with the aim of not losing access to the last reserves of a material critical for the industrial autonomy of the continent. A simple absorber or the future of the electric car? Although it is traditionally known for its domestic use as an absorbent material—especially in pet litter—sepiolite is today a very high-tech mineral. According to Europa Press citing the Elcano Royal InstituteSpain is the only European producer of this material, placing it as an extractive singularity of the country. In fact, the processing factory located in Vallecas transforms about 400,000 tons per year out of a global production estimated at 600,000. The strategic importance. High purity sepiolite is the basis of flame retardant additives essential for the cable, pipe, automotive and construction industries. These components allow Europe to replace antimony oxide, a raw material that is today imported almost exclusively from China. Furthermore, the mineral is the core of the project MADBATa Madrid initiative to develop high-performance electrodes for electric vehicle batteries. The economic impact projected by the concessionaire company, Tolsa, is ambitious: a turnover of 113 million euros, with more than 53 million destined for international export. The emptying of the water and the promise for 2037. To resume extraction, the first step will be to evacuate the water accumulated during two decades of inactivity. The Ministry of Economy defends this intervention under an argument that transcends the industry: citizen safety. The regional administration emphasizes that it is not a natural lagoon, but rather a deep mining hole with clay soils that, as they warn in their reports, act like “quicksand.” Despite the fences and signage, the place has become a recurring clandestine bathing point. Tragedy has struck this enclave on several occasions: since 2012, three people have lost their lives due to drowning in these waters, including the death of a minor in June 2021, according to the files of Europa Press. Given this danger, the Community of Madrid promises that, upon completion of exploitation in 2037, the area will be restored through a “safe and planned reconfiguration” that will create new controlled lagoons. The clash with the neighbors: the destruction of an ecosystem. However, the reactivation plan clashes head-on with neighborhood and environmental opposition. The Regional Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Madrid (FRAVM) and various groups have denounced, in statements spread by Europa Pressthat the work will mean the “destruction of the Laguna Grande.” The associations deny the official version about the origin of the water, ensuring that it has a phreatic character and is connected to a deep aquifer. In addition, they warn about the impact on biodiversity—especially in breeding colonies of the sapper planea protected bird—and about the proximity of mining activity to homes, sports facilities and educational centers. For organizations like Ecologistas en Acción and SEO/BirdLife, This extension is a bucket of cold water: postpone sine die the long-awaited project of converting the Ambroz environment into a large “Eastern Country House”, integrated into the Metropolitan Forest. The groups have not been slow to react: they are already preparing allegations and keeping open the possibility of taking legal action. The price of European autonomy. The Ambroz lagoons conflict perfectly illustrates one of the great industrial and environmental crossroads of the present. On the one hand, the undeniable geopolitical need for Europe to secure strategic materials to lead the energy transition and stop the Asian monopoly. On the other hand, the high ecological cost that this strategy requires at the local level. Madrid has decided to shield its sepiolite mine in favor of the technology industry, but the price to pay will be to empty – at least for the next decade – the oasis that nature had silently claimed in the southeast of the capital. Image | freepik Xataka | From devouring diesel to being 100% electric: the incredible transformation of a 650-ton mining excavator in India

The US has just freed eight women that Iran was going to execute. The problem is that Iran says they were generated by AI

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Sometimes, an image can trigger unexpected consequences in international politics. During the Kosovo war, at the end of the nineties, a photograph released no clear context on alleged civilian victims provoked immediate reactions from governments and international organizations before their true origin could be verified. That episode left a lesson that is still valid: in high-tension scenarios, the impact of a story can be as fast as the difficulty to check if it’s true. Two versions for the same photos. The episode begins two days ago with Donald Trump asking through your social network Iran to stop the execution of eight women arrested after the protests, he also does so by publishing the image of the eight women, an anomalous situation that, coincidence or not, in a matter of hours takes a radical turn when Trump himself goes on to affirm who has achieved it. According to their version, some would be released and others would receive light sentences, presenting it as a gesture of good will before the alleged new negotiations. The problem: that from the beginning there is no verifiable data clear about their identities or their judicial situation, which leaves the story supported by information that is, at the very least, incomplete. Iran not only denies it, it dismantles the story. The Iranian response could not be more direct: There were no planned executions. They assure that some of the women were already free and that the rest, if convicted, would only face prison sentences. In addition, they accuse Trump of relying on false information and trying to build political success without a real basis. The shock quickly moves from the facts to the credibility of the person telling them. The leap into confusion. The situation escalates towards complete surrealism when Iranian official channels of their different embassies go one step further and affirm that part of the images released would have been generated with artificial intelligence. At that point, the discussion stops being whether they were going to be executed or not, and begins to question whether some of the protagonists exist as they have been presented, or if they simply exist. This change introduces such a crazy level of uncertainty and propaganda that it makes it very difficult to verify how much of the story is real. A real context that does not disappear. Be that as it may, and despite the confusion, the environment in which it occurs is documented. I remembered the Times newspaper that, after the protests in Iran, there are thousands of detainees and reports of unfair trials. In fact, there are human rights organizations that executions have been reported recent events and the use of the death penalty as a pressure tool. This means that, although this specific case is doubtful, the underlying problem is still relevant. Propaganda faster than facts. In any case, what we see is not new in a war, far from it. Throughout recent conflicts, several stories have shown how narrative can prevail over verification. For example, during the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the testimony of a young woman known as “Nayirah,” who reported alleged crimes in hospitals, influenced international public opinion before it was learned that he was linked to a public relations campaign. In the 2003 Iraq war, claims about weapons of mass destruction marked strategic decisions no conclusive evidenceand in the Ukraine conflict, narratives such as of the “Ghost of kyiv” or some viral videos spread on networks became popular quickly before to be qualified or denied. In all cases, the pattern repeats itself: in war environments, political and emotional urgency accelerates the spread of stories that can influence real decisions long before their veracity is confirmed. Strategic tension that sets the pace. Of course, all of this occurs while continuing the pressure in the Strait of Hormuz, with attacks on ships and blockade of ports despite the ceasefire. Iran has conditioned any progress on lifting that blockade, while the United States maintains it as a pressure tool. And in that context, the episode of the eight women It is not isolated: it is an essential part of a scenario where the political narrative and the situation on the ground always advance in parallel. Image | Trump Social, Nara In Xataka | Europe has gotten down to work on one of its biggest geopolitical challenges: opening Hormuz without help from the US In Xataka | Iran has 300 internal reports where it models the war against the US. They are all based on the same thing: Ukraine

Mexico’s real problem is that it is warming three times faster than a century ago

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Mexico is experiencing the first major consolidated heat episode of 2026 and there is more than 22 entities affected on the Pacific slope and the southeast. That’s highs of up to 45 degrees in a country that is warming up to three times faster than the last century. And, despite everything, no one seems too worried. Why would they be? Mexico closed 2025 with reservoirs at 72% and by April 15 only 12.3% of the territory is affected by drought. You only have to go to 2024 to find a spring with 76% of the country in a critical situation: no matter how much the heat is getting earlier, it is logical that no one takes it very seriously. Especially if we take into account that experts do not agree on the nature of the event. Once it has been ruled out that, technically, it is a ‘heat wave’; The National Weather Service says we talk about a ‘color wave’ and services like Meteored doubt whether that can even be talked about. The great Mexican mess. While the thermometers of Sinaloa, Durango, Nayarit, Guerrero, Michoacan, Chiapas and, occasionally, Jalisco will be placed above of 40 degrees; the rain will reach the eastern half of the country: It is a clear example that the asymmetry in how climate change affects Mexico means that the country begins to live in several seasons at the same time. And that is the central issue: Mexico is warming rapidly and that means innumerable problems. Heating up rapidly? According to the UNAM Climate Change Research Programbefore 2012 the warming rate per century was 1.9 degrees. Now that rate has catapulted to 3.5. This means that projections speak of 1.95 degrees only for 2026, while the average is 1.5. And El Niño is knocking on the doors. Therefore, the fact that there is water in the swamps does not solve anything: it simply makes us trust. But let’s talk about the problems. Because, although we do not usually emphasize it, heat has a direct impact on public health. Only in 2024 306 people died from heat stroke in Mexico. The fact that the heat is ahead is not good news. Above all, because as we already know, the hot Mexican season produces peak values ​​between April and May. In this way, it is reasonable to think that all this heat is nothing more than part of what is coming. Image | BenBaso | Xataka In Xataka | We are living in the hottest years on Earth and the consequences will be so severe that not even our grandchildren will see the end.

ChatGPT enables pay per click ads. And with them the problem that destroyed the credibility of SEO is repeated.

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ChatGPT already charges advertisers for each click their responses generate. OpenAI has activated a cost-per-click (CPC) model of between $3 and $5 within its advertising platform, as it progresses DigiDayuntil now limited to large advertisers who paid for impressions. Why is it important. This marks the moment when ChatGPT stops being a neutral tool and becomes a system with direct economic interests in which answer appears first. And that leap has consequences for anyone who uses AI as a source of information. The context. OpenAI launched its advertising business a few months ago with a CPM model (pay per impressions) and with a minimum investment of $250,000. In that time, the price has dropped from $60 per 1,000 impressions to $25, and the minimum has been reduced to $50,000. The direction of the movement says a lot: OpenAI needs more advertisers and it needs them faster. Between the lines. A CPC of 3-5 dollars is equivalent, in effective CPM, to figures much higher than the market average. OpenAI is not looking for cheap volume: it wants to position itself as premium inventory, at the level of Google Search, where clicks are worth more because the user arrives with a clear intention, especially in certain types of searches: health insurance, urgent loans, lawyers specializing in traffic accidents, etc. The problem is that this intention premium still needs to be demonstrated. The inevitable conflict. The CPC model introduces a conflict that any content platform knows well: the best answer for the user and the answer for the payer are not always the same. It is not a problem exclusive to OpenAI or search engines. It is the fundamental contradiction of any business that combines information and advertising revenue, including the media, and that each actor manages with greater or lesser success depending on their size, reputation and incentives. Google has been navigating this conflict for 25 years with increasingly debated results. Let’s think about what a Google results page looked like in 2005 and what it is like today. It’s not even your only conflict of interest. OpenAI inherits that same conflict from day one, without the reputation cushion that gave Google margin for two decades, and at a time when the demand for transparency about how AI systems work is increasing. Yes, but. There are those who argue that the LLMs They are different because contextual conversation generates a more qualified intent than traditional search, which would justify the premium price and make the advertising presence more tolerable. It is possible. But the same thing was said about branded contentof the native advertising and SEO in its beginnings. If history tells us anything, it is that economic incentives end up winning over product design, not the other way around. In Xataka | AI already knew how to create images. OpenAI says it has found the missing piece with the new ChatGPT Images 2.0 Featured image | Xataka

We believed that procrastination was a time management problem. Neuroscience has shown that it is a survival instinct

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Almost all of us have been in the situation of being faced with a task that must be done no matter what, such as studying an exam or handing in an assignment. We know that it is something important, and that we should start addressing it now, but suddenly we are doing something totally different and insignificant like reorganizing the drawer or watching a video on YouTube. What seems so common is what we call procrastinationand we understand more and more why we do it. The context. For decades, popular culture has told us that procrastination is a time management problem or, worse yet, simple laziness. However, neuroscience has a very different message when it points out that procrastination It is not an organizational failure, it is a crisis of emotional regulation. The brain. To understand procrastination, we must first look at the anatomy of our brain, which often functions as a large battlefield divided into two sides. On the one hand we have the limbic system, which is one of the most primitive parts of the brain and whose function is simply to keep us alive, away from pain and seeking immediate pleasure. On the other hand, we have the prefrontal cortex, which is the most evolutionarily ‘modern’ area, located right on the forehead. This is where we have rational thinking, long-term planning and logic. What is known. Already a 2021 review pointed out that these areas are activated when you have to do a task that generates anxiety, boredom or insecurity, such as studying an exam. And it is no wonder, because the limbic system detects this situation as a “threat”, and automatically hijacks the prefrontal cortex to prioritize immediate emotional relief by looking at Instagram over the long-term benefit of starting to study to pass. We know more. Now, this year, a new study has taken a new step to understand this brain system, by identifying in primates a specific neuronal circuit that functions as a “brake” for motivation, and that connects two parts of the brain: the ventral striatum (VS) with the ventral pallidum (VP). The researchers discovered that when we face tasks associated with discomfort or the possibility of failure, this VS-VP circuit is activated, inhibiting the action, as if it were an emotional protection mechanism taken to the extreme. The most striking thing about the study is that, by interrupting this circuit in the laboratory, the subjects immediately restored their motivation, “releasing the brake” and tackling the difficult task. It’s not laziness. This new line of research is consistent with previous research that associated procrastination with stress, fear of failure, and anxiety. In this way, when seeing a blank document or a very complex Excel sheet, the amygdala activates a flight response. In fact, it has been seen that chronic procrastinators tend to have worse connectivity between the amygdala. the anterior cingulate cortex, which makes them less able to filter negative emotions and distractions. In short, the brain will procrastinate to protect itself from the psychological discomfort caused by a task. Hacking. Seeing how complex this all is, blaming yourself or calling yourself “lazy” is of no use. But it is true that you have to follow a strategy to be able to hack our perception of stress and reward, starting to break up the work, making it so that, instead of setting out to “write the entire work”, you should opt for “write only the title and the first paragraph for five minutes” to trick the amygdala. It is also possible to block sources of easy dopamine with a blocking system on your computer or mobile phone that makes it difficult to access Instagram or YouTube to watch a video. This way, if the immediate reward requires an effort like going to the next room for the phone, the prefrontal cortex has time to intervene and put us in concentration mode. Images | Ashkan Forouzani In Xataka | Procrastinating is a death trap for your brain in the form of anxiety. The problem is that we don’t know how to avoid it.

His biggest problem is not money, but balance

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Spending a vacation on board a cruise ship is a tourist option increasingly in demand even by travelers high purchasing power. However, Mario Salcedo, a millionaire who made his fortune in finance, decided 26 years ago to turn his daily life into a vacation. Since then, he has been linking cruise trips turning these giants of the sea in your home. However, this life of luxury aboard some of the largest pleasure ships has taken its toll on him: he has lost “his land legs” and is no longer able to walk in a straight line when he arrives in port. Always live on vacation. The millionaire of Cuban origin counted in 2019 to The New York Times He was never interested in starting a family, so his life on land only consisted of working and working. So one day he decided to leave his apartment in Miami behind and embark on a cruise. The experience impacted him so much that since then he has been combining one cruise with another and now his house has several decks, swimming pools, dance floors and some fleeting neighbors with whom he socializes whenever he can. After being a regular among the passage of the Royal Caribbean companythe crew already knows him as Super Mario. “I don’t have vacations. People come here to spend vacations. Not me, I’m here to live my life,” explains the millionaire. Life on board. The millionaire investor uses a reserved table on one of the cruise ship’s decks where a handwritten sign reads “Super Mario Office.” Obviously They do not refer to the Nintendo characterif not to the place from which the millionaire sits every day for a few hours in front of his laptop to telework. In this way he has paid for the more than 1,154 cruises he has completed in his life on the high seas. The millionaire claims to dedicate between 70,000 and 100,000 dollars a year for his travels. The millionaire counted on an interview for Condé Nast magazine, who booked an inside cabin without a balcony, because “I don’t do anything in my cabin except shower, get dressed and sleep,” he explained. The rest of the day he could be found in his “office”, socializing with other travelers or dancing in one of the ship’s dance rooms. To avoid having to constantly change cabins, Salcedo plans it 150 reservations in advance, linking one voyage to another. The worst thing about living on a cruise ship is getting to port. Everything would indicate that the biggest cost of living on a cruise ship is money. However, for “Super Mario” the greatest sacrifice is going ashore. After more than 25 years rocked by the sway of the waves on the best cruises, the millionaire has developed a rare disease called landing disease. This is a rare disorder that affects the vestibular system of the ear which affects balance giving a constant sensation of movement even when you are stable and motionless on dry land. It is popularly known as “earth legs.” Usually, this is a disorder that lasts at most for a couple of days, but when your life takes place on the high seas, and you only spend a total of fifteen days a year on land, the disease becomes chronic. “I have lost my land legs. I sway so much that I can’t walk in a straight line. I am so used to being on boats that I feel more comfortable than on land,” he said in his interview. Doesn’t usually go ashore. There is no doubt that Mario Salcedo is like a fish in water on board a cruise, so the few times he goes ashore he does so to take a plane to take him to his next cruise, when they dock in Miami to check that everything is still in order in his apartment or when he has to make arrangements with the bank or medical visits. Luckily, except for his problem with balance when he steps on dry land, the millionaire in his sixties is in good health. A key factor for “Super Mario” to continue his adventure on the high seas, given that shipping companies prohibit that a person who requires constant medical care comes on board. In Xataka | Amsterdam has grown tired of too many tourists. And he has found a solution: fight the cruise ships Image | Royal Caribbean A version of this article was published in 2026

China prepares a 2nm AI chip to end NVIDIA’s dominance. Your problem is how you are going to manufacture it

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A new chip designer for artificial intelligence (IA) is preparing to take the field in China. And he intends to make a lot of noise. In fact, it is already doing so. It’s called Dishan Technology, and, according to SCMP, is already verifying the prototype of a 2nm AI GPU that uses a hybrid integration technology that combines FinFET and GAA transistors (Gate-All-Around). However, this is not the only thing that has emerged. According to Dishan Technology, this chip will be 40% more energy efficient than its predecessor and will be compatible with CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), from NVIDIA. This latest technology brings together the compiler and development tools used by programmers to develop their software for NVIDIA GPUs, so if Dishan’s chip is really compatible it will be much easier to integrate it into facilities that already have GPUs from this American company. Although, as I mentioned above, Dishan already has a prototype of its chip, it will take another year or two to refine its technology enough to make large-scale manufacturing possible. Be that as it may, what has not been revealed is who is going to manufacture it. SMICthe largest Chinese semiconductor producer, can currently only manufacture 7nm chips using the multiple patterning. And TSMC, Intel and Samsung, which could produce it, will hardly do so in the current geopolitical context due to the demands of the US sanctions on China. We will see how Dishan Technology solves this challenge. China already has three “champions” in its AI chip ecosystem The country led by Xi Jinping you already have three alternatives very clear to NVIDIA. Although not as well-known as Huawei or Moore Threads, Cambricon Technologies is one of the companies specialized in designing GPUs for AI with the greatest growth potential. In fact, in August 2025 it received approval from the Shanghai Stock Exchange (China) to raise $560 million. He is allocating them to the design of four chips for training and inference of AI models, and also to the development of an alternative to CUDA. Moore Threads has developed several GPUs that rival advanced solutions from NVIDIA, AMD or Huawei On the other hand, Moore Threads has developed several GPUs for AI applications that, on paper, rival some of the advanced solutions that NVIDIA, AMD or Huawei have placed on the market. The cards MTT S4000 and MTT S3000 They are its most interesting proposals right now, although, curiously, the MTT S80 card also appears in its portfolio, a proposal for games and content creation that, according to Moore Threads itself, has a computing capacity of 14.4 TFLOPS in single-precision floating point operations. The other indispensable player in the Chinese AI chip industry is Huawei. His most ambitious proposal right now is the chip Ascend 950PRwhich aims to surpass the performance of the GPU NVIDIA H100. However, this Chinese company also launched its chips last year Ascend 910D and 920. This last solution is clearly intended to compete in the Chinese market with NVIDIA’s H20 GPU. Presumably at the end of 2026 it will launch its Ascend 950DT chip, and the Ascend 960 and 970 GPUs will arrive in 2027 and 2028 respectively. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | SCMP In Xataka | TSMC acknowledges that it has considered taking its factories out of Taiwan. It’s impossible for a good reason. In Xataka | The looming bottleneck in AI is neither RAM nor gas: it’s that TSMC’s N3 node is absolutely saturated

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