States

The United States has decided to launch millions of flies with airplanes on its own territory. It has good reasons

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As killing flies to guns, in the United States they have decided to do it using more flies. Literally. For months the country faces the ghost of the Cochliomyia hominivoraxa fly that in its larval state is a serious threat to cattle, wildlife, pets and even Humans. Hence the country has devised a peculiar strategy to fight it: raise thousands of millions of flies and then release them from airplanes. It sounds crazy, but it makes all the meaning. There is no small enemy. At first glance the Cochliomyia hominivoraxalso known as the New World Barrenning Worm (or NWS) does not seem much. But that is with the naked eye, of course. Although they are not much greater than common flies, in their Larval state they represent a considerable threat, especially for cattle, pets and wildlife. NWS females deposit the eggs in wounds or mucous membranes and, once they hatch, the larvae break through the meat, feeding thanks to their sharp oral hooks. Hence “BARRENOR WORD”. Dead cattle in weeks. The species is so voracious that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) warns of its effects, the risk of cattle and what the nation is played by keeping it at bay. “It is crucial to protect our livestock industry, our economy and our food supply chain,” emphasize. In An interview With the AP Agency, Michael Bailey, director of the American Association of Veterinary Medicine, is even more explicit: the larvae can end a 450 kilos bovine in a matter of two weeks. And why is it news? The boreride worm is An old acquaintance of the American authorities. Although the species is endemic to Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic and countries in South America, the US has been looking for a way to prevent the species from expanding north with the help of Panama. Moreover, in his day he already deployed a strategy that allowed him A small outbreak Registered in the Florida Keys in 2017. The problem is that now the larva is calling again at the gates of the southern US, which has put the USDA on guard. “Although the NWS has been eradicated from the country for decades, recent detections in Mexico, at points as north as Oaxaca and Veracruz, about 1,125 kilometers from the border, have led to the immediate suspension of the imports of living cattle, horses and bison in the US entry ports on the southern border on May 11,” I recognized The government recently. Cattle lock and something else. Import blocking is only a small part of the Usda activated plan to curb the expansion of carnivorous parasite. The US authorities also want to have a vast network of facilities that allow him to raise hundreds of millions of NWS flies every week. And are willing to invest millions of dollars to achieve it. The Agriculture Department has already announced the investment of 8.5 million in a southern Texas and other installation 21 million To re -adapt a metapa plant, in Mexico, which was dedicated to the breeding of fruit flies. The idea is that it now focuses on the NWS. Both facilities will also be added to another base of Panama that is already able to raise about 177 million flies every week, a figure that the USDA considers insufficient. Its goal is to get to 400 million. But … raise flies for what? To have fewer flies. I know, it sounds inconsistent, but it makes all the meaning of the world. The flies that leave those hatcheries are not ‘normal’, but special specimens, males sterilized with radiation that can mate, but not (and this is the key) reproduce. The idea is actually very simple: scientists raise millions of flies, billions, and then release them in the fields so that females mate with those altered males. The result are eggs unable to hatch, which translates into less larvae and, over time, in diminishing populations. A solera technique. The technique is interesting for several reasons. For a start, Remember APit is more effective and ecological than resorting to pesticides. In addition, Washington has already proven that the system works relatively well. USDA remember which used the same “biological control technique” to end NWS populations in the 60s and the 2017 Florida outbreak. The same strategy has also been deployed in other places to combat different pests. Los Angeles used it to stop the proliferation of the Fruit fly And Singapore did something similar with the mosquitoes They transmit dengue. ‘Bombing’ of flies. Raising sterile male flies is just the first part of the plan. To work and stop the carnivorous worm, something else must be done: release those diptera strategically. And the US already knows how to do it. The Associated Press agency It has relieved that the government proposes to throw the altered specimens on southern Texas and Mexico. In fact he hopes to have In late of this same year a special installation to disperse insects in the Moore Air Baselocated almost at the border with Mexico. The new farm of southern Mexico would take something more to be ready. It would not be activated until July 2026. Images | USDA (Flickr), APHIS-USA and Wikipedia In Xataka | These worms live in the most radioactive area of ​​Chernobil. To everyone’s surprise, they seem immune to radioactivity

In his career against the United States, China is betting on something different: an artificial intelligence “personified”

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The AI ​​race has two main actors: the United States and China. Although at first it seemed unattainable, China already steps on Americans as far as quality is concerned and advanced by leaps and bounds in areas necessary for its development such as energy. China has another ace in the sleeve: the personified. Two ways of seeing the AI. Although they compete in the same land, the strategies of both countries have obvious differences. A clear example is in the business model itself: United States bets on a premium and China for a free AI. The differences would go much further. As writes As Andrew Stockols writesMIT researcher specializing in digital infrastructure in China, the United States focuses on the abstract, leading the great language models with Chatgpt, Gemini or Claude. For its part, China is betting very strong for an IA integrated into physical systems and infrastructure, with a clear leadership in areas such as industry and robotics. The “personified”. In English it is called “Embodied ai”, which can be translated by personified, embodied or integrated. It is an AI with physical presence, applied to systems that interact with the environment through sensors and actuators. It is the artificial intelligence applied to autonomous cars, personal mobility vehicles, models of “urban brain” and of course robotics. This idea is Chinese government priorityalready include the term in your work report This year. Robots for everything. Robots running marathons, Making Kick-Boxing, Playing football and even Robots-pump. China likes robots, it is clear to us, but this obsession goes far beyond these nice examples. Leading the robotics sector is part of the Plan “Made in China 2025” already today have achieved a competitive position, so much that in the United States already The alarms jumped. If we focus only on the industry, China is the undisputed leader with a 51% of the total stock of industrial robots. A few months ago, He appeared at BeiSi Kaiwu“The first integrated AI platform” with support for different “bodies.” This platform allows robots to perceive, interact and learn from the environment dynamically. In addition to humanoid robots, it is also intended for other products such as autonomous driving or even wearable devices. Autonomous vehicles. In 2020, China published its “Innovation and Smart Vehicle Development Strategy” where the idea of ​​”person-carretera-nube” is included. The key to this proposal is that not only cars carry sensors and cameras, they must also be present on roads, especially intersections. In addition, cars would communicate with each other to avoid collisions. Although with advantages from the point of view of security, there is a disadvantage and it is the cost of creating and maintaining that infrastructure. But not all self -employed vehicles have to be cars, other personal mobility vehicles are also developing with autonomous driving such as Autonomous wheelchair that the Freego company presented in March this year. Urban brains. There is even more. Another of the key applications of this integrated AI is in the cities. China has been working on the idea of ​​the smart city for a long time. Already in 2016, they developed a solution for the city of Hangzhou that helped Manage traffic using AI. Since then, they have not stopped appearing similar projects And there are currently many Chinese cities that have “brains”. However, behind this intelligent city idea there is an interest in improving the governance of cities or, in other words, that works as a surveillance system. We see it in This ambitious plan to integrate AI in the city of Wuhan: “Integrating algorithms of AI in real environments. Imbued with the predefined values ​​by the Chinese Communist Party, the AI ​​interacts with its natural environment, learning as it progresses.” Image | Alex Knight in Pexels In Xataka | There is a new battle between China and Elon Musk: its protagonists are humanoid robots and goes for long

The United States is creating “the iPhone of AI”. China is doing “the Android of AI”

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There is an interesting paradox in the current development of AI that says more about geopolitics than about technology: USAtraditionally leader in proprietary software and monetization, is building closed models of AI. Chinahistorically more restrictive with the flow of information, it is leading the open source AI. An investment that is not accidental: each block adopts the strategy that best serves its structural interests. → United States (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google), is building the equivalent of the IPhone of the AI: Very sophisticated systems. Vertical integration. PUPLE POLIDED PREMIUM EXPERIENCES that justify charging for access. The logic is clear: when you control the best GPUS, the main cloud services and you have the capital to train the most advanced models, monetizing that advantage through payment APIs makes immediate economic sense. It is the model that has holding American software for decades. → China, on the other hand, with Deepseek, Qwen and Minimax Mastering the rankings of open models, it is creating the Android of the AI: A free and modifiable ecosystem. Downloadable for local use without depending on payment APIS. Permissive licenses without business restrictions, Unlike Meta with Flame. Accessible source code for independent research and development. As we said at the timethis approach is not due to altruism, nor by cultural difference. It is a strategy based on creating global dependence on a Stack Chinese technological when American becomes inaccessible. Or at least, to present it as a very attractive alternative even before seeing its results. It is true that he calls is American and is also in the league of the greats being open source (With an asterisk of the size of Mestalla). A habitual hypothesis also seems feasible: that target was released precisely because it was behind. The classic defensive strategy to erode the advantage of leaders. China does it from another position: growing strength. And in addition, having to deal with access restrictions to western markets. When your rival controls chips and cloud platforms, and can cut the tap at any time, the only way to create an alternative ecosystem is to make it so accessible that the world cannot ignore it. Soft Power Technological: give today to dominate tomorrow. That, or cling to developing markets plus the gigantic domestic market. This is how Huawei stopped competing to build a parallel reality. The numbers speak alone. According to the Benchmarks of artificial analysis (based in California, not in Shenzen), The three best open source models leave China. Each startup that Depseek uses instead of GPT, each country of the southern hemisphere that displays Chinese models because they are free, each university that trains over Qwen instead of Claude, is another node of the ecosystem that the United States cannot censor, regulate or disconnect unilaterally. It is a story very similar to that of The slow but unstoppable Chinese independence of GPS: In two decades it is no longer that I do not need it, it is that Beidou has reached 140 countries. It is also true that There are traps in both strategies: The American model generates immediate income but creates incentives for the rest of the world to look for alternatives, especially when commercial wars are intensified. Competence. The Chinese model conquers users but at some point it will need to monetize without frightening its base. The latter is something that Google learned with Android for the bad ones: after conquering 70% of the world, it began to monetize it aggressively and ended up receiving huge fines in Europe, antitrust demands in the United States and Chinese alternatives … as Harmonyos de Huawei. The circle closes. The lesson is that giving technology to create dependence works, but monetize that dependence once established attracts the attention that nobody wants: that of regulators. It is the dilemma that China will eventually face its “free” models of AI. The real battle is not for today’s best, but to control the Intellectual infrastructure Tomorrow. The United States sells the premium service. China gives the universal operating system. And the outcome will be that of two historically successful, but opposite philosophies: the American persistence by aggressively monetizing in front of Chinese patience to invest decades if necessary until it can lead. Immediate income against long -term dependence. Time will say. In Xataka | Four AI companies are monopolizing the intellectual future of humanity. They are not good news Outstanding image | Ilgmyzin in UnspashAlibaba, Xataka

The United States has threatened reprisals to Spain if it does not put 5% of GDP in defense. Olive oil trembles

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They do not run easy times for Spanish olive oil. Still Broken marketthe turbulence in prices and suspicion of the “speculation”now an unexpected threat is added: Donald Trump’s anger. Yesterday, after the disagreement between Washington and Madrid during the NATO Summit, the Republican said he will “pay” Spain for his refusal to dedicate 5% of GDP to military spending. He did not go into details, but it was enough to stir the ghost of the tariffs. Especially for a sector, that of olive oil, with a key weight in the US. “They pay double”. It is not the first time that Donald Trump shows Your anger For the reluctance of Spain to dedicate 5% of GDP to defense, but never before had it done so round. On Wednesday, after Sánchez insisted on his refusal to reach the same expense commitment as the rest of NATO allies, the Republican warned Spain that would have to pay yes or yes. “It is terrible what Spain is doing and we will make it pay,” Trump started After the NATO summit held in The Hague. “It is the only country that refuses to pay. We are going to make them pay twice, but otherwise (…). The Spanish economy is going very well, but it could be razed if something happens.” Have I heard tariffs? The US president did not stay there. He said he would look for a way to “compensate him” and launched a notice: “We are negotiating with Spain a commercial agreement and we will make them pay double.” The experts They recognize that it is difficult for the US in less than two weeks The deadline agreed by Washington and Brussels expires to avoid a tariff war, his words have raised blisters. “It takes us out of the market”. The restlessness is greater among the sectors with the greatest presence on the other side of the Atlantic and that, therefore, more harmed would be seen if Trump uses its tariffs to ‘punish’ Spain. In 2024 our country exported goods worth more than more than 21.200 million of dollars, with a prominent weight of certain sectors, such as machinery, pharmacist or agri -food. And in the latter there are those who already recognize their concern. “It seems tremendously serious. It gives us panic and of course (if fulfilled) it completely takes us out of the market,” Recognize to the Efe Rafael Sánchez de Puerta agency, president of the Agrifood Cooperatives Oil section. The sector knows what he’s talking about, he remembers, because years ago he has already suffered The tariffs activated by Washington in the middle of Boeing-Airbus commercial war. A figure: 1,031 million. The olive oil is not the only sector that has been put on guard. In the last hours the looks have also been directed to other industries with a strong presence in the US, such as The wine or pharmacist. However The data The government shows that the oil mills are one of the most vulnerable to Trump’s anger, at least within the agricultural sector. Last year they sold in the US more than 113,400 tons of olive oil by 1,013 million of euros, 58% more than the previous year. In fact, the American is one of the largest markets in the sector, after the Italian. If the White House decided to apply levies to olive oil, Spanish producers would see how they are complicated 15% of its exports. The what … and when. The tariff ghost also caught the oil industry at a complex time, after several years marked by squalid campaigns due to droughts and a not much simpler horizon. Although farmers are enjoying a good harvest, which will overcome the 1.4 million tonsthey face a price drop in origin that has dragged them to a committed situation. So much that the Ministry of Agriculture has already moved to remove oil from the market, If you judge it necessary. Images | Gage Skidmore (Flickr) and NEUFAL54 In Xataka | The Spaniards have been telling us that olive oil is the healthiest. Science has something to say

His passage through the United States has been a failure

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It began to glimpse since last April the ugly things were put on. Renfe’s adventure in the United States has ended. He does it without carrying out the great project they had and confirming millionaire losses even though no train ever shot. The project. A high speed line 386 kilometers between Dallas and Houston. That was the great project that Renfe had in mind to enter the US market, a market that seemed perfect because it lacks high -speed roads among large cities. Dallas and Houston are two of the cities that generate more money in the United States So in European eyes it seemed a round business. The intention was to launch a train that reached a maximum of 386 km/Hy joined both cities in less than an hour and a half with an intermediate stop. A not so good idea. But although the business seems evident to European eyes, the thing is not so simple seen from the American perspective. To have, throughout the United States there is not a single high -speed line that connect large cities as we understand in Europe or Asia. In fact, the highest speed is reached in a line in Florida (between Orlando and Miami) that, for just 32 kilometers, is traveling to a maximum of 201 km/h. Then, the speed falls again. And although there is various projects underwayUSA It is still a desert for high speed. Bye. After more than a five years, the project has been completed, the operations of Renfe of America have completed, they point out in electionomista.es. The company had created a subsidiary in the country to take the reins of a project that, they assured, could generate 5.3 billion euros before 2042. In Aprilhowever, it was already guessed what was going to be the end of Renfe’s American adventure. So be Duffy, Secretary of Transportation, confirmed with a statement that denied the help of 63.9 million dollars that was pending to surrender (it was already approved) because “the financing of this project is a waste of taxpayers’ funds and a distraction of the main mission of Amtrak to improve their existing deficient services.” That help was key to continue advancing in the high -speed railway corridor project of Amtrak Texas that Renfe had entered fully into 2021. More and more involvement. The origin of Renfe’s landing in the United States must be sought before. In 2018the company arrives as an advisor to carry out the project, imposing itself on other companies in the contest as a trainitalia. The initial contract required Renfe’s involvement for 18 months and, subsequently, the works would begin. However, with the project at the dead point, In 2021 the conditions were extended Initials and Renfe open their subsidiary in the country to gain presence in it, positioning itself as a commercial exploiter of the line. No more public money. However, the project still needed public money for construction, which did not finish please the country’s transport department. To support the withdrawal Of the more than 60 million public funds it was stressed that the project was born with an exclusively private vocation but threatened to assume the taxpayer an expense of up to 40,000 million dollars. Now, Renfe has ended up folding its operations, reflecting in its 2024 accounts extraordinary losses of 4.5 million euros and a 100% deterioration on investments undertaken for more than a five years, they point out in electionomista.es. Photo | Renfe and Aaron Burden In Xataka | China leads high speed trains. Your plan for 2030 shows a reality: it aims to be unattainable

Huawei states that he is staying behind the chips. It is just what we want us to create

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Huawei doesn’t like to get attention. He doesn’t want headlines. It is not generating too many and since 2019 The US veto and google occur The company has adopted a low profile and a shy, silent narrative. But as long as he does, Huawei does not stop growing and consolidating his role as one of the most important technology companies in the world. The silent leader. Ren Zhengfei (Anshun, 1944) founded Huawei in 1987 and is not only the company’s CEO: he is considered a spiritual leader. He doesn’t see it like that and affirms which is rather “a puppet leader (…). It only develops a symbolic role, like an idol of cement in a temple. Without it the temple would seem empty, but in reality the idol does nothing … that I am in Huawei or in Huawei has no real impact.” Who wants to be forgotten. Despite its absolute relevance, whether symbolic or not, Zhengfei has no intention of being in the foreground. His hope is in fact end up being forgotten. “I am just an old man. What is the point of reminding me? People should think more about the future and the world. My greatest desire is to have a coffee in a cafeteria without anyone noticing.” Zhengfei is known for his reserved and discreet character, and has transferred that way of being to his company. “Our chips are a generation behind the US”. The phrase is from the aforementioned Ren Zhengfei, which In an interview In the Chinese state media People’s Daily talked about his latest advances in semiconductors. There the head of this giant explained that the sanctions that prevent Huawei from obtaining or manufacturing state -of -the -art chips cause that “our chip continues a generation behind the US.” Better not believe it much. Huawei is Property of your employees And he has ties with the Popular Chinese Liberation Army, the country’s armed forces, of which Ren Zhengfei was part for several years. The commercial war has caused the company to adopt a very discreet profile, and REN’s comment on the state of its chips is possibly a strategy not to attract attention. Because although there may still be differences with the advances of the US, the Chinese giant does not stop expanding. For all without being noticed. I explained it William Huo, an expert who explained in China how Huawei is currently 25,000 million dollars a year on R&D. One of the results of these investments have been New Ascend chips for ia that has not been designed to overcome Nvidia chips, but to climb big. And there is a blunt example. Source: Semiianalysis Cloudmatrix 384. Huawei chips may not be so powerful, but their clusters are. It is demonstrated by the cloudmatrix 384, direct competitor of the NVIDIA GB200 NVL72. This monster has 384 GPUS Ascend 910C connected through an optical network that allows an interconnection at speeds much larger than those offered by copper cables of the Nvidia cluster. But it is also a complete cloudmatrix 384 system, as indicated in Semiianalysisoffer up to 300 flops (in BF16 accuracy) of computing, almost double what the NVL72 GB200 of NVIDIA offers. Not only that: it has the memory capacity 3.6 times and 2.1x times the memory bandwidth. The Huawei machine is an absolute beast, no matter how much its chips “are a generation behind” – which is debatable. The confusion. A few weeks ago there was talk of how the new laptop Huawei Matebook fold Huawei would be based on the promising Kirin X90 chip. That soc, manufactured by SMICit seemed to be manufactured with 5 Nm photolithographic node, but that was difficult. Especially since SMIC – La Foundry China that Try to follow the steps A TSMC or Samsung – has no access extreme ultraviolet photolithography equipment asml. How was I going to achieve it then? China advances in semiconductors. SMIC (semiconductor manufacturing international corp) is the largest Chinese semiconductor manufacturer, and has a quota of about 5% In the world market. The US veto has caused this manufacturer to have access to EUV equipment, but Some rumors They pointed to what He had achieved A 5 NM node with deep ultraviolet technology (UVP). It is not so, and new data reveal that the X90 does not use a node of 5 nm (N+3) but the already known 7 Nm (N+2) As it happened with the Kirin 9020. Be careful, because in SMIC they are working on their own lithography of 5 nm, and they seem be close to achieving it. And beyond, of course, The 3 nm. A wolf with lamb skin. Huawei does not usually generate headlines, but it seems just what he is looking for. And meanwhile, as Huo states, he manages to buy time in which the industry does not look so much in it. And meanwhile, scale without rest. But as this analyst says, not to pursue quarterly benefits, but to endure. Image | Rubaitul Azad In Xataka | USA says that Huawei will not be able to manufacture more than 200,000 AI chips in 2025. We know what the reason is

Sam Altman states that Chatgpt’s water and energy consumption is tiny. The problem is that it does not give evidence of it

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An email of 100 words generated by GPT-4 Consume 519 milliliters of water. That was the conclusion to which researchers at the University of California arrived a few months ago after analyzing this OpenAi model. Sam Altman, CEO of the company, has just yielded its own estimate on the consumption of water and energy of each consultation of Chatgpt. And it is very different. 1,000 times less than what was said. According to Altman, an average consultation in Chatgpt consumes much less than what had been indicated in previous studies. Your data are strikingand to understand them makes interesting analogies: “As production automated in data centers automates, the cost of intelligence should approach electricity. (People are usually curious to know how much energy consumes a chatgpt consultation; the average consult (0.32 ml); A previous study of Epoch ai corroborates the data that Sam Altman has now wielded. Source: Epoch AI. And the tests? Those figures mentioned by the OpenAi CEO have a problem: they have no visible support. He throws them without citing sources or explaining where he has taken them out, something that makes it difficult to believe. A Meta executive answered the question of How much consumes the inference AI A year and a half ago, responding that “only two nuclear reactors would be needed to cover it.” But previous studies coincide with Altman. Although he does not mention any evidence, in February, Epoch AI researchers precisely They published a study trying to estimate the energy consumption of chatgpt. In their conclusions they indicated that on average a chatgpt consult Previous report of the researcher Alex de Vries. Since then, of course, many things have happened. Too pessimistic. And as they commented on the study of Epoch AI, the difference comes from the fact that the models are today much more efficient than in 2023, when VRies conducted their study. So is the hardware in which these models are executed, and that estimate was also used a “especially pessimistic” approach. In Openai’s study they also threw an especially pessimistic estimate and pointed out that “most of the requests (A chatgpt) are much cheaper (energetically).” More studies. Another independent study published by Andy Masey in January 2025 reached a similar conclusion and claimed that “using Chatgpt is not bad for the environment.” It was based on EPRI data May 2024 that also estimated a high consumption of 2.9 Wh by chatgpt consultation. Estimated water consumption In data centersfrom A SUNBIRD studyit was also very modest compared to other online activities. Water consumption in data centers for various online activities. Source: Andy Masley. Fifte. Precisely the data of water consumption was another striking in that estimate of Sam Altman. According to him, a chatgpt consultation barely consumed 0.32 ml of water, “a quinceava part of a teaspoon.” The figure suggests that the water needed to refrigerate data centers that process these requests is much less than what was thought only one year ago. And training, what? These estimates focus on the AI ​​inference section, that is, our use of chatgpt that receives a consultation and processes it inferring (generating) a text result. Although Altman does not clarify it, he does not seem to include here the energy and water cost of training AI models, which is very high and makes thousands of Gpus They work at full power For months, with the consequent water expense in data centers to refrigerate all those components that dissipate high heat amounts. As I pointed out The researcher Ethan Mollick, GPT-4 probably used more than 50 GW to be trained, enough to give energy to 5,500 homes in a year. We continue without definitive data. Altman’s claims are as always striking, but the lack of clear evidence makes it difficult to believe these data. Other recent studies are more useful when it comes to reflecting this increasingly lower cost both in energy and water from the use of AI, but there are no accepted standards or a consensus on the true impact of energy and water consumption when using chatgpt or other AI models. Image | Lukáš Lehotský | Village Global In Xataka | The light price is again negative: it is a sign that the system needs a redesign

The United States has lost almost all its advantage in the face of China. And in just over a year

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American leadership in AI wobbles. The data of the AI Index 2025 Stanford reveals that China has trimmed the technical advantage of the United States to levels that seemed difficult to reach. Above all, because it has taken a little over a year to close most of the gap. Why is it important. The United States maintains the volume –40 notable models against 15 Chinese at the end of the year in the Epoch list-but China has shown that quality is no longer American monopoly, and that almost-convergence rewrites the rules of geopolitics in the most promising and strategic technology of the 21st century. The figures. In January 2024, the best American model exceeded Chinese in 9.26% in Benchmarks of chatbots. Just over a year later, that advantage has collapsed to 1.7%. Convergence is repeated in reasoning, mathematics and programming. The case Deepseek It is a perfect example. While Google spent 192 million dollars on the specific training of Gemini 1.0 Ultrathe Chinese startup said they have achieved competitive results with just 6 million. That caused A media and stock market earthquake At the beginning of the year. The contrast. They are two different approaches: The United States dominates for quantity and resources: it leads private investment (150,000 million dollars in 2024) and concentrates the most valued companies in the sector. China is responding efficiently: less models, much lower costs, equivalent results. The narrative of “Chinese technological backwardness” falls apart. Yolanda Gil, co -director of AI Index, He explained Thus his surprise: “I hoped that a more efficient version of the LLMS appeared at some point. We simply did not know who would build it or how.” Yes, but. American hegemony persists on other fronts. American companies continue to create the most influential models and monopolize global investment. And Europe is relegated: only three notable models in 2024. All French. The shadow of Mistral. The background. This race reflects a broader battle for the future of the digital economy. China demonstrates that efficiency can compensate for huge spending, challenging the “brute force” model that has characterized US development of AI. In Xataka | Openai is going better than expected thanks to payment users. And that marks an evident direction Outstanding image | Aerps.com in Unspash

An engine that the United States tried to build without success in the Cold War

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The new space race has brought back the attempts to develop rocket engines much faster. And it is not NASA, but the European Space Agency who is chasing the old dream. Context. The thermal Nuclear Propulsion Motor (NTP) is an almost as old idea as the space race itself. In the same 1961 speech with which John F. Kennedy promised to take a man to the moon, he also requested funds for the Nuclear Rover rocket with the promise of “an even more exciting and ambitious exploration of space.” More than 60 years later, space nuclear dream is still a unfulfilled promise. Europe wants to try. Interplanetary trips twice as fast. That is the central promise of nuclear propulsion, and ESA believes that it is an attainable future to reduce the nine months of earth-marte travel to half. With the help of the heavyweights of the French space and nuclear industry (CEA, Arianegroup and Framatome), ESA has concluded in his study alumni that technology offers “huge increases in performance” and “can be operated safely.” Meanwhile, in the United States. NASA has had to end its last attempt to develop an NTP engine. He Draco projectdirect heir to the initiatives of the 60s (the Rover and Nerva projects), has fallen into the Trump administration cuts. The justification of the White House for cutting is that they are “expensive investments” and “there are other alternatives.” The news has fallen as a jug of cold water for those involved. Bhavya Lal, former associated administrator of the NASA, He said to Spacenews: “We have spent almost 20,000 million dollars in space nuclear energy since the 50s and the only system we currently have is a radioisotope generator the size of a 100 watt bulb.” Many possibilities. One thing is the generators of the Martian Rovers or the Voyager and New Horizons probes, which use the heat of passive disintegration of the plutonium to generate some electricity with their small radioisotope generators (RTG), and a very different one is an active fission reactor to generate a massive thrust (a NTP rocket engine). New Horizons illustrates the difference well. It was one Mission to explore Plutobut it passed through the dwarf planet without the capacity to enter its orbit, obtaining just 24 hours of data. With nuclear propulsion, I could have orbized for years, and the scientific return would have been immensely superior. Oh, irony. Jared Isaacman, Trump’s nominated to direct NASA that was removed when Elon Musk lost its influence on the White Househe was a supporter of the development of this type of engines. The NTP are “exactly the type of thing in which NASA should concentrate its resources,” he said on one occasion. Now, Without Isaacman And with the Canceled Draco project, Europe embarks cautiously on the path of nuclear propulsion while the United States step back. Kennedy’s promise is still waiting. Of course, the things of space go slowly, and there are still a few viability studies before the European thermal nuclear propulsion engine takes shape. Image | POT In Xataka | Electronuclear and Nuclear Fusion Propulsion are the options of science to take us to deep space

IA consumes so much energy that the United States is building data centers directly in natural gas wells

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What makes a startup dedicated to building data centers get 11.6 billion dollars in financing. In the case of Crusoe Energy Systems, it all started with an idea as disturbing as profitable: build data centers with natural gas wells. Crusoe Energy’s idea Journalist Emily Chang de Bloomberg visited a few weeks ago The city of Abilene, in Texas, where Crusoe is building the monstrous Stargate data centers, The 500.00 billion project OpenAi, SoftBank and Oracle to develop general artificial intelligence. Stargate arrived at Crusoe Energy thanks to the demonstrated efficiency of the startup in the construction of specialized data centers in AI. Chase Lochmiller, the CEO of Crusoe, explained to Chang how the company was born: “When an oil company opens an oil well, one of the associated by -products is natural gas. And when they do not have access to an pipeline, all this associated gas simply burns in situ. So we had an idea: instead of trying to take that gas to a market where you can sell, we could create a market for gas. We could build mobile and modular data centers, take them direct data”. Crusoe was born in the best possible place to materialize this idea: the country of fracking. But maybe not at the best time to do it. Initially, they chose to build GPUS farms to undermine Bitcoin. When the cryptocurrency market collapsed, they ended up pivoting artificial intelligence. Like crypto mining, AI data centers are not based on CPUS but depend on the parallel processing capacity of thousands of GPUS, mainly Nvidia specialized chips. These new data centers consume much more energy than traditional data centers, so Crusoe started from a key advantage: their direct access to fossil fuels that obtained at the price of bargain. A booming business Oil giants are not oblivious to this trend. Exxonmobil is developing Off-Grid gas plants specifically for data centers with carbon capture technology to reduce emissions. Chevron, meanwhile, It has been associated With Engine No. 1 and Ge Vernova to mount similar facilities. The first will open in 2026, also in Texas. The figures are eloquent: the demand for natural gas for data centers will be increased by 47 GW from here to 2030. Currently, natural gas already feeds about 40% of the loading of data centers in the United States and is expected to continue being the main source of supply up to at least 2030. It is not the preferred energy source, but There are not enough renewable to feed artificial intelligence and Not all data centers They can be connected to a nuclear power plant, another common occurrence in the United States. As for Crusoe, thanks to the initial push of natural gas that were going to burn oil companies they developed their own technologies, such as a closed cooling system that does not need to renew The water evaporating the serversor own gas turbines, such as 360 MWs that are installing in the Stargate project as a backup energy source. Stargate data centers will feed mainly solar panels and wind turbines, which abound in Abilene for the confluence of wind and sunny hours. It is one of the reasons why data centers are being built in this Texas area, in addition to the tax exemptions that local governments are willing to yield in exchange for employment generation. It remains to be seen how many employees have everything built. Image | W.Carter (CCO) In Xataka | Microsoft will reopen a nuclear power plant that has been closed since 2019. It needs it for its artificial intelligence

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