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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

That Chinese and Russian bombers patrol together is not surprising. That they do it against Japan and South Korea has had an immediate response

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The growing synchronicity between China and Russia in the airspace of Northeast Asia has ceased to be an anomaly and has become an increasingly calculated strategic pattern. The problem is that the last joint patrol between both nations once again demonstrated how the airspace has been transformed into an area of ​​maximum tension. Strategic pressure. The last patrol joint Sino-Russian has certified that the airspace around Japan and South Korea has been transformed into a zone of permanent friction. Russian Tu-95 and Chinese H-6 bombers, escorted by J-16, made a circuit that forced Tokyo and Seoul to deploy fighters as the formation traversed corridors where any mistake can escalate quickly. The flight, although it fits in annual exercises between both countries, occurred just after Chinese J-15 fighters launched from the Liaoning aircraft carrier They will activate their radars of fire against Japanese F-15s, an act considered equivalent to announcing an imminent attack. For Japanthese maneuvers are no longer simple demonstrations of force: they symbolize coordinated pressure in response to its increasingly declared involvement in the defense of Taiwan, a stance that China considers a direct provocation. “It is a serious concern for national security,” has settled the Japanese minister. South Korea and a pattern. In parallel, South Korea had to mobilize your aviation when seven Russian and two Chinese aircraft entered the KADIZ without warning, a practice recurring since 2019. Although the zone does not constitute sovereign space, its systematic violation allows Beijing and Moscow to measure reaction times, saturate surveillance and normalize incursions that, in other circumstances, would have been interpreted as signs of crisis. The aircraft remained about an hour before withdrawing, on a route that overlaps both the Chinese defense zone and disputed areas between Tokyo and Seoul. This routine erodes stability: forces South Korea to invest resources, exposes regulatory divergences (Russia does not even legally recognize the existence of KADIZ) and builds an environment where the exception becomes an operating habit. japanese fighter The Japanese doubt. The background of this escalation we have been counting and started with the comments from the Japanese prime minister, who stated that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be an existential threat to Japan. The message, aligned with the doctrine of collective self-defense, meant for Beijing a crossing of red lines that unleashed diplomatic and economic reprisalsaccompanied by a notable increase of his military activity near Okinawa and especially Yonaguni, the closest Japanese point to Taiwan. So, Tokyo plans to deploy electronic warfare units and air defense systems, reinforcing an island whose location makes it both a shield and a priority objective. For Japan, this militarization is a necessary response. For China, it is an indicator that Tokyo is willing to integrate more actively in an eventual scenario of support for Taiwan. Wear tool. China-Russia joint patrols are no longer isolated exercises, but expressions of increasing coordination spanning from Alaska to the Sea of ​​Japan. They integrate bombers, fighters, early warning aircraft and synchronized maneuvers that show a willingness to project power and generate a constant cost to the region’s defensive systems. In addition to their military value, these missions have a clear political objective: underline that the airspace over Japan and South Korea is not a monopoly of their Western allies, but rather an environment in which Moscow and Beijing can operate freely and predictability. At a time when China responds With every Japanese gesture on Taiwan, this cooperation acts as a pressure amplifier and a reminder that Tokyo could be confronted with two powers at the same time. Fragile balance. The combination radar-locksflights in identification zones, maneuvers without warning and diplomatic tensions accumulated has created a climate where an unforeseen incident could escalate quickly. Japan reinforces its military presence, South Korea adjusts its protocols and China and Russia intensify their joint missions, raising the level of structural friction. As Taiwan establishes itself as a strategic epicenter, nearby air routes become permanent contact lines and every approach, every response, every silence on a radio frequency can be interpreted as a signal. In other words, a wrong calculation can transform an annual patrol in the trigger of a broader regional crisis. Image | CHINESE GOVERNMENT, US Air Force In Xataka | If the question is how far the tension between China and Japan has escalated, the answer is disturbing: they are targeting each other. In Xataka | China has just shown Japan a diplomatic dart that it had been keeping for decades: World War II

An atoll in the South Pacific is the best kept secret of the ultra-rich. If you want to hide your fortune, this is your island

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In the middle of the South Pacific, there is a little paradise which attracts both nature lovers and those looking to put their great fortunes safely away. The Cook Islands, with their turquoise beaches and dreamlike landscapes, have become the chosen refuge by many millionaires for keep your money safe and anonymous. Beyond being a privileged tourist destination, this archipelago adopts the second most used meaning of paradise: that of tax haven. Its special legal system protects the assets of those millionaires who decide to enjoy its dream beaches and its legal opacity with assets. They came for its beaches, they stayed for the trusts This natural oasis, located about 3,000 kilometers from New Zealand, is not only home to beauty and tranquility, but also a sophisticated asset protection mechanism that has gained global fame in recent years among millionaires around the world. Although many think of tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands are distinguished by their ability to raise trust financial structures from which millionaires can manage assets of all kinds, from properties to cryptocurrencies, with a very lax taxation. Not in vain, the Cook Islands were a recurring reference in the great financial scandals that were revealed by the Panama Papers, Pandora or the Paradise Papers. As and how they counted in Fortunesince the 1980s, the Cook Islands established a single fiduciary system which offers a level of opacity and protection difficult to find in other enclaves considered tax havens. For example, the authority of foreign courts to intervene in these funds is not recognized and, furthermore, the identities of the owners are protected by law. This combination makes the country a bastion for those who want to keep their assets safe from external demands or embargoes. Cook Islands, a paradise for human and fiscal matters Here, millionaires transfer their assets to a trust managed by a local fiduciary (front man), while they can remain beneficiaries or dispose of the money and property freely. This separation between Ownership of the heritage and who enjoys it generates a legal barrier that makes it difficult for third parties to claim those assets. In this way, millionaire businessmen protect their fortunes in the event of bankruptcy of their companies because, legally, they are not owners of the assets that they do enjoy. Likewise, fortunes would not be so exposed to divorce cases. “If all your money is in your pocket and someone tries to take it from you, maybe they can. But if the money is in another country and not under your control, chances are they won’t be able to touch it,” he explained to Fortune Blake Harris, lawyer specializing in property protection in the Cook Islands. In addition, shell companies are used to manage certain assets in order to add another level of opacity to the ownership of trust assets. “We created a practically unbreakable structure. And it is a fundamental practice. It is necessary to protect yourself,” said Harris. Spanish millionaires also travel to paradise The Panama Papers and other tax scandals exposed the financial engineering that large fortunes were using to reduce their tax bill. Among the names that appeared in these investigations there were also some spanish names. It should be said that constituting a trust in the Cook Islands It is completely legal for a Spanish resident. The Polynesian atoll was excluded from the EU tax haven lists and from Spain. However, the Spanish legislation It focuses on who actually controls and benefits from the assets, not just who is listed as the formal owner. However, just because it is legal in Spain does not mean that it works the same as for an American millionaire. Spain does not include the figure of the trust in its legal framework, although it does takes it into account at the tax level. In practice, this means that even if the assets are transferred to a trustee in another country, The Tax Agency considers that the person residing in Spain retains some type of control or benefit over them. And if this control exists, the Treasury understands that this assets remain linked to the taxpayer and, therefore, must declare it as part of your heritage. Therefore, although the protection against international litigation offered by Cook Islands trusts is effective, in Spain they do not have the same effectiveness than in the US, so It is not such a popular instrument. between the great Spanish fortunes as among the millionaires of other countries. However, as how they point From the Gesta tax consultancy, trusts are recommended more as tools of succession planning or protection against civil risks, and both for evade taxes. In Xataka | They were promised a bitcoin paradise and zero taxes for 120,000 euros. Today there is only one desert island on the verge of disappearing Image | cook islandsUnsplash (Nathan Dumlao)

Brazil has been pursuing high-speed trains for 20 years. Now it will have the first in South America

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If we see the list of countries with the most high-speed train linesChina is the one cut the codwith Europe and Japan also on the crest of the wave. However, South America is a territory that neither punctures nor cuts. That’s about to change and, although there are several projects in different countries, the first high-speed train in South America will be in Brazil. And it promises to revolutionize transportation in one of the country’s key corridors. It is not (fast) train territory. Connecting South America by train is extremely complicated. Not only do they have a complex topography with mountains and jungles to overcome, but also an enormous geographical dispersion, political instability in some countries and priorities that have changed with different governments. Currently, the territory is experiencing a revolution. There are countries like Mexico either Chili who are waging war on their own with internal projects, but also a project known as ‘Bioceanic Railway Corridor‘ which will unite the Pacific and Atlantic and connect the port of Santos in Brazil with that of Bayóvar in Peru. Apart from that line, Brazil has its own plans. The Brazilian TAV. The Brazilian high-speed project is not without controversy. The TAV (or High Speed ​​Train) began to take shape in 2004. Named ‘Bandeirantes Express’, the idea was to connect São Paulo with Campinas. It came to nothing and in 2007 it was shelved, but with the arrival of Lula da Silva and the perspective of Soccer World Cup 2014HE relaunched. It would have been the perfect setting, but the dates were not met either and, from lost to the river: we took it back to 2016 for the Rio Olympics. Spoiler: it went wrong due to financing problems, doubts about profitability and, evidently, a lack of interest from the private sector that was not clear about how to recover the investment. Chronology. It would have been the first high-speed train in South America, but it seems that it had not said its last word, because in 2023, the private company TAV Brasil got by the National Land Transportation Agency the authorization to link the main cities of the country: Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The 99-year concession allows them to plan, build and operate the line that, if all goes well, will connect the two cities with intermediate stops between Sao José dos Campos and Volta Redonda. The investment is not clear and is estimated at about 60,000 million reais, which is about 11,000 million euros, and points to a ticket price of around 85 euros for a complete trip. TAV Brazil has announced the following calendar: End of 2026 for the conclusion of feasibility studies. 2027 as the start of construction. 2032 as commercial commissioning. The train. The intention is that the machine reaches speeds of 320 km/h, which would more than meet what is considered the high speed standard (250 km/h) and will allow travel the 400 kilometers between the two megacities in just one hour and forty-five minutes. This is a considerable reduction compared to a current road trip that takes about six hours. Interests. The big question is who will build the system… and the trains. This is a high-stakes project and, as in other parts of the world, geopolitics plays an important role. Historicallythe project has attracted the interest of companies such as the Spanish CAF or the French Alstom (in contention right now for the train in Belgian), but also from Siemens and other leading companies in the sector. TAV Brazil has not closed its doors and is talking with both Spanish companies and Arab funds and, of course, with China, which is becoming a global touchstone in the railway segment. They are revolutionizing Africa, they have a presence in the deployment of the line that will cross South America from Brazil to Peru and getting a piece of the Brazilian high-speed pie would mean another lucrative hit on the table. In any case, the one in Brazil and other projects seem to be beginning to shape the railway future of a Latin America that has had plans for decades, but for various reasons they have not come to fruition. Images | Limongi, Danilo.mac, Mohamed SY In Xataka | The US has been dreaming of its first high-speed train for decades: the California project is being a real nightmare

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