South

the third country in South America with the shortest day

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Reduction of working hours to 40 hours per week It is already a reality in Mexicoafter his approval and publication in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF). Now, the country begins a period of progressive adaptation that will end in 2030 with a 40 hour work day weekly. This milestone places Mexico in an advantageous position with respect to the rest of the continent, being the third country in South America with the shortest working day. This change comes in a context in which the majority of Latin American countries still maintain a 48-hour work week, while only Ecuador and Chile have until now had a 40-hour regulation like the one Mexico now faces. Mexico joins the 40-hour “club”. With the reform, Mexico joins Ecuador, a regional pioneer in reducing the working day since 1997, and Chile, which is already in the process of transitioning from 45 to 40 hours with closure planned for 2028. The International Labor Organization (ILO) points out in its report ‘Reduction of working hours: global evolution and challenges for Latin America‘ that 48-hour work weeks remain the norm in Latin America, although some countries have moved towards shorter limits. The report highlights that reducing working hours can improve health, well-being and productivity, but clarifies that the impact depends on the economic context, the design of the reform and of complementary policies that each country adopts. Other countries with days of less than 48 hours. Beyond the aforementioned examples of Ecuador and Chile, other Latin American countries have already reduced their working hours to below 48 hours, although without reaching the 40 hours of the Mexican project. The Dominican Republic, Brazil, Venezuela, El Salvador and Honduras maintain a 44-hour day, while Colombia established it at 42 hours per week, after a gradual reduction that began in 2023 and concluded this year. In contrast, most of the economies in the region, including Mexico until now, continue with the 48-hour limit, which reflects a certain degree of immobility in the face of international recommendations and the experiences of reducing working hours that have already been carried out. in other countries. How the reduction will be applied in Mexico. Taking the example of other countries that have already followed the path of reducing working hours, in Mexico, the change will be carried out gradually, with the goal of going from 48 to 40 hours weekly without altering the scheme of a single day of rest, something it shares with the recent reforms in Chile and Colombia. The adaptation will be carried out progressively at a rate of two hours per year, so that in January 2027 the working day will become 46 hours per week; In January 2028 it will go to 44 hours and by January 2029 it will be reduced to 42 hours. In January 2030, the cycle ends and the working day will be established at a 40-hour work week. All this without applying a salary reduction. The labor challenges of Latin America. The ILO report highlights that the reduction of working hours in Latin America faces specific challenges, such as high levels of informality in contracting, limited coverage of collective bargaining and a tendency to underground economywhich conditions the scope of the reforms. Furthermore, sectors such as domestic work, moonlighting and gender gaps They require specific regulatory frameworks for their respective labor markets and not a simple copy of the models that have worked in high-income countries. In Xataka | If the question is how to do your job without extending the working day, the answer is simple: avoid “time traps”

South Korea has had the most catastrophic birth rate in the world for years. And now it has finally managed to grow

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For a few years now, talking about demographics in South Korea has made it necessary to first take out a clinex package. Despite all his attempts (and there have been not a few) the country seemed condemned to suffer an uncontrollable ‘bleed’ of birth rates and see the seams of its economy tighten. It may sound exaggerated, but it is good to remember that he said goodbye to 2024 by declaring “super aged” and that there are academics who warn that the nation is emptying (literally). With that backdrop, Seoul has started 2026 with a positive fact: wins babies. And it also does so for the second consecutive year. The big question that arises now is… Are we facing a change in trend or just a mirage? The figure: 254,457. It is provisional data (the definitio will not arrive until the summer), but even so it has arrived like manna in a country accustomed to every piece of news about demographics involving a national drama. Last year South Korea registered 254,457 birthsa good balance no matter where you look at it. To begin with because it means 6.8% more that in 2024 and leaves the largest percentage increase since 2007; but those are only two of the possible readings. More babies per woman. Another interesting reading is the one that tells us about the “fertility rate”, the average number of babies that (at a statistical level) a woman is expected to have throughout her reproductive life. A few years ago that indicator plummeted to 0.72very far from the “replacement rate” (2.1 children per woman) that allows societies to remain stable. The data is still below that red line, but at least it has grown: in 2025 it passed from 0.75 to 0.8. Not only that. Reuters remember that the South Korean Government had optimistic estimates that suggested that this rate would grow to 0.75 in 2025 and 0.8 in 2026, which appears to be recovering positions faster than expected. In Seoul the trend is even more pronounced. There the indicator rose 8.9%, going from 0.53 to 0.63. The data is still very poor and they are far away to solve the problem that Korea has, but they suggest a change of cycle. Breaking the bad streak. That the birth rate is increasing in South Korea is news, but it is even more so if (as is the case) that growth is maintained for two years. In 2024 the country has already registered a positive fact (breaking up with eight exercises of consecutive falls) that now invites us to think about whether it has really found the right way to encourage its young people to have more offspring. Of course, the country has invested time, efforts and especially economic resources in that objective, in which it is played from the social sustainability and the march of his industry to issues as relevant as national defense. More weddings, more babies. 2025 has not only been a good year in maternity hospitals. It has also been for the wedding planners. Marriages increased by 8.1% in 2025, reinforcing the 14.8% rebound already recorded in 2024. This is good news because, in a conservative society like South Korea (the percentage of births outside of marriage It’s surprisingly low.), weddings are often considered an early indicator of a rebound in birth rates. Trend or mirage? That’s the million dollar question. That South Korea has been trying to activate its birth rate for years is undeniable, as is the fact that it has invested large resources in this effort and that they have been involved in the effort since the public institutions to the business world. However, there are other factors at play that suggest that the recent growth in the South Korean birth rate could be more circumstantial than structural. That is to say, in reality we would be facing a kind of demographic ‘mirage’. The hangover of the pandemic. When explaining the phenomenon, there are those who point to the influence of the pandemic. Not so much in the birth rate itself as in marriages. It is true that more South Koreans are getting tired and that this indicator will probably influence the birth rate in the coming years, but it is also true that many couples had to postpone their plans during the pandemic. “The number of marriages has increased for 21 consecutive months, from April 2024 to December last year, as couples who had delayed their marriages due to COVID-19 have tied the knot,” recognize Park Hyun-jung, director of the government office that analyzes population trends. He himself admits that today it is very difficult to establish a clear “correlation” between government policies and improved birth rates. A demographic with ‘echo’. There are those who point out, however, another factor that would be directly influencing South Korean demographics: history. The explanation I broke it down Rapahel Rashid recently in Guardian and provides an alternative theory. More babies have been born in the South Korea of ​​2024 or 2025 simply because the same thing already happened in the Korea of ​​30 years ago. To be more precise, more or less during the first half of the 1990s (1991-1995) there was a peak of around 3.6 million of babies who today enter their thirties and begin to become parents themselves. Reviewing history. We explain ourselves. Paradoxical as it may be, in the 1950s and 1960s Korea had a very different problem than today: a very high fertility rate which led authorities to launch family planning programs. The objective: guarantee the country’s recovery after the war. The message that was launched was very simple: have fewer children (two, one) and guarantee them a better life. It worked so well that by the early 1980s the fertility rate had fallen below the replacement margin and Seoul decided change course. By doing so, it favored the rebound that would now be heating up the birth rate. According to that theory, what we see today is actually a … Read more

In South America there is a bird that camouflages itself as a piece of wood. And a young Uruguayan has insisted on finding him

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In the depths of the South American forests lives a bird that has inspired legends, myths and night terrors and is called the ‘ghost bird’, although his real name is urutaú. At first glance it is just a piece of wood that acts as an extension of the tree on which it perches like a chameleonbut behind this mimicry lies a biology that makes many scientists very curious to see it live even if it is really complicated. An ornithologist. The urutaú is not a bird that one finds by chance, but one must know how to look. Mauricio Silvera, a young Uruguayan amateur ornithologist who has been observing birds since he was five years old, knows this premise well, and according to a recent report from the BBCMauricio has turned observing this elusive species into a true passion. In popular culture, the melancholic song of the urutaú has fueled all kinds of folklore and rural legends in South America. However, for observers like Silvera, the true “magical power” of this species is not in the myths, but in its plumage and its peculiar way of ‘hiding’. A chameleon. It is no wonder, since we are not talking about it going slightly unnoticed, but rather its ability to imitate the bark of trees It is so perfect that sighting records on scientific platforms often require exhaustive photographic confirmation. And it is no wonder, because without this evidence it is difficult to convince the experts that they are not looking at a simple branch and a small irregularity that corresponds to this bird. How he does it. Disappearing in broad daylight is not something easy to achieve, but here science has different answers that go far beyond the simple color of their feathers. The key is in visual crypsis, where research shows that these birds not only have a plumage pattern that blends with the environment, but also make active decisions about where to perch in trees. And it is that a 2017 study on the choice of backgrounds showed that these birds carefully select the place where they rest to maximize the coincidence of patterns with their environment, which increases the survival rate against predators. And if they don’t see it, they can go completely missing. Modify your smell. Beyond the visual, researchers were able to see in a fascinating 2022 study that these birds have the ability to change your scent profiles in different seasons to prevent predators from being able to smell them. Echolocation. Unlike most birds, owls have developed this system, emitting acoustic signals to navigate in the darkness of Venezuelan and South American caves, similar to bats. Furthermore, their role in the ecosystem is vital, since research into the “secret life” of these birds reveals that they are formidable seed dispersers. They spend entire days in the trees regurgitating the seeds of the fruits they consume, acting as true foresters who maintain the ecological connectivity of Neotropical forests. A story of the search. As we see, it is not easy to find this bird and that is why Mauricio Silvera relates that finding it is “an adrenaline rush like in the chest of not knowing what to do: whether to scream, take the photo and tell someone.” Even this biology student makes a very comical simile when he sees that it is “almost like looking for Pokémon and seeing how many little birds you find and if you find the rarest one.” Your adventure always begins with a location or a photo that indicates that the bird may be present in a specific place. But due to its great ability to hide, it means that your trips do not always end with a photograph of this bird, much to your misfortune. Images | Wikipedia In Xataka | “Emergency room mentality”: the Dutch philosopher convinced that saving snails is saving ourselves

The US chip industry is being forged in Silicon Valley. Curiously, the hammer is held by South Korea

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The United States has embarked on a journey of technological sovereignty. It has some of the largest and most cutting-edge technology companiesbut they depend on foreign companies. That’s why, Appield Materials has put 5 billion dollars on the table seeking US technological hegemony. And, in this ambitious project, it is not an American who has slipped in as founding partner of the EPIC Center. It’s Samsung. EPIC. It’s a “modest” name for a $5 billion facility that will be in the heart of Silicon Valley. The name comes from Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization and is the spearhead of American investment in research and development of advanced semiconductor equipment. Its objective is to accelerate the development of equipment and processes to create advanced memory chips, shortening traditional cycles when developing cutting-edge chips. The installation is imposingwith more than 16,700 m² of clean room and is expected to come into operation this spring. Samsung. And, in that ambitious objective, is the South Korean company. The alliance is to address one of the semiconductor industry’s most important challenges: the long time required to bring new chip technologies to market. from research to production. The EPIC Center is not a competition for the European ASMLbut something complementary to shorten those processes that can take between 10 and 15 years. And Samsung will be there as one of the founding partners. Samsung Electronics CEO Young Hyun Jun commented that the collaboration will allow “advance in cutting-edge semiconductor equipment technologies.” The EPIC Center Expansion. Samsung is one of the most important foundries in the world and, in the era of artificial intelligence, it is consolidating itself as a pillar by being the first that will supply NVIDIA of the new HBM4 memories. Its presence at the EPIC Center seems like a key strategic move, but it is not the only advance that the company has recently made on American soil. In that pursuit of creating high-bandwidth memory and advanced systems, Samsung has a facility in TaylorTexas, to advance the production of 2 nanometer chips. Foreign industrial fabric. One of Donald Trump’s goals was to recover the American industrial fabric with American companies and American labor. That’s why he ‘rescued’ Intel a few months ago with the aim that the company was his great foundry. And it is having its fruits: Intel has risen from the ashes with new advanced processors and is positioning itself to supply both NVIDIA and Apple. However, what is also arriving is foreign muscle like Samsung and something more serious: TSMC. The Taiwanese giant is the company on which the entire semiconductor and device industry pivots, and it is increasingly becoming making more land in the United States to manufacture in the country and continue with a diversification project which includes Europe. That is to say, the United States is reindustrializing and is taking steps to have an authoritative voice in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, but much of that muscle belongs to the same old foreign companies… that will simply now also produce in the United States. HBM4. Meanwhile, Samsung continues to do its thing. Not only are they at full production HBM4 memoriesbut also investigating the possible replacement for that technology: DRAM memories in which Intel and SoftBank are also taking steps. And in addition to their own Exynos for their mobiles, there are sources who claim that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is developing its own chip for artificial intelligence and is in talks with Samsung for it to be manufactured. Images | Applied Materials (edited) In Xataka | China’s future in the chip industry is in the hands of a single, almost unknown company: SiCarrier

In the midst of the RAM crisis, Intel counterattacks with ZAM. It is the chip to break South Korean hegemony

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Few would have guessed not so many years ago the Intel transformation. The company that will dominate consumer processors and servers for generations has been through a real ordeal through the desert under the rule of AMD. However, they have returned for their rights and not only –rescue through– have positioned themselves to be the great American foundry, but are looking to take a bite out of the gigantic South Korean RAM memory industry thanks to its new memory: ZAM memory. And its weapon is three-dimensionality. Z for ‘zolution’. Do you remember when, in math class, you drew the first cube? The X axis is east-west. The Y axis is north-south. What the square needed to become a cube is the Z axis, the one up and down. That’s what engineers SAIMEMORYthe company resulting from the collaboration between the Japanese SoftBank and Intel, have applied traditional DRAM memory with a single objective: to assault the enormous market for high-bandwidth memory, or HBMwhich dominates data centers. Puff pastry. A few months ago we told you that the two companies They had embarked on a joint path to stand up to the dominance of Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron in the creation of high-performance memory. lHBM memory is preferred for data centers because it has a beastly bandwidth that allows a greater number of simultaneous operations. It’s like a huge highway. However, it has limitations: it is expensive to produce, requires a lot of energy, and gets hot enough to require expensive dissipation systems. Conventional DRAM memory was not an alternative, but Intel and SoftBank began to ‘play around’ with stacked DRAM memory. It is like a puff of RAM memory (simplifying things a lot), whose main limitation came when connecting each of those thin layers of memory so that the final product had the same capabilities as that highway that is HBM memory. ZAM. After a few months of research, a few days ago at the Intel Connection in Japan, SAIMEMORY and Intel presented the ZAM prototype. According to the companiesa ZAM module can have a capacity of up to 512 GB, it is easy to produce because it consists of designing vertically stacked chips and most importantly: it can reduce energy consumption by 40% to 50% compared to conventional HBMs. If HBMs are expensive and take time to produce, ZAMs are cheaper, can be the solution to alleviate restrictions in the supply chain and, in addition, would lower the energy consumption of data centers (which is one of the problems they have), and are also easier to cool. At the moment, the company’s research points to a theoretical limit of 20 layers, but current designs move around 16 layers, so performance may be better if this current limitation can be overcome. Real alternative. Intel’s ambition is total, since they point out that their DRAM module joining technology allows them to offer two to three times the capacity of HBM modules while being up to 60% cheaper to produce. It all seems like a plus and doesn’t seem like bad technology when established giants in HBM memory creation like Samsung are also researching how to overcome the limitations of connections in stacked DRAM memory. The prototype | Photo by PCWatch Ambition. And, almost as important as the presentation of the ZAM prototype, is the alliance itself. Intel has been away from the memory market for many years. He tried it in the 80s and, again, years later with his Optane technology -that died miserably without making the slightest gap in the market. On the other hand, SoftBank represents a Japan that had the lead in this sector in the 1980s, but was overshadowed by emerging South Korean companies. In fact, Intel’s memories were eaten by the Japanese… and the Japanese by the South Koreans. SAIMEMORY has behind it not only those sharks, but other Japanese companies such as Fujitsu, Shinko Electric Industries, PowerChip Semiconductor Manufacturing or the University of Tokyo. And if ZAM memory works on a commercial level, it will not only be good news to alleviate the memory production chains (perhaps this will also alleviate the domestic market totally destroyed for the data center needs), but will mark the birth of a new and ambitious player who seeks to break the hegemony of the trident he currently leads. We will see it, of course, in a few years, since SAIMEMORY plans complete prototypes in fiscal year 2027 and begin commercialization in 2029. Image | Samsung, Maxence Pira In Xataka | The CEO of Nothing is clear that we do not need a high-end mobile phone every year. A mix of RAM crisis and common sense

the most powerful warship in the history of South America

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South America has long lived under a fragile balance between military modernization, internal tensions and the constant influence of external powers. That balance shakes again todaywith a turbulent regional scenario marked by the renewed pulse of the United States around Venezuela and a continent that observes how security, autonomy and defense once again occupy a central place on the strategic agenda. This context explains an unprecedented naval project. The assault of Colombia. Yes, Colombia has started one of the most ambitious industrial and military transformations in its recent history as it began construction of its first frigate manufactured in national territory. The project of the Strategic Surface Platform It marks the country’s entry into the small group of Latin American nations capable of designing and building highly complex combat ships. It is not only a military decision, but a strategic bet for autonomy, knowledge and control of the complete cycle of its naval capabilities. Cotecmar and shipyard maturity. Project responsibility falls on Cotecmarwhich assumes for the first time the complete construction of a frigate for the Colombian Navy. The media they have spoken these days of the beginning of sheet cutting as a symbol of the culmination of years of investment in engineering, production processes and industrial infrastructure. In this way, the nation leaves behind the role of simple buyer or assembler. and goes to control design, integration and maintenance of a strategic platform. Designed to last. They counted in Defense that the PES is built under an advanced modular architecture based on the design SIGMA 10514 from the Dutch Damen shipyard. With more than 107 meters in length and nearly 3,000 tons of displacement, it will be the largest warship never built in the country. Plus: block construction will allow optimization of time, quality and future modernizations without compromising the basic structure of the ship. Fleet renewal. These frigates will give rise to the class Grand Admiral Padillacalled to become the new nucleus of Colombian surface escorts. The plan contemplates up to five unitswhich will allow a progressive and sustained renewal of the fleet over the next decade. Bottom line: replace veteran ships and ensure modern capabilities in anti-aircraft, anti-submarine, surface and electronic warfare. Operational versatility. There is much more, since ESP has been conceived as a multipurpose ship capable of operating both in naval combat scenarios and in surveillance missions, protection of sea routes and international cooperation. Furthermore, its flexible and digitalized design places it among the most modern frigates in Latin America, and the most powerful in terms of war technology. On paper, this versatility will expand Colombia’s strategic room for maneuver in the Caribbean and the Pacific without the need for specialized fleets for each mission. Technology and strategic autonomy. Beyond its military power, the program reinforces industrial autonomy by allowing maintenance, updating and modernization to be carried out in the country itself. The frigate will also be prepared to operate under NATO compatible standardsfacilitating exercises and combined operations with allies. In other words, Colombia thus gains operational independence without having to give up international interoperability. Economic impact. It is the last of the legs in the global analysis of the movement. The PES program will have, a priori, a tractor effect on the economy and specialized employment, with thousands of direct and indirect positions until the delivery of the first unit scheduled for 2030. However, its true scope is structural: consolidating an industrial base capable of sustaining future naval projects and positioning Colombia as a relevant actor in the regional defense industry. If you want and from that perspective, the frigate is not simply a ship, it is a declaration of long-term intentions. Image | Defense In Xataka | Brazil has been following a path reserved for few powers for years: that of developing its own nuclear submarine In Xataka | Neither drones nor fighters nor elite soldiers: the US entered Venezuela disguising a 20th-century tactic as technology. XIX

This is South Korea’s bet to enter the Western market

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There are military contracts that are won based on specifications. And there are others that play in the field of story. South Korea is betting on the latter in its offensive to place attack submarines in Canada: it not only talks about platforms, capabilities or industry, but about how to live within them. In the center of the speech appears a phrase that seeks to stay in the head of the reader and, above all, of the political decision-maker: building submarines as “five-star hotels.” Kang Hoon-sik, chief of staff of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, said this: in a message posted on Facebookintroducing Seoul’s diplomatic and industrial campaign. Industrial size offer. The proposal that South Korea is moving in Canada points to a program of around 12 diesel attack submarines whose investment is estimated at 10 billion euros. It is not only a military issue, it is also a candidacy with a strong industrial component, with a front that brings together the Government and large private actors. Names such as Hanwha, HD Hyundai and Hyundai Motor Group appear in that package, which are vying for a contract and, at the same time, a letter of introduction to Western buyers. Strategic agreement. South Korea’s interest in this contract is not explained only by the size of the project. In The Korea PostKang frames the objective as a big entry into the Western market and as a step to move towards the NATO environment, always in its formulation. That same ambition is presented as an attempt to consolidate defense partnerships with Western countries. It should be noted that South Korean and Canadian companies have already signed six cooperation agreements ranging from steel to artificial intelligence, rare earths, satellites and sensors. The recipient of that speech is not coincidental.. Canada has been suffering the wear and tear of an aging submarine fleet for years, and its replacement program is based on a specific fact: replacing some vessels that, as IE points out, were acquired in the 1990s. Therefore, what is at stake is not a simple replacement of material, but a decision that will condition the Royal Canadian Navy for decades, with enormous industrial, operational and budgetary implications. In this context, any candidate who wants to compete cannot limit himself to offering a platform, he also has to present a framework of reliability and long-term continuity. Germany also wants that contract. South Korea does not compete alone. In the race for the Canadian program the German Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) appearswhich is one of the world’s leading providers of integrated solutions in maritime defense technology. The bidding, therefore, is not reduced to choosing a submarine model, but to deciding which industrial partner best fits a long-term program. In this context, each candidate tries to gain ground not only with benefits, but also with the type of relationship it promises to build with the purchasing country and the ecosystem it trails behind. The battle for the Canadian program leaves a clear idea. The Western defense market is in full competition, and South Korea wants to play on the front line. Your proposal has been presented as more than just a product. On the other side appears a European rival with experience and a name of its own. For now, the only certainty is that there is an intense political and industrial effort to position itself. What is missing, precisely, is what decides these processes: the fine print, the guarantees and Ottawa’s final decision. Images | Royal Canadian Navy | Kang Hoon-sik In Xataka | Germany was a sleeping military giant: now it has been awakened and it is already surpassing the US in bullets produced per year

South Korea has designed a rover with wheels that change size to explore them

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The dream of colonizing the Moon has been around since we set foot in it more than five decades ago. Settling on our satellite poses innumerable challenges; from how to get oxygen, what the food should be likeeven of course what is the best place to do it. We already have an answer to the latter: in caves. The problem is that you have to explore them first. A new rover. They count in Futurism that a team of South Korean scientists and researchers have designed a rover specially designed for the exploration of these lunar caves. The work has been published in Science Roboticswhich includes a video showing how the rover is capable of moving through difficult terrain, withstanding extreme temperatures and even being launched from a drone without suffering damage. The key is in the wheels. They are made up of metal sheets assembled to form a type of helix. The peculiar thing is that the wheels are soft and are capable of changing their diameter from 23 to 50 centimeters. This makes it much easier for you to overcome obstacles, enter smaller gaps when necessary, and also cushion falls. It is a very simple design, without hinges or bearings or complex parts; They simply fold or unfold by torsion, as if they were a spring. Moon cavesyes. As we said, there are many, but the main one is that the conditions are extreme. During the day, the temperature can reach 127ºC and at night it drops to -173ºC, which is not feasible. There is also the problem of long-term radiation. This is on the surface, but there is good news and that is that the Moon has a series of pits or caves where the temperature is much more stable, around 17ºC. A lunar tunnel. There is still more. By mid-2024 NASA discovered a huge cave in the Mare Tranquillitiatis crater, near the area where the Apollo 11 mission landed in 1969. It is estimated that the cave (actually a lava tube) measures about 45 meters wide and reaches up to 80 meters long, and the ground is also quite flat, so placing a settlement inside it could be viable. At the moment this cave has not been explored, although Solutions have already been proposed to do so. Artemis Program. Returning to the Moon is one of the most important space projects currently underway. Artemis It not only proposes setting foot on our satellite again, but also establishing our presence on it. The first unmanned mission was launched in 2022 and the plan is that Artemis II takeoff in February 2026. Artemis III will be the first manned mission, although this could still be missing several years. Image | Kaist In Xataka | We are sending cannabis samples to space. They are going to be key to knowing if we can colonize the Moon or Mars

South Korea just turned on AX K1. “An AI for everyone” that puts the country in the race between China and the US

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The race for artificial intelligence It is the new diamond of the economy of many countries. one to whom they are throwing money as if the world were going to end and that it is having serious implications on issues that affect citizens such as energyhe employment and with one last controversy: the exorbitant price of RAM. The great powers they want to be sovereign in this field, and South Korea has just light his first hyperscale artificial intelligence model. His name could be some son of Elon Musk: AX K1. In short. Developed by the giant SK Telecom, AX K1 is a model that has 519 billion total parameters, although during inference, which is the practical use case, it “only” activates about 33 billion. It’s still accurate (as accurate as an AI can be) but consumes far fewer resources. That 519B – A33B mode is based on the ‘architecture’mixture of experts‘ that selects in real time and dynamically the optimal parameter subsets for each task. These parameters are like the neural connections that allow the model to “learn” during training, and the fact that South Korea already has a hyperscale model is a huge leap in the country’s position within the global picture of AI. Master Model. The design of this model allows stable performance in tasks such as advanced reasoning, mathematics and multilingual comprehension, but there is also an interesting concept: it works as a “Master Model”. These models are the ones that transfer knowledge to smaller models. While the master knows everything, the lighter model is specialized in a specific task. And, although the large model consumes an enormous amount of resources, the “student” that inherits complex capabilities without having to manage so many parameters can run on devices and environments with more limited resources. For example, the AX K1 with those 512B can “transfer its knowledge” to those below the 70B scale, much more specialized and cheaper. “As Korea’s leading AI company, we will continue to push forward our efforts to deliver AI for everyone” – Tae Yoon Kim “AI for everyone”. In less words: the master model allows the expansion of AI to be accelerated because the hyperscale is used for research, but the lower scale is used for more everyday products. And, precisely, that is what SK Telecom seeks: for its IOA to be the basis on which the country operates. In collaboration with different universities, associations and thanks to the memory manufacturer SK Hynix –one of the giants of the sector and part of SK Telecom-, the company hopes it will be the foundation of an “AI for all.” This implies that they will deploy it in their services and, as it is open source, its API can be the basis of other models in university, business and even national ecosystems. In fact, there is already talk of very specific solutions, such as access to AI through text messages and even phone calls, but also multilingual search services and even a boost for AI in video games. And, of course, for humanoid robotics either for education. The great advantage that the consortium that owns AX K1 has is that it is one of the largest groups in the world, with a presence in the semiconductor, telephone, transportation, construction, energy and video game industries. Therefore, you can easily scale this technology. Third in contention. SK Telecom has confirmed that it plans to continue expanding its model with agent-based execution and those 519Bs allow Korea to become “one of the top three artificial intelligence nations in the world,” in the words of Tae Yoon Kimone of those responsible for the model. The group’s intention is to help “consolidate South Korea as one of the world’s top three artificial intelligence nations,” a race that is taking place resources difficult to contextualize in both the United States and China and which is crushing markets like RAM for consumers. Image | SK Telecom In Xataka | The exorbitant deployment of data centers for AI has a new problem: salt caverns

The European Space Agency has always launched rockets from South America. Norway is very close to changing that

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The Arctic is no longer just that vast ice desert at the end of the world, but it has become a strategic point for many countries that they do not want to waste. And Europe does not want to let him escape, now opting to migrate the launch of part of your rockets from South America to this new location, something that has a great geopolitical strategy behind it. An agreement. The European Space Agency (ESA) and Norway recently signed an agreement to promote the creation of a new research center in the north of our planet: the ESA Arctic Space Center in Tromso. But it is not just another research center, but rather it is Europe’s response to ensure its autonomy in observation, navigation and communications in a region where it is already Russia and China is deploying its own infrastructure. The location. Choosing Tromsø as the city where to locate this new launch zone is not something chosen at random. If we go to a map, we can locate it far above the Arctic Circle, already being a city that has become a vibrant ecosystem of satellite data. Looking back, Tromsø already hosts mission control Arctic Weather Satellite, a satellite launched in 2024 that tried to demonstrate how a polar constellation can save lives through very accurate weather forecasts. But it also has a large number of institutions that make it a true Silicon Valley of the cold, housing the Secretariat of the Arctic Council and the Norwegian Polar Institute. A greater amount of data. The agreement signed between ESA and the Norwegian agency NOSA establishes a working group that will define the details before the end of 2026. This center is defined as an opportunity to monitor the melting of the Arctic, which warming four times faster than the global averagewhich gives us data on what will happen in the rest of the planet. It also entails an important national security reason, since today maritime traffic in the Northeast Passage does not stop increasing, and this means having signs of Galileo It allows you to have better control of everything that happens here. That is why, more than science, we are facing a critical center for civil security, search and rescue. The change of location. Until now, our gateway to space was French Guiana for a reason of basic physics: its proximity to the equator allows us to take advantage of the “impulse” of the Earth’s rotation to launch heavy satellites. However, the center of Tromsø and the new Nordic ports respond to a different need: polar orbit. That is why while from South America it is ideal to launch television satellites that remain “fixed” on the equator, the Arctic is the perfect balcony for satellites that must monitor melting ice or borders. Launching from the Pole, the satellite enters directly onto a North-South path that allows it to scan every corner of the planet as the Earth rotates below. In addition, being on the axis of rotation, rockets do not have to “fight” against the Earth’s lateral spin, which makes observation missions much more efficient and cheaper. Geopolitics. Beyond science, in this case there is a reading of territorial sovereigntysince while China invests in the “Polar Silk Road” and Russia increases its infrastructure in Siberia, Europe needs its own eyes in the north. In this way, while from South America it is ideal to launch television satellites that remain “fixed” on the equator, the Arctic is the perfect balcony for satellites that must monitor melting ice or borders. In this way, the Tromsø–Svalbard axis, added to the new spaceports of Andøya (Norway) and Kiruna (Sweden), consolidates northern Europe as the main gateway to space on the continent. This decision reduces dependence on external infrastructure as occurred in South America and obviously guarantees that all data remains in European territory. What’s next now. Norway, a member of ESA since 1987, brings its network of polar stations and its unique experience in polar orbit operations that are undoubtedly crucial in the current situation. From now on, the working group that has been formed has two years to design the governance and calendar of a center that promises to be “the control tower” of the European future in the Arctic. Images | riya rohewal In Xataka | In January a SpaceX rocket exploded. Today we know the danger that an Iberia plane was in with 450 passengers in the air

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