technological

has found a way to block the technological development of ASML

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China seems to be very clear what should you do to emerge victorious from the dispute it is having with the US in the crucial semiconductor scenario. Without 100% Chinese advanced chips its military capacity, the development of its models of artificial intelligence (AI) and the competitiveness of its technology companies will suffer in the medium term. At this juncture you need to develop your own teams of extreme ultraviolet photolithography (UVE), which are the appropriate machines to manufacture cutting-edge integrated circuits, as soon as possible. But getting them ready is not easy at all. Engineers from some Chinese companies, such as Huawei, SMIC or SMEE, and researchers from various scientific institutions, such as Tsinghua University or the Chinese Academy of Sciences, are combining reverse engineering techniques applied to computer equipment. deep ultraviolet photolithography (UVP) of ASML that has in its possession and innovations devised by themselves. It is the logical path. However, that are using reverse engineering It does not imply that we should conclude that they only know how to “copy.” China’s innovation capacity is, objectively, beyond doubt. China is filing critical patents to protect itself and weaken ASML So far this March, Huawei, SMEE and Tsinghua University, among other Chinese entities, have registered an unusually high volume of patents linked to the development of photolithography equipment. What China intends is, above all, to protect its intellectual property. But the nature of some of his latest patents reflects that he also pursues block ASML and some of its essential suppliers, such as ZEISS or TRUMPF. And it is doing so by registering patents directly linked to the next generation of photolithography equipment, so it is taking ownership of the path that ASML will have to travel in the future. Several of these critical patents describe fundamental innovations about SSMB-UVE technology. Several of these critical patents have been registered by Tsinghua University and describe fundamental innovations about technology SSMB-UVE (Steady-State Micro-Bunching-UVE), which we can translate as Microclustering in steady state for the generation of UVE radiation. This technology seeks to generate this radiation that is so important for produce advanced chips using a synchrotronwhich is nothing more than a circular particle accelerator that is used to analyze the properties of matter at the atomic level. One of the patents registered by this Chinese research center describes how electrons can be organized in a particle accelerator to ensure that they emit coherent light with a wavelength of 13.5 nm. If over the next decade the semiconductor industry decides that laser vaporization of tin droplets, which is the technique ASML is usinghas reached its thermal limit and accelerators represent the only way to reach the 1,000 watts of power necessary to implement Hyper-NA technologyChina will have the upper hand. However, this is not just about particle accelerators. Huawei and SiCarrier have registered several patents dedicated to UVE radiation interference lithography already LDP type ultraviolet light sources (laser induced discharge). One of these critical patents describes an innovation that uses interferometry to generate nanometer-resolution patterns. without depending on the very complex ZEISS lenses. If at some point technological development takes ASML, ZEISS or any other Western company down this path they will have to pay the Chinese entities, negotiate an exchange of intellectual properties or develop your own alternative innovations. And doing so is not easy. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini In Xataka | TSMC acknowledges that it has considered taking its factories out of Taiwan. It’s impossible for a good reason. In Xataka | The looming bottleneck in AI is neither RAM nor gas: it’s that TSMC’s N3 node is absolutely saturated

AI is going to prey on those who all technological transformations prey on: lower salaries

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Every time a new technology appears that promises to transform everythingthere is a group that ends paying a high price for it. With the arrival of AI, for example, young people and white-collar jobs are the most exposed to pay that bill in the form of a lower hiring rate and salary cuts due to automation of those positions. A published study by researchers from the London School of Economics and the Complutense University of Madrid, demonstrates with concrete data on Spain that the benefits of technological progress not only they do not reach everyone equally workers, but in many cases they are widening the gap between who else and they charge less. The Gini does not lie: inequality has a technological name. He Gini coefficient It measures income inequality on a scale where zero equals complete equality and 100 equals absolute inequality. Spain has an index of 30.8 according to the latest data of 2023 from Eurostat, compared to the European Union average, which stood at 29.4 in 2024. Between 2000 and 2016, wage inequality in Spain grew by 6.4 Gini points, the most intense period being between 2008 and 2016, when it rose 4.7 points in just eight years. The most striking data from the study is that without the effects of automation, wage inequality in Spain would have been 21.5% lower in 2019. To gauge the magnitude of this data, it is worth remembering that in 2000, Spain was 8.8 Gini points below the United States in terms of inequality. In 2019, that difference had narrowed to just 2.2 points. What technology gives from above, it cuts from below. The numbers are more eloquent when broken down by salary brackets. Without the technological revolution of recent decades, the 10% of workers with the highest incomes would have received a salary quota 3.9% lower than the current one. On the other hand, the 50% of workers with the lowest salaries would have increased their salary by 0.83%, and the poorest 10% of that group would have increased it by up to 2.2%. Automation and artificial intelligence do not act in the same way, although they both push in the same direction. While the automation of work tends to hit the salaries of the middle and lower section of the distribution, the AI raises wages at the top, thus improving the productivity and bargaining power of those employees who are already better positioned. The data from the last section of the study for the period 2015-2019 shows that, without exposure to AI, the Gini coefficient would have been 9.9% lower in 2019. That is, a smaller gap would have been generated between the highest and lowest salaries. The educational factor: less studies, more punishment. Another of the decisive findings of the study is related to academic training either employee professional. Workers with a lower level of education have suffered a negative salary impact almost three times greater than those with university studies. Their jobs tend to focus on routine tasks or administrative management, areas very susceptible to the impact of AI and automation. The wage gap between workers with high and low training has also skyrocketed due to greater technological implementation. In the absence of the effects of automation during the period 2000-2019, the salary difference between workers with different levels of education it would have been 43% lower. The study data shows that young people with little training are the most exposed, while older, highly skilled workers tend to integrate technology into their work rather than compete with it. Effect of automation by studies and age group Technology encourages wealth, but not for everyone. The authors of the study do not question technological progress itself, which has proven to be a driver of undisputed economic growth throughout history. What they do question is the idea that the benefits of this progress will end up being distributed naturally throughout society, a vision that according to the study itself does not capture the complexity of the phenomenon. Hence many of the great gurus of AI development bet on a basic income as a way to balance the imbalance which will cause the arrival of AI and the automation of more jobs. Faced with these data, the authors’ proposals to neutralize this effect go through two fronts. The first is to reinforce investment in education and continuous training, expanding access to non-routine skills such as critical thinking, creativity or social skills, which are less susceptible to automation. In this way, access to technological skills is equalized throughout the workforce. The second aims to review the tax treatment of capital and labor, given that in many countries taxation favors investment in machinery over hiring people, which can encourage automation processes even when productivity gains are limited. In Xataka | We thought that AI was going to take our position. The reality is that it is making us work more and rest less Image | Unsplash (Procreator Global UI UX Design Agency, Andrew Valdivia)

Chip War is Xataka Xtra’s newsletter about the technological battle of our time: semiconductors

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‘Chip War’ is one of the newsletters exclusives included in Xataka Xtrathe Xataka subscription plan. We send it every Monday and it is part of a benefits plan that includes access to other newsletters, a consultation with editors and raffles and discounts exclusive for subscribers. The first draw, a 75″ TV. The semiconductor industry is not just technology. It is geopolitics, economics and industrial strategy condensed into objects of a few nanometers. The decisions made today by TSMC, Intel, ASML, Samsung or SK Hynix (or the governments that support them) will determine which countries lead the next decade and under what conditions. Every Monday we analyze what is happening in that race: the conflicts between the United States and China, the movements of large factories, the subsidies that are changing the geography of production or the technological bets that can change who is in charge in the sector. Without rush and with context. The goal is not to tell you the news, but to help you understand why it matters. Why does it matter so much? Do you want an example? In our Substack we share the first edition for free. Other Xataka Xtra newsletters Next X (biweekly, every other Thursday): analysis of the trends in technology and science that are changing the present and will define the future: AI, quantum computing, biotechnology, space exploration. Context and perspective on where we are going and why it matters. B-sides (weekly, every Saturday): five curious and fascinating readings each week. Strange, counterintuitive or unexpected stories that we find on the Internet and that deserve your attention. From industrial accidents that changed the world to surprising scientific research or absurdities of late capitalism. Featured image | Xataka

Countries are trying to prevent the accumulation of wealth of technological millionaires. Ancient Rome tried it too

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The concentration of wealth in a few hands that we see today in technological billionaires is not a new phenomenon. More than two thousand years ago, the Ancient Rome faced exactly the same dilemma that worries today to governments around the world: a few rich people accumulated land and resources, while the majority of citizens became impoverished to the point of bordering on misery. A young politician named Tiberius Sempronius Graceither He thought he found a solution to redistribute the wealth accumulated by the Roman patricians: his idea cost him his life. In the middle of the second century BC, after destroying Carthage and Corinth, Rome had become the dominant power of the Mediterranean. However, this expansion it didn’t make everyone rich equally. For the humblest Roman peasants, it brought a devastating social crisis. The small landowners, who for centuries had cultivated their lands and served in the Roman legions, were displaced by large estates exploited with slave labor brought from the new conquered territories. The long military campaigns had prevented the soldiers peasants return in time to harvest their lands, which affected the economies of their families. Furthermore, upon their return they discovered that their lands had been expropriated by millionaire aristocrats from Rome. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchusgrandson of Scipio Africanus, the general that defeated to the Carthaginian Hannibaland heir to one of the most powerful families in Rome, was guaranteed a brilliant political future. However, in the year 133 BC, being elected tribune of the plebs, he decided to propose an agrarian reform with which he attempted to redistribute the enormous fortunes that Roman landowners had accumulated. Something similar to what is trying to make California and other countries all over the world. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus With this measure, Gracchus was directly confronting his own people since he himself came from a wealthy family. Its law established that no citizen could own more than 500 iugera (about 125 hectares) of public land, the so-called ager publicus. The plots that exceed that limit will be expropriated and handed over to landless peasants. A measure that, de facto, ended with the large estates in the hands of the richest romans. The objective of the measure was twofold: to restore economic solvency to the Roman people and to ensure that Rome had enough citizens with assets to nourish its legions, since only the owners They could serve as soldiers. Making friends among the richest According to the ancient sources of Plutarch, written between the years 96 AD and 117 AD, Tiberius did not seek to start a revolution against the rich, but to restore old republican laws that had fallen into disuse. To defend his reform, Tiberius gave speeches in front of the impoverished people of Rome. In one of his most famous, which was collected by Plutarchthe young tribune declared: “Their generals deceive them when, in battle, they encourage them to fight for the temples of their gods and for the tombs of their fathers. This is because, of a large number of Romans, not one has his own domestic altar or family tomb. They fight and die to feed the opulence and luxury of others, and, when they claim to be masters of the entire world, they do not even own a piece of land.” The Senate, dominated by large landowners, tried to block the reform by all means. They persuaded another tribune named Octavius ​​to veto the proposal, but Tiberius responded with a bold and unprecedented maneuver: he called for the assembly to remove Octavius ​​from office for acting against the interests of the people. The reform was finally approved and applied by distributing the large estates of the landowners among the Roman peasants. However, when Tiberius attempted to run for a second term as tribune, a practice then considered contrary to Roman tradition, the aristocracy decided he had gone too far. According to the historical documentationduring the elections in the Capitol, a group of senators led by the maximum pontiff Scipio Násica, a relative of Tiberius himself, burst in with a group of followers armed with clubs and with the legs of chairs torn from the Curia. In the sacred place, where swords were not allowed, They beat Tiberius to death and about 300 of his followers. His body was thrown into the Tiber River without allowing his family to bury him. Death of Tiberius Gracchus Ten years later, in 123 BC, Tiberius’ brother, Gaius Sempronius Gracchustook up the cause started by his brother with an even more ambitious program. Caius approved the Lex Frumentariawhich forced the State to distribute wheat among the plebs at prices below the market, laying the foundations of the food subsidy system that would last for centuries. He also proposed extending Roman citizenship to the Italic peoples who fought in Rome’s wars but did not enjoy its benefits. The Senate used populist tactics, warning that Italian foreigners would reduce aid to Roman citizens, and when Caius lost popular supportwas pursued to the Aventine Hill near Rome, where he ordered his faithful slave Philocrates to assassinate him. Nearly 3,000 of his supporters died with him. The legacy that survived violence Although the Senate murdered both brothers, it could not erase their legacy. The reforms that the Gracchi had proposed would finally be implemented decades later by order of Julius Caesar, who had a powerful army that protected him from suffering the same fate. The historians Plutarch and Appian left record of what happened with the Gracchus brothers centuries later, both agreed to portray Tiberius as a politician with solid ideas who looked to Rome’s past to find solutions to the problems suffered by his people. Paradoxically, although the story of the Gracchus brothers happened more than 2,000 years ago, we could find very similar references today with just a quick glance at the news. In Xataka | Mark Zuckerberg is going to change the California sun for Miami. You have 11 billion reasons to do it. Image | Wikimedia Commons (Lodovico Pogliaghi, Guillaume … Read more

Mistral is the AI ​​that is playing its cards best. Because it is taking advantage of the fever for European technological sovereignty

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To the cheetah being silent, Mistral grows like foam. The French artificial intelligence startup claims that its revenue has multiplied by 20 over the past year, and they have achieved it with a particularly striking and effective strategy: defending and promoting European technological sovereignty. what has happened. Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral, explains in Financial Times that its latest annualized revenue rate — which estimates annual revenue based on last month’s revenue — was above $400 million. A year ago that rate was only 20 million a year. Or what is the same: he has multiplied it by 20. This works. The startup based in Paris hasn’t stopped to grow since its beginnings and last year already was valued at 12,000 million euros. That figure may soon become obsolete, because the company is on track to surpass $1 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of the year if it continues this growth. Between their alliances more striking is the one who signed with ASML in September 2025: that was when the Dutch company invested 1.3 billion euros in it. It is not making too much noise, but it continues to grow with a key component. Companies in power. Mistral is rapidly expanding the number of large enterprise clients it works with. Right now it has more than 100, and although it is not especially popular among end users – who tend to choose models from Big Tech companies in the US – the option for these European companies is increasingly clear. If they want not to depend on infrastructure and control outside Europe, they now have Mistral as a great alternative. New data centers. The firm announced this Wednesday that it will invest 1.2 billion euros in a new data center in Sweden. It is the first center of its kind that the company will build outside of France, and Mensch explained that “We are diversifying and distributing our capacity throughout Europe.” That data center will be created in collaboration with EcoDataCenter, and is expected to be operational in 2027. The choice of Sweden was easy according to Mensch, who noted that it was very attractive because the energy there was “low in carbon emissions and relatively cheap.” Partners and clients deep inside but also outside the EU. Although Mistral is postulated as the great reference in terms of this “European AI”, it also has Microsoft and NVIDIA as investors. In fact its ambition is global, but the fact of being the only major European developer of foundational LLMs It has put it in the spotlight of all European companies that seek independence from partners from the US or China. ASML, Total Energies, HSBC and governments such as France, Germany and Greece already use Mistral’s services, and 60% of their revenue comes from Europe. A perfect speech for these times. The CEO of Mistral is clear about the strategy and has arrived at the right time to apply that strategy that defends European sovereignty: “Europe has realized that its dependence on American digital services was excessive and is now at a critical point. We give them (European companies) an advantage because we provide them with models, software and computing capacity completely independent of American players.” Data centers must be from European companies. Mensch also talked about all those data centers than Big Tech will create in Europe and, of course, in Spain: “It is important that we realize that it is not so useful (for States) to deploy computing resources if you only create data centers for US hyperscalers“. Or what is the same: having AI data centers from companies like Microsoft, Google or Amazon in Europe serves the interests of these companies much more than European interests. In Xataka | Europe has begun to become technologically and militarily independent from the United States. First stop: replace Starlink

Mexico knows that the future lies in technological sovereignty and has already chosen its “Silicon Valley: Jalisco and Sonora

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Mexico has undertaken the adventure of technological sovereignty. With her arrival to the presidency, Claudia Sheinbaum set the modest goal of “continuing to make Mexico the best country in the world.” To this end, he presented the ‘Mexico Plan‘, a roadmap to attract investment and develop industries such as biotechnology, electric cars or that of semiconductors. And the foundations for that ambitious chip manufacturing plan are already being built with a single idea in mind. Technological sovereignty. Kutsari. Silicon is extracted from sand and this is precisely what ‘kutsari’ means in Purépecha. It is also the name of Kutsari Project that seeks to stop importing a large part of the semiconductors that Mexico needs for the products it already manufactures. Puebla, Jalisco and Sonora are the three locations chosen to develop a plan that only pursues one objective: to stop being a country that assembles chips to become one that designs, manufactures and sells them. Jalisco moves. Since the project was announced, steps have been taken to get it started, and as we read in MillenniumJalisco has not wasted time. One of the poles of Kutsari will be the Cinvestav -Center for Research and Advanced Studies-. The reason is that it is the only institution in the country that has an agreement with Intel to generate integrated circuits in 16 nanometer lithography. Jalisco was already a semiconductor manufacturing point at the end of the last century and the Intel Design Center is located in the same area. That is why Jalisco has already been nicknamed the ‘Silicon Valley of Latin America’, a ‘hub’ in which different technology companies are settling, especially those dedicated to semiconductors, and which is bringing foreign investment. According to Pablo Lemusgovernor of Jalisco, if Mexico’s economy grew by 0.5%, due to that investment Jalisco’s grew by 4%. Sonora winks at the US. Another of the axes in this objective of technological sovereignty is Sonora. Recently, it signed an agreement to locate the Semiconductor Research and Development Center at the University of Sonora. Apart from being another thinking mind in the semiconductor strategy, Sonora has an advantage: the Mexico-US Trade Corridor, which seeks greater investment and regional connectivity. In the end, Sonora and Jalisco are taking steps in the same direction: investment, consolidation of already established infrastructures, construction of new buildings and strengthening agreements to attract talent. Goal: 2028. As they say, things in the palace move slowly, and currently both states are in a phase that we could classify as pre-production. They are preparing the ground in parallel, making advances in design, but also in talent and the ecosystem to create the chip production chain. Let’s remember the importance of having all this tied up (and the closer, the better), since it is one of the secrets behind the leadership of the Taiwanese TSMC. Once everything is ready, the manufacturing phase will begin, and in this sense, we also have to talk about the state of Puebla. In the municipality of Cholula will locate one of Mexico’s semiconductor production plants, one that will take advantage of all that knowledge developed by Jalisco and Sonora and that, it is expected, will begin producing chips by 2028 with an eye toward commercialization by 2029. Competence. It seems like a long time, but it is really a very short period to shape an industry as complex as semiconductors. But, obviously, you have to start somewhere and the latest advances in the Kutsari project show that Mexico remains determined to achieve a certain sovereignty in the chip segment. Now, we will see how far Mexico’s aspirations go and if its production is sufficient to satisfy the global market or it has to “settle” for the domestic market. The reason is that the component crisis of 2020 and the current RAM crisis It is teaching us something: you cannot depend on one country or a handful of companies. And there, Vietnam, India and China are strengthening for break technological hegemony which is currently in the hands of a few. This implies greater competition, but if Mexico’s plans go well, it also represents an opportunity that should not be missed. Image | ASML (edited) In Xataka | There is a global race to gain hegemony of critical minerals. And Mexico has just taken a key step

The Winter Olympics are facing the most unexpected technological doping: penis punctures

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Human beings have always had a special relationship with flight. They say that Icarus flew so high to leave Crete that his wings ended up melting due to the action of the sun. Many years later, in 1903, the Wright brothers took flight for 12 seconds. Since then, all types of aircraft and flying accessories have been developed: from the commercial airplanes to the military, passing through the zeppelins and all kinds of gadgets for extreme sports. What we never imagined is that one of those gadgets was going to take on an unexpected name: penis. What has happened? Something as simple as it is complex: the ski jumpers’ penis is in the spotlight. Coinciding with the Winter Olympic Games which begin on Friday, February 6, 2026 in northern Italy, a rumor has spread that athletes are using their penises as part of technological doping that would make them fly further. The information that pointed to possible (and more than peculiar) doping among ski jumpers has its origin in information from the German newspaper Bild last January. It noted that athletes were injecting hyaluronic acid into their penises to increase their size. The goal, fly further. Literally. Because? Ski jumpers cannot use the suit that best suits them. Before the competitions, the responsible federation carries out 3D studies of the athletes’ bodies so that they use the suits that best fit their bodies. If the jumper reached these measurements with a swollen penis, he could use a larger size in his suit. This would create a larger surface area and, therefore, help keep it in the air longer, performing functions similar to those of a parachute. Unlike a boxer, who lose weight before going on the scale often dehydrating, in this case it is about increasing the size of the penis so that when it jumps it is smaller and than on fabric. Click on the image to go to the original tweet 5.8 meters. Winter sports, like any other elite sport, have become a race for marginal gains that can make all the difference when it comes to seconds, meters and, in this case, centimeters. According to The Timesincreasing the crotch area by two centimeters can represent a benefit of up to 5.8 meters. That, in terms of scoring, can make the difference between winning or not a medal and its color. In ski jumping, distance and technique are measured in two separate scoresincluding a wind correction. Is it doping? It’s the big question here. For now, WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) seems to be washing its hands, pointing out that injecting hyaluronic acid into the penis does not seem to increase performance of athletes. In this case we would talk about technological doping. That is, use the material used to your advantage to achieve marginal advantages that make a difference. In The New York Times They highlight that it would not be the first case of technological doping that would be studied in these Winter Olympic Games. England has been prohibited from participating with new helmets in the Skeleton test that improved the aerodynamics of its athletes. From England they defend themselves ensuring that these new helmets are safer than the old ones. Looking for the loophole in the regulations. Since the professionalization of the sport, efforts have been made to look for loopholes in the regulations to use them for their own benefit. The clearest example is in Formula 1 that has been seen since cars with six wheels to single-seaters that use turbines. Moto GP now lives in a constant obsession with aerodynamics. But playing on the margins is something that has also been used in sports where the athlete’s physique is decisive. Athletics has put the brakes on to the use of new foams and carbon plates in shoes that have broken records. In cycling too he has looked at his socks with a magnifying glass and it has been banned the use of the transistor on the chest for improve aerodynamics of the body. Although, probably, the case most similar to Penisgate It is that of the full-body swimsuits made entirely of polyurethane that caused a before and after in the history of swimming. Its use was prohibited because it increased the swimmer’s buoyancy.. But, above all, after 14 international records were broken at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and, already popularized, up to 43 world records were broken at the World Swimming Championships the following year in Rome. Photo | Todd Trapani In Xataka | This Dutch team has given its cyclists enormous “Darth Vader” helmets. And he has good reasons

There is an island without which the world would not function. This is how Taiwan has become a world technological epicenter: Crossover 1×35

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In February 1974, the Prime Minister of Taiwan met with a small group of experts and together they came to a conclusion: the country had a difficult time with the economic strategy of the time, and they had to make a bet on the future. That bet They were, of course, the semiconductors. That famous meeting marked a before and after for a country that has a very delicate geopolitical situation. China considers it a rogue state, but while they have their own government and currency. Despite this tension, Taiwan has managed to become a strategic partner of countries such as the aforementioned China or the United States, and in both cases for the same reason: chips. Taiwan has managed to become a absolute giant in the semiconductor industry, and this is demonstrated by the company that It is the crown jewel of the country: TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company). Since it was founded in 1987, the company has grown and its alliance with Apple in the early 2010s has proven crucial to its current dominance. But before all that happened, Taiwan went through a complicated process that included wars and dominance by Japan for nearly half a century. In this episode of Crossover we precisely analyze the history of this peculiar island and how it faces a future that, even with its current position, is full of challenges. On YouTube | Crossover In Xataka | TSMC’s only problem was that it was in Taiwan. So the United States has decided to get her out of there

Quietly, Big Tech are ceasing to be exclusively technological companies to be something else: energy

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Big technology companies not only compete for AI engineers. Now they also do it by energy profiles. And it is no wonder, because without the electricity that powers mammoth data centers necessary for AI tools to remain operational, the AI ​​race slows down. A bottleneck. AI has become the strategic axis of Big Tech, but its biggest bottleneck is no longer the talent around its systems, but access to energy. Data centers training and running larger and larger models consume massive amounts of electricityand guaranteeing that supply has become a business priority. According to account According to CNBC, with data collected by Workforce.ai, the hiring of energy-related profiles grew by 34% year-on-year in 2024. Numbers. As the media reports, a similar jump also occurred last year, with a level of energy profile hiring 30% above that of 2022, just before the explosion of generative AI after the launch of ChatGPT. The main reason is structural, since data centers represented approximately 1.5% of global electricity consumption in 2024, after growing 12% in five years, according to data of the International Energy Agency. Everything indicates that this demand will continue to increase as new AI infrastructure is deployed. What profiles are you looking for?n the Big Tech. According to stands out the middle, Technology companies are looking for much more operational positions: experts in energy purchasing, electricity markets, grid connection and energy strategy. CNBC reports that these positions are directly linked to ensuring real supply, not only to improving the environmental image of companies. Furthermore, not everything is about guaranteeing supply at any cost, but also about ensuring that electricity can be obtained in the most efficient way possible. Who is winning the talent war. Amazon and Microsoft lead in volume of energy signings from 2022, according to point the middle. Amazon has more than 600 additions (including AWS), while Microsoft has more than 570. In the case of the latter, in 2024 signed Carolina Dybeck Happe, former chief financial officer of General Electric, as chief operating officer, a gesture that many interpret as a strategic commitment to integrate energy and management on a large scale. Google, for its part, has accelerated in recent months with more than 300 hires, incorporating profiles from both large energy companies and the academic world. Between the lines. The strategy is not limited to hiring people. Big tech is also buying other companies. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, agreed the acquisition of data center company Intersect for about 4.75 billion dollars. At the same time, they outsource key phases such as the construction of infrastructure, relying on temporary contracts to manage projects, land and works. The clash with the traditional energy sector. The medium too points outthrough data provided by specialized consulting firms, that more and more senior energy infrastructure professionals are considering making the leap into technology, attracted by higher salaries and projects linked to data centers. The problem is that the most in-demand profiles, such as energy strategy or grid connection, were already scarce in the traditional and renewable energy sector. This has led to a tighter and more competitive talent market. Not everything is direct absorption. Some analysts also see opportunities for electricity companies. Travis Miller, energy and utilities analyst at Morningstar, explains to CNBC that the magnitude of the demand makes it unfeasible for Big Tech to do everything on their own. In many cases, they will rely on traditional public service groups to develop infrastructure and operate networks, which can translate into new revenue and employment in the sector. And now what. The border between technology and energy is being diluted in a very interesting way. Meta, Amazon, Google or Microsoft already sign long-term power purchase agreements, even with nuclear projectsand some have requested permits to trade electricity and sell surpluses to the grid. “There are technology companies that are becoming energy companies,” account Daniel Smart, CEO of The Green Recruitment Company, in the middle. Of course, for now, only to feed its own AI. Cover image | Microsoft In Xataka | AI is creating a new paradigm of success: products that everyone uses but have to close due to lack of income

We still don’t know if humanoid robots will be the next great technological revolution. Yes we know that China will lead it

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There are a lot of companies determined to sell us the idea that, in the not too distant future, everyone we will have a humanoid robot at home. We have many doubts that they will be the revolution that they promise (and there are reasons for this), but in China they have it very clear. Patents. They count in South China Morning Post that Morgan Stanley has published volume 3 of its series ‘Robot Almanac‘, which details some key data on the state of the humanoid robot industry. China is far ahead when it comes to patents, having registered 7,705 patents in the last five years, while in the United States they have registered 1,561, almost five times less than its technological rival par excellence. Dependence. It’s not just about patents, China has another key advantage and that is that its production lines are much more efficient from a cost point of view. This causes the rest of the companies that manufacture humanoids to depend on them if they do not want their production costs to skyrocket. The cost of building a supply chain in which China was left out would raise prices exponentially. The report estimates that manufacturing the Tesla Optimus Gen 2 without China’s participation would raise the cost from about $46,000 to $131,000. Obsession with robots. Humanoid robots from companies like Unitree or Deep Robotics have been in the public eye for a long time. We have seen them participate in the first robotic olympics, fight, play soccer and how dance corps in macro concerts. They are appearances clearly focused on going viral, showing their capabilities to the world and, ultimately, making people see them as something cool and want to buy one. However, although humanoids take all the spotlight, they are only the tip of the iceberg of a strategy that goes much further. Personified AI. In English it would be ’embodied AI’ and it is the approach that China has taken in his particular AI career. The government included the term in his job report this year, which highlights its strategic importance. More than large language and software models, China wants AI that is present, whether in the form of humanoid robots, drones, autonomous vehicles or industrial robots. Speaking of industry, guess who has 51% of all industrial robots in the world. Exactly: China. Industrial robots. According to data from Financial TimesChina installs 280,000 robots a year in its factories with a clear objective: automate to achieve greater efficiency and power continue being the factory of the world. Now that workers’ salaries are higherthe way they have found to remain competitive against markets like India or Bangladesh is automation. Image | Andy Kelly in Unsplash In Xataka | I have asked for water from the first humanoid robot working in Beijing. It’s a weird vending machine.

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