race

Google is once again leading the AI ​​race and has something that no rival can match

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Google has launched Gemini 3.1 Proan incremental update of its flagship model that comes loaded with surprises. And according to its benchmarks, the model has much more to say than it seems. In abstract reasoning, Google wants to start setting the pace on Anthropic and OpenAI. But their ace in the hole is not just that, because they have something that other startups cannot replicate: their entire ecosystem and how they are integrating AI into it. What just happened. Just three months after launching Gemini 3 ProGoogle has published Gemini 3.1 Pro. The curious thing is that the jump is much more impressive than it may seem if we only looked at that “.1” in front of it. According to the company, the new model significantly improves the reasoning of the previous one and represents the intelligence base that already fed the Gemini 3 Deep Think update, presented last week. It is available today in the Gemini app, in NotebookLM (for Pro and Ultra subscribers), in the API through AI Studio, and in enterprise environments through Vertex AI. Data. In the ARC-AGI-2 benchmark, designed to evaluate the ability to solve completely new logical patterns, without the possibility of having seen them during training, Gemini 3.1 Pro has achieved 77.1%. To put it in context: Gemini 3 Pro stayed at 31.1%, while Claude Sonnet 4.6 marked 58.3% and Opus 4.6 68.8%. That is, Google has not only closed the gap, but has gone over it. It should be noted that never before has a mid-term review of its models recorded such a pronounced advance in reasoning. What the numbers say in the rest of the benchmarks. In the comparative table that accompanies the advertisementGemini 3.1 Pro tops the majority of categories evaluated: it obtains the best result in Humanity’s Last Exam without tools (44.4%), it leads in GPQA Diamond with 94.3% in scientific knowledge, and it doubles the previous model in APEX-Agents, the benchmark for long-term tasks. It also excels in MCP Atlas (multistep workflows), BrowseComp (agent search) and MMMLU (multilingual question and answer). It should be noted that, according to these benchmarks, it is not better in everything: in GDPval-AA Elo, which evaluates tasks in real-world work environments, Claude Sonnet 4.6 surpasses Gemini 3.1 Pro with 1,633 points compared to 1,317. And in SWE-Bench Verified, the programming test with agents, Opus 4.6 scores 80.8% compared to Google’s 80.6%. However, in the global calculation, the balance clearly favors Google’s new model. In Arena Leaderboard (the classification based on user votes) still places Claude Opus 4.6 ahead in text and code, although here “the sensations” of each user take more prominence when it comes to rating, than anything else. A clear competitive advantage. The strongest argument in favor of Google does not even have to do with the power of its latest model. The company doesn’t need to convince you to use its AI: it’s already where you are. Search, Gmail, YouTube, Android, Docs, Drive, Google Photos, Maps… Its AI does not depend on you opening a specific application, but is integrated into the ecosystem that millions of people already use daily. For the rest of the startups (OpenAI, Anthropic…), they need you to use their models in specific environments (ChatGPT, Claude). Google is simply already there. It’s a moat that perhaps not even the best model in the world could sweep right now. And then there’s the price. Gemini 3.1 Pro comes to users with a subscription to Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra, although you can also try it on a limited basis in the free plan. It should be noted that it is currently in a preliminary version. The narrative that Google wants us to have in our heads is that, for a modest price, you have access to that model, plus everything the company offers in its ecosystem, including storage. That, right now, is very difficult to overcome. Additionally, for developers, the API is also offered at a very competitive price. So, from a practical point of view and from the pocket, Google is giving everything so that all its users continue using its ecosystem, with or without the best AI. The “.1”. The AI ​​race has been at a frenetic pace for months. And the most interesting of all is that Google, which arrived late for the racehas had a hell of a year in which he has structured all the mess he had with his AI. The jump from Gemini 3 to 3.1 in reasoning is greater than what many rivals have achieved between full versions. And it has done so while maintaining the advantage of being the company that controls the most relevant entry points to the Internet. It remains to be seen how they solve monetizing your artificial intelligencebut they have certainly put in the work. Cover image | Alex Dudar and Google In Xataka | The scientist who made the AI ​​we know today possible has just raised 1 billion. His new goal is to teach him to see space

Big Tech is paying up to $600,000 to influencers to promote their AI. Now the race is about perception

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Big technology companies are deploying their heavy artillery to attract users for their artificial intelligence services. Just like they count From CNBC, Microsoft and Google have found their new battlefield in influencers, with contracts that reach six-digit figures. The dimension of the phenomenon. According to data from Sensor Tower, generative AI platforms spent more than $1 billion on digital advertising in the United States during 2025, an increase of 126% compared to the previous year. That large companies promote their products through influencers is nothing new, and it is also a business that is very profitable for them, since by investing a small fraction of their budget they can get an avalanche of new users. According to CNBC, in order to attract new users for their AI services, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic and Meta They are hiring content creators to promote your tools on social networks. Figures. Microsoft and Google are paying between $400,000 and $600,000 to content creators for multi-month collaborations, according to sources close to the media. These contracts are not limited to specific publications, since according to the medium, they seek to ensure that influencers integrate AI tools into their usual content, tutorials and workflows. “We’re seeing a massive increase in creator spending from these AI brands. We’re getting a lot more interest from AI brands every month,” counted to AJ Eckstein, founder of Creator Match (an agency that connects brands with creators). How these agreements work. Collaborations range from LinkedIn posts explaining how to use Claude Code even videos on Instagram showing functions of Microsoft Copilot or the assistant Comet by Perplexity. Megan Lieu, AI and technology content creator with nearly 400,000 followers, explains told CNBC that his sponsored deals typically range from $5,000 to $30,000 depending on the campaign. Its most important collaboration to date has been with Anthropic to promote products from Claudealthough he did not specify the exact figure to the media. Some influencers can charge up to $100,000 per post, according to Eckstein. The other side of the coin. Despite the astronomical numbers, not all content creators are willing to jump on the AI ​​bandwagon. Jack Lepiarz, known as Jack the Whipper and with more than 7 million followers between YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, account to the medium that systematically rejects any agreement related to artificial intelligence. “I cannot with a clear conscience support something that is going to make it difficult for normal people to earn a living,” he declared to the outlet. Lepiarz previously turned down a $20,000 contract to promote AI imaging tools and says even $100,000 or $500,000 wouldn’t change his mind. Perception with Copilot. For Microsoft, these influencer campaigns can be especially key. And despite its large user base in Microsoft 365 services, only 3.3% pay for Copilotas told from Windows Central. The company needs its AI assistant, integrated into Windows, Microsoft 365 and Edge, to be perceived as a natural tool in daily work, and at the moment it is being especially difficult for them to achieve that. It’s public time. Big Tech hiring influencers occurs precisely at a time when companies are investing more than ever in advertising their AI tools. A few days ago we told precisely the case of Anthropic, which spent a million on ads during the Super Bowl. Separately, Google and Microsoft increased their digital advertising spending to promote AI products by approximately 495% last month compared to the previous year, according to Sensor Tower. The media also says that OpenAI multiplied its advertising investment tenfold in 2025. After years of making its tools known, it is now time to shape our perception of them. Cover image | aerps and Hillary Black In Xataka | The person who is earning the most money on Twitch by broadcasting 24 hours a day is not a person: it is an AI

The wildest race on the Olympic tracks in Cortina was in 1981. A man launched himself dodging bullets and assassins on a motorcycle

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There are places that seem calm until someone decides to take them beyond reason. Scenarios conceived for precision and discipline that end up becoming, through a combination of ambition and audacity, within the framework of feats that border on the impossible and they leave a mark that is difficult to erase. The slopes of Cortina, in Italy, have seen all kinds of sporting feats, but few like the one that occurred in 1981. Return with the aroma of cinema. When the Winter Games They return to Cortina d’Ampezzothe tracks not only recover their sporting history, but also one of the sequences more wild and brutal never shot in the snow. The scene in question turned these mountains into the scene of impossible chases, shootings adrenaline in full descent and suicidal jumps that were etched in the collective memory long before he was once again at the center of the Olympic calendar, or even before Tom Cruise himself will amplify the scene in his Mission Impossible saga. The wildest chase. The story took place in 1981, during the filming of For Your Eyes Only which led to James Bond himself (then played by Roger Moore) to flee skiing of armed killers, motorcycles and even a biathlete who shot him while he was descending at full speed. In fact, the brutal sequence culminated with a maneuver as absurd as it was legendary: sliding down an Olympic bobsleigh track at more than 80 kilometers per hour and be thrown into the void as if it were a ramp. It was an extreme scene even for the saga, which came from sending the agent into spacebut which found in the Italian Alps a new limit for its formula of constant danger. Six weeks on the brink of disaster. The sequence in question required more than a month of filming, expert drivers inherited from The Italian Jobpiano wires, cameras mounted on bobsleighs and snow transported by trucks in the middle of the drought. Not only that. The team continued despite injuries from Roger Moore himselfburning bobsleighs and a level of risk so extreme that it was necessary to check every screw on the cameras before launching across the ice. Bogner and the men who did know how to ski. Behind the camera was Willy Bogner Jr.former Olympian and pioneer of ski filming, who decided roll the action back and designed double-tip skis to survive the challenge. Around them, specialists as John Eavesworld champion freestyle skier, learned to bobsled down the slopes again and again, while some actors struggled simply to stay upright on skis. Curtain, specialists and memory. Another of the key names was in the figure by Giovanni Dibonaa local specialist recruited to test whether it was possible to ski in and out of the ice channel, a feat that defined the entire final sequence. Decades later, The Wall Street Journal said that Dibona barely remembers why they were chasing Bond, but he remembers the titanic effort involved in filming in those conditions, an experience that made him understand that action cinema was not very different from extreme sports. Between glamor and tragedy. Plus: the filming was also marked by death. During a break for the 1981 world bobsleigh championships, an American athlete died in competition and, on the last day of filming, a young Italian stuntman He died when his sleigh overturned. All of this contrasted with the glamorous premiere of the film, a grand premiere attended by the then Prince Charles and Diana of Wales. Bond got off his skis, Cortina didn’t. The truth is that, over the years, the character of James Bond left the snow behind for other purposes such as hanging of trains and helicoptersbut Cortina remained a temple of vertigo, one shared by cinema and sport. There, those who lived through that filming know that the Bond films and the Olympic Games have something essential in common: they both look elegant from the outside, but they hide a hardness that only those who have ever gone downhill understand (or above) without network. Image | United In Xataka | One of the best comedies in history turned this simple scene into the most expensive. 9/11 and a highway were to blame In Xataka | In 1987 a death was filmed so savage that people had to cover themselves. The trick to achieve it turned RoboCop into a cult work

China wants to win the military space race and that is why it is working on a humble project: a space destroyer

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China has underway a space project worthy of ‘Star Wars’. In another context, it could sound like a tremendous exaggeration, but only one thing has to be said: the image that crowns this article belongs to a propaganda video from the Nantianmen Project. Specifically, it is the Luanniao, a larger space aircraft carrier than any aircraft carrier and able to throw hypersonic missiles and unmanned space fighters. More than terrifying, for some, it is simply high-tech theater. Nantianmen. First of all, you have to separate concepts. Nantianmen is a Chinese air force project that began in 2017 focused on the design of a global defense system. This includes practically everything we can think of such as fighters, weapons, autonomous vehicles, transport and launch platforms. It is a program that seeks to explore the paths that Chinese military aviation may have in the future, and it must be understood that, within Nantianmen, there are two types of designs: those that have been brought to the real plane through models and those that are on paper. An example of the first is Baidi, a manned aircraft that would become the jewel in the crown of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. And an example of the second is the monstrous destroyer Imperial Chinese. Luanniao. The video that I leave above these lines is the one that the state channel CCTV published a few days ago in which we can see… a lot of 3D elements doing movie things. In certain fragments the Luanniao appears, but it is not the first time that this space aircraft carrier can be seen. As pointed out South China Morning Postin 2018, shortly after the project started, the AVIC Global Culture Communication Company – a subsidiary of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China – showed a conceptual model of the Luanniao at an air show. We now have some more details thanks to the most recent CCTV broadcast. According to the network’s data, the Luanniao will make any conventional aircraft carrier look ridiculous: 242 meters long. 684 meters wingspan. Weight of more than 100,000 tons. Capable of carrying 88 unmanned Xuannv fighters both inside and outside the Earth’s atmosphere. And a full weapons team, with particle acceleration cannons and hypersonic missiles. To give us an idea, the American aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford It measures 337 meters by 77 meters. Pride. In the same video a model of the Baidi appears, a variable geometry wing aircraft that, as we say, seems to be the banner of Chinese aerospace innovation. In fact, the Asian giant is testing its new generation of both combat-ready fighters like those focused on air supremacy and reconnaissance. But, obviously, the one that attracts the most attention is Lunniao. From the network, it was commented that the aircraft carrier will become operational in two or three decades, and military analyst Wang Mingzhi, from the PLA Air Force Command College, affirms that technologies such as those of the Nantianmen Project reflect both the “expectations for future aerospace and space superiority and the directions being pursued to safeguard national security.” “It is not a question of whether they can be achieved, but rather which ones will be done first and when they will be implemented,” pointed out. “China is creating the impression that it is working on technologies that no one else can achieve. It is still ‘Star Wars’ material to inspire the Chinese audience” – Peter Layton Arching an eyebrow. Now, Western analysts are not so optimistic about something that has been described as mere propaganda rather than practical weapons development. Attacking the more earthly issue, defense analyst Peter Layton of Australia’s Griffith Asia Institute point Yes, the Luanniao would surpass both current defenses as storms when flying at an altitude higher than that which surface-to-air missiles and conventional fighter aircraft can reach. The “but” is that the technology to remain suspended at the edge of the atmosphere and launch missiles from there is science fiction. Layton comments that “it would require enormous amounts of fuel and propulsion mechanisms that have not yet been created,” ensuring that China has between 10 and 15 years left to develop the rocket technology necessary to put such an aircraft carrier into orbit. In D.W.space analyst Heinrich Kreft describe the project as “completely unreal from today’s perspective,” but he does not say that it is smoke because “much of what was fiction 20 or 30 years ago is real today.” Other analysts closer to the United States see the Luanniao as something with a single objective: to make the world believe that China has the technology to build this while hoarding resources to do other things. The undeniable. Whether it is psychological warfare, excessive ambition, smoke or something it is really working on, the undeniable thing is that China is taking giant steps in the new space race and weapons. We have already mentioned that they are accelerating the development of combat aircraft with stealth capabilities capable of standing up to whatever the United States deploys near its waters, but they have also joined that “first come, first served” space policy. Beyond satellites and systems that are a threat to security in space – according to the United States – they have been developing satellite technology for years. autonomous spacecraft and of reusable rockets with LandSpacethe answer to SpaceX’s Starship. But, in the end, all that is much more realistic than the enormous ship of 120,000 tons and more than 600 meters in span. But, as Kreft says, 30 years ago we also thought that current vehicles They were science fiction… Image | CCTV In Xataka | The US operation in Iran has staged one of the most impressive milestones of military engineering: the B-2 Spirit

This is C/2026 A1 and its race towards the Sun

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We have just started 2026 and astronomy has already given us the first surprise of the year, since while most were looking towards the usual objectives, a team of astronomers in the Atacama Desert has detected an object. It’s about the comet C/2026 A1and there are possibilities that we can see it from Earth itself. Its relevance. We are not facing just any comet, since its orbit and size suggest that we are facing a “sungrazer“, which translated into Spanish would be something like “Sungrazer.” This means that it is a type of suicidal object that, if it manages to survive its passage through perihelion, could become a visual phenomenon comparable to the legendary Ikeya-Seki comet of 1965. The discovery. The story of this discovery It starts on January 13 at the AMACS1 observatory, located in the privileged geography of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile with a team of French astronomers who detected an unusual movement. The discovery was made as part of the MAPS search programwhich has been active since 2020 and already has the discovery of 8 comets and more than 300 near-Earth asteroids to its credit. In this way, the different organisms initially confirmed this finding as a diffuse spot. It had already been seen. Weeks before this discovery, researchers saw that ‘precoveries’ already existed in the databases. This means that other teams had uploaded previous images where the comet appeared, but it had not been identified since the brightness was even dimmer. But this team has finally not missed it. Your family. What makes the C/2026 A1 special is not only its discovery, but its lineage. Data from the JPL Small-Body Database and expert Seiichi Yoshida confirm that it belongs to the Kreutz familyspecifically to the Pe subgroup. In order to understand all these words, we must put ourselves in context to know that Kreutz comets are fragments of a giant comet that broke up centuries ago. Now this new visitor appears to be directly related to the Great Comet of 1106, a monster that broke into pieces giving rise to some of the brightest comets in history. Your trip. When analyzing the journey you are havingThe truth is that the numbers can be dizzying. Specifically, it has been seen that it has a speed of 3.2 million kilometers per hour and, based on this information, it has been seen when it will pass close to the Sun. Specifically, it will be on April 4, 2026 when it will pass just 0.00547 Astronomical Units from the Sun. In “Christian”, that means that it will pass about 800,000 kilometers from our star, which for an object made of ice and rock, that is basically grazing the solar surface. The April scenario. This is where the scientific community is divided between caution and excitement, as it all depends on one very specific question: ‘Will he survive?’ Right now on the table there is two possible scenarios which can be summarized in the following points: The first is for the comet to disintegrate, which would be a boring ending. What basically happens here is that the immense gravity and solar heat vaporize the comet before it leaves perihelion, being the fate of many sungrazers small. The second scenario is that it survives, and it is not nonsense since current estimates place the comet’s nucleus at about 2.4 kilometers in diameter. This figure is good news because it is large enough to have a chance of survival. If he survives. If it withstands the gravitational and thermal pull, the C/2026 A1 could reach an absurd brightness. Some optimistic projections suggest that it could be brighter than the full Moon or even visible to the naked eye during the day, near the solar disk, something we haven’t seen since Comet Ikeya-Seki in the 1960s. Calendar to view. The calendar that is on the table right now begins at the end of March 2026when astronomy fans will be able to begin to see them with telescopes. From here we will have to wait until April 4 to see if it survives and increases its brightness greatly to later deploy a massive tail. visible to the naked eye in our skies. As always with comets, they are like cats: they have tails and do exactly what they want. But with a core of 2.4 km and a direct trajectory from the Kreutz clan, C/2026 A1 is, without a doubt, one of those events that we must keep in mind in order to make history. Images | NASA Hubble Space Telescope In Xataka | China has created the largest kite in the world with a very clear objective: to make its energy extremely cheaper.

Intel refuses to be left out of the AI ​​race. Your next move points directly to NVIDIA’s territory

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The AI ​​fever is not only redefining software, it is also turning the map of power in the chip industry upside down. On this new board, the GPU has become the essential engine for building models and scaling data centers, to the point that demand has skyrocketed and placed its main manufacturers in a dominant position. For Intel, the diagnosis is difficult but evident: if the next decade of computing is decided in this area, it is not enough to protect the kingdom of the CPU. Intel’s move. The Santa Clara company has chosen a very specific setting to begin organizing its speech. During an AI Summit organized by Cisco, the company’s CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, said that Intel will start to produce GPUs and has just hired the “chief GPU architect” who will lead that effort. The manager avoided giving details about the name, but he did leave a message consistent with the moment in the sector: the GPU matters and will continue to matter. The missing piece. According to Reutersthe talent hired by Intel is Eric Demers, from Qualcomm. On the other hand, the initiative would fall under the umbrella of Kevork Kechichian, executive vice president and head of Intel’s data center business, incorporated in September within the framework of a series of hires aimed at strengthening the company’s technical profile. AI, before gaming. The nuance is important, because talking about GPU can automatically activate the imagination of graphics cards for gaming, but reality goes in another direction. Intel already has a presence in graphics on the PC, with its Arc productsbut the announcement targets GPUs for AI and data centers. The initiative as a still early plan, with a strategy that will be developed based on customer demand, a coherent approach with an AI infrastructure market where the most intense battle is being fought today. Intel’s corporate moment. According to CNBCthe stock market value has risen in the last year in the heat of optimism about your business foundrybut the company is still mainly dedicated to manufacturing chips for its own catalog. It’s no secret that Intel has lost ground to companies driven by the AI ​​data center wave, and is now taking steps to respond. No relief until 2028. In the same forum, Tan slipped in another element that helps dimension the challenge of AI infrastructure. He spoke of the memory chip shortage which is disrupting the market due to the mismatch between supply and demand, driven by the construction of AI-oriented data centers. That environment is giving manufacturers room to continue raising prices, and Tan was blunt in describing AI as the “biggest challenge” to memory. He also released an estimate that leaves little room for optimism: he stated that he does not expect “no relief until 2028.” Images | Brecht Corbeel In Xataka | Goodbye to the duopoly of Intel and AMD in Windows: the arrival of NVIDIA processors is imminent and brings 8 laptops under its arm

Musk doesn’t have the best model or the best product, but he has something more important in the AI ​​race: SpaceX

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Elon Musk has done it again: he has changed one of his companies from the right pocket to the left. In 2016, when his company Solar City was in the doldrums, he took advantage of the fact that Tesla was going like a rocket to save the company. Now it is xAI that needs a push in the age of artificial intelligence and, after a few brief rumorsconfirmation came: SpaceX has purchased xAI. Or what is the same: an Elon Musk company has bought another Elon Musk company. It’s an ideal move, but also a morrocotudo mess. In short. The announcement came late into our night. As part of a vertical integration, aerospace will absorb the operations of xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company. It was an extremely rare agreement. When it occurs a business purchasewe know the numbers, but here we only have some ideas about the goal. Musk has been deliberately opaque and has justified the movement as a restructuring to guarantee “freedom of expression”, with a story based on energy, the development of technology and something we have been talking about for some time: the need for exploit outer space as a source of energy and giant heatsink for the increasingly numerous data centers. One million satellites. In fact, the operation came shortly after we learned that SpaceX had filed with the US FCC a project to launch one million Starlink satellites. Currently, there are about 9,000, plus another few thousand companies like Amazon or chinese satellites and Europeans…and astronomers are already complaining about how difficult it is to observe beyond low orbit. With a million satellites from SpaceX alone, the amount of potential space debris will increase stratospherically, but Starlink is not a simple satellite system to have Internet anywhere on the planet: They are potential data centers. Musk himself, when companies like amazon either Google They began to be very vocal about the need for moving data centers into spacepointed out that SpaceX already had them and that it was easy to convert its satellites into computing centers. In space there is Unlimited, uninterrupted energyheat dissipation is much simpler because air or water is not needed as on Earth and the information is transmitted to terrestrial centers using lasers, eliminating the need for Expensive fiber optic interconnections. SpaceX works. And, in Musk’s statement, it is stated that this demand for energy and computing power to feed AI is almost impossible to cover with terrestrial solutions, so the most logical thing is the space exodus from data centers. And, of course, one plus one equals two: SpaceX has the infrastructure and xAI needs it. But beyond the synergy, there is another reality. SpaceX has become a solid and profitable company. It is the only one that, right now, can routinely transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. It has become an essential piece for both NASA and the Department of Defense and, in addition, it has the aforementioned Starlink system that has crept in, perhaps too much, into the communications infrastructure of countries like Ukraine. xAI burns money. On the other hand, xAI shows the symptoms of a company focused on artificial intelligence. This valued at more than $230 billion and has raised several tens of billions in several rounds of financing, but is burning money at a rate of approximately one billion a month. This is typical, as we say, of companies in the growth phase, and the executives themselves have stated that they have plans and resources to keep spending aggressively, but everything has a limit. xAI requires enormous amounts of energy, resources, computing and is developing its own chips. All of that costs money, and putting data centers in space with existing infrastructure like Starlink’s can help ease the burden. In the economic and energy sense, it is a brilliant operation. When other technology companies want to start filling the space with their data centers, SpaceX will already be there. Morrocotudo mess. Therefore, and in the end, what Musk has done is unite a company in an aggressive investment phase with another that is solid and has established contacts with the US government. SpaceX is the highest xAI carrying vehicle and it looks like a win-win manual. Now, it’s also a tremendous mess. Because xAI is not just xAI: it is (Twitter), and now SpaceX has all that power under one umbrella. xAI manages military intelligence and we have already mentioned that Ukraine threw itself into the arms of Starlinkrelying on its infrastructure during the conflict with Russia. SpaceX is no longer just an aerospace company, it is that and much more: a brain, a social network with private data of tens of millions of people. And in a Europe that is fighting for their technological sovereignty and information protection, SpaceX can go from being a partner for a specific mission to something to look askance at. Image | The White House (edited) In Xataka | From $100 billion romance to silent divorce: NVIDIA and OpenAI’s relationship is disintegrating

Meta was the big loser of the AI ​​race in 2025. She was actually preparing her big move

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Meta wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t partying either. He was working hard on a new AI model for which there are huge expectations. Now we know a little more about that project, but one thing doesn’t change: it better not fail. what has happened. Andrew Bossworth, CTO of Meta, has confirmed during the World Economic Forum in Davos that the Superintelligence Labs division already has a first internal version of its new AI models. This is an important and long-awaited milestone that they have been working on for six months. “Very good”, but not ready yet. Bossworth did not want to give too many details, but he did indicate that preliminary tests show that the models perform very well. These models will still take time to come to market: Meta is currently in a critical post-training phase for these models to be truly useful for both internal developers and end users. Two great models. Although the names of those models were not specified, rumors and leaks point to two major developments. On the one hand, Avocado, focused on text and which could be launched in the first quarter of 2026. On the other, Mango, focused on image and video generation. A 2025 of transition. The manager described the year 2025 as “tremendously chaotic”, and it was certainly a very complicated year for Meta. He Llama 4 failure It made the company completely change its philosophy and strategy. Zuckerberg did not stop hire talent with a exorbitant costespecially when it acquired Scale AI and signed its CEO, Alexandr Wangnow head of Superintelligence Labs. That investment has also been allocated to acquire companies like Manusthat could become another key component of Meta’s strategy going forward. Glasses as an AI device. If they behave as expected, these models will probably also end up being used in smart glasses from Meta, which has been collaborating with Ray-Ban for years and which you have just seen its second version accompanied, of course, by the striking and even more versatile Meta Ray-Ban Display. Interaction with AI models is one of the most striking features, and these models could take it to new limits. The mystery of Open Source. In July 2024 Mark Zuckerberg indicated that “Open Source AI is the way to go.” Llama was at that time the clear reference, but the disappointing launch of Llama 4 and above all the push for open models from various Chinese companies has made this panorama change significantly. It is not clear that Meta will launch its new models with open versions, and if it did not do so, Chinese hegemony would be even more notable. Will it be worth the investment? Meta is one of the companies that has spent (or bet) the most money on the future of AI. Mark Zuckerberg said that I was willing to lose “hundreds of billions of dollars in AI” because not investing them would be even more dangerous for Meta. He has been consistent with that statement, but It remains to be seen if it ends up working.. The company certainly has the resources to be a protagonist in this market, but today its solutions—with Meta AI at the head—have a very reduced role compared to that of their competitors. Image | Goal In Xataka | China’s best kept weapon in AI is not Qwen: it is the more than 100,000 variables created by other companies

There is someone who is clear that China has a very difficult time overtaking the US in the AI ​​race: the Chinese themselves.

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China or the US, who will win? the AI ​​race? The US seemed unattainable, but after the launch of DeepSeek a year ago, China became almost at par. Since then, the possibility of China winning the race became very real. Great figures of American AI Several Chinese AI companies have already warned about this situation they are doing very well on the stock market. Despite everything, there are those in China who do not see it at all clearly. Low chances. They count in Bloomberg that Chinese companies have less than 20% probability of being able to advance the OpenAI or Anthropic models in the next 3 or 5 years. Justin Lin, technology manager of the Qwen modelsduring Justin Lin, technology manager of the Qwen models from Alibaba. To the limit. The event was also attended by Tang Jie, founder of Ziphu AI, one of China’s ‘AI tigers’ that last week it had a spectacular IPOincreasing the value of its shares by 36%. Its founder pointed out a somewhat uncomfortable fact for the Chinese AI ecosystem: while companies like OpenAI dedicate “a large part of their computational capacity to next-generation research, we are at the limit of our possibilities. Just meeting delivery demand consumes most of our resources.” In other words: the restrictions on the latest technology are working. The gap is widening. As we said, the launch of DeepSeek R1 a year ago unleashed a wave of optimism among Chinese companies. Since then, a few have launched new LLMs such as Alibaba with Qwen, Ziphu AI or Minimax. However, Tang notes that “some may feel excited, thinking that Chinese models have overtaken American ones, but the real answer is that the gap may be widening.” Restrictions. Speakers blamed the situation on a lack of resources caused by US blockades, especially AI chips and lithography machines. Their chips are not that powerful, so, as Tang says, all their computing power goes into serving their customers. This greatly limits them when it comes to continuing to scale their models. Shunyu Yao, former OpenAI and current chief scientist at Tencentis committed to focusing on solving bottlenecks such as long-term memory and promoting self-learning of future models. Independence. From the government is promoting technological self-sufficiencyprioritizing the use of national chips over American alternatives. The reality is that without access to the most advanced lithography machines, China is lagging far behind. One fact: Huawei and SMIC are ‘tuning’ old ASML machines and making authentic viguerías that have allowed them to obtain chips of 7 and up to 5nm. It’s a technical feat, but its chips are still several years behind the competition. The aces of China. It is clear that China is lagging behind in chips, but there are other areas in which it has an advantage that can be decisive, one of them being electricity. While The Chinese government subsidizes and bets heavily on renewablesin the US electricity has become a bottleneck for its increasingly numerous data centers. Another critical point is that The US has cut funding for academic researchwhile China has done so national priority. And that’s not to mention that they might lose the AI ​​race, but China is winning almost everything else: batteries, robotics, electric cars and especially renewables. Image | Gemini In Xataka | The US believed it had dealt a mortal blow to China when it deprived it of NVIDIA. He only accelerated one plan: ‘Delete America’

China is winning the humanoid robot race. The problem is that this race doesn’t really exist.

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Fritz Lang wanted to imagine the future and painted it for us with humanoid robots integrated into society. That maschinenmensch of ‘Metrópolis’ (1927) was a preview of what they now pursue with more ambition than anyone Chinese manufacturers, who They have not stopped developing more and more of these robots. They are winning the race by far, but the problem is that the race is non-existent. (Almost) nobody buys humanoid robots. These Chinese manufacturers were by far the most responsible for the sales of humanoid robots, which in 2025 amounted to the figure of… 13,000 units. The data reflects a forceful reality: in the world of domestic humanoid robots there is a lot (a lot) of noise, but few (very few) nuts. More than in 2024 = very little. Humanoid robots from Chinese manufacturers sold much more than those from American companies like Tesla or Figure AI according to data from the consulting firm Omdia. The company that has sold the most according to that report is the Chinese startup Shanghai AgiBot Innovation Technology Co., which distributed a total of 5,168 robots in 2025. It was followed by Unitree Robotics and UBTech Robotics Corp. Although total sales were five times those of 2024, the final figure reflects that the market is in its infancy. Huge expectations. Despite this, Citigroup esteem that in 2050 there will be 648 million humanoid robots. The great hope is that the promising evolution of AI models will serve to overcome current limitations and have multiple practical applications, once integrated into robots. There are already promising developments in this regard, and robots and AIs separately have already demonstrated their capacity in limited environments. like the manufacturing, logistics or customer service. China and “affordable” robotics. Although there are notable companies in this field in the US, their humanoid robots are much more expensive. Elon Musk indicated by the end of 2025 that “once production reaches one million units annually, Optimus will likely be priced between $20,000 and $25,000.” Meanwhile, Unitree already offers “affordable” robots (but not humanoid) for $6,000, and AgiBot asks for $14,000 for his. This company was in fact named by Jensen Huang during his talk at the NVIDIA event at CES 2026. The Chinese government helps. As in other industrial areas, there is strong support from the Chinese government in this area, and according to Bloomberg Favorable policies are combined with aid for the construction of training centers. The number of companies and startups developing this type of solutions already exceeds 150, and that even points to a potential “robotic bubble.” The challenge of robotic hands. One of the great challenges of this segment is to ensure that the dexterity of machines is comparable to that of humans. For now this is not the case especially with the example of robotic hands, which mostly They are very unskilledwhich limits its application to real home environments. The battery life of these robots is another obstacle that can hinder their application in our daily lives. Future implications. If these challenges are overcome, we will once again find ourselves with a disturbing panorama in which geopolitical tensions could make access to these robots difficult. There is also the problem of employment: if robots achieve the ability to perform manual tasks, the threat to virtually any human worker will be notable. How will governments react to this situation? Image | Agibot In Xataka | China prepares its next technological assault. Huawei and UBTech have just teamed up to bring humanoid robots to homes

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