winning

China has started a battle against the US and Japan that no one is talking about. And it is crucial to winning the chip war

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In the semiconductor war that the US and China are fighting Companies that specialize in the manufacture of photolithography equipment tend to attract attention, such as ASML; those that design the chips, such as NVIDIA or AMD; and the companies that produce them, such as TSMC or Samsung. However, in this complex network there are other much less known companies that also play an essential role in the integrated circuit industry. One of them is the Japanese company JSR Corporation. This entity is one of the industrial strongholds of Japan. And it is because it supplies its photoresist liquids to most of the semiconductor manufacturers that produce cutting-edge chips, helping to sustain Japan’s leadership in a very important area that usually goes unnoticed: that of the manufacture of advanced materials to produce integrated circuits. For China to have its own advanced photoresist liquids in your path to total independence of its chip industry is crucial, so its plan involves break Japan’s monopoly in no more than five years. China prepares to intimidate Japan The photolithography equipment designed and produced by ASML is responsible, very roughly, for transferring the geometric pattern described by the mask with great precision to the surface of the silicon wafer. In this area we can observe the pattern as the “drawing” that delimits the distribution of the transistors, the connections and the other elements that make up an integrated circuit. Before transferring the geometric pattern to the wafer, it is necessary to pour a liquid capable of absorbing light and preserving the pattern on it. However, before reaching this very important step, it is necessary to subject the wafers to a process known as deposition. It usually involves equipment manufactured by Tokyo Electron or Applied Materials. Its purpose is prepare silicon wafers for the transfer of the geometric pattern by depositing a very thin layer of material on them. Depending on the type of chip being manufactured, it will be necessary to use one material or another. One of the most used deposition techniques is known as oxidation, and consists of taking advantage of the ability of silicon to form a very thin layer of oxide when reacting with water. Its purpose is to protect the transistors and other chip components from external contamination. However, before transferring the geometric pattern to the wafer using lithography equipment, it is necessary to pour a liquid capable of absorbing light and preserving the pattern on it. This is the function of the photoresist fluid. During the last two decades, all companies specialized in the production of photoresist materials have been Japanese. In fact, Japan has since then the monopoly of this marketwhich is currently led by JSR Corporation. For the US, one of its main allies should lead this market not a problembut the possibility of China developing the capacity to produce its own advanced photoresist materials on its path to cutting-edge chip manufacturing is an issue. The Chinese government knows that photoresist production is a critical bottleneck, which is why its latest five-year plan has set out to resolve it. Xuzhou B&C Chemical, which is one of the leading photoresist materials manufacturers in China, anticipates that in at most five years will have the capacity to produce large-scale advanced KrF photoresists (Krypton Fluoride) and ArF (Argon Fluoride). Precisely this last material is commonly used in nodes equipped with deep ultraviolet (UVP) lithography equipment. However, the great challenge facing China is the development of photoresists suitable for the production of integrated circuits in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) nodes. We will see what achievements it achieves over the next five years. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | SCMP In Xataka | Japan takes the lead with nuclear fusion and sets an extremely ambitious date: the 2030s

Anthropic is winning the enterprise AI race, so OpenAI has a new plan: become Anthropic

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OpenAI has thrown out everything that moved in AI. They have been launching everything: a video generatora web browser with AI, an image generator with Studio Ghibli styletools e-commerceetc. The logic was simple: whoever tries everything has more chances to get something right, but the result has ended up being the opposite. While OpenAI seemed to be everywhere, Anthropic was focused on a single site and It has managed to eat the land where it mattered most. Enough of trying everything. Fidji Simo, the board that Altman signed last summer, recently called upon employees to give them a message that is rarely heard in a company with the growth of OpenAI: their main rival was teaching them a lesson. What Anthropic is doing, Simo explained, should be a wake-up call for OpenAI, which has lost leadership among software developers and enterprise customers. “We cannot waste this moment because we are distracted by parallel projects,” he stressed. The hidden cost of doing a little of everything. The problem with shooting at everything that moves is not only the focus, but the resources that this implies. In companies that develop foundational models, the key resource is computing capacity, and at OpenAI that resource jumped from one team to another depending on the priorities of the day. The Sora team, for example, was integrated into the research division despite being one of the company’s most visible products. OpenAI was growing fast in too many directions, and that also created internal tensions over which project should be prioritized. Anthropic focused on one thing. As OpenAI diversified, Its main rival adopted a completely opposite strategy: few products, a lot of depth. Claude does not generate images or video, does not have his own browser and is not trying to create his own chips (at the moment). It is dedicated to creating foundational models and offering them both in web service mode and especially through APIs for companies and developers. Claude Code, its flagship product for programming, became a viral phenomenon among software engineers last fall, and has ended up consolidating itself as the reference tool among amateur developers—vibe coding is still going strong—and of course among technical teams in all types of companies. OpenAI strikes back. The response has not been long in coming: OpenAI launched last month a new version of Codexhis programming tool, and accompanied it with new GPT-5.4 which is precisely much more oriented towards professional environments. According to Simo itself, Codex already exceeds two million weekly active users, almost four times more than at the beginning of the year. To drive usage of its product, OpenAI is deploying engineers to consulting firms and business partners to accelerate adoption of these products. IPO on the horizon. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are taking clear steps towards an IPO which in fact could occur this year. That makes gaining share in the corporate market—which is the one that really pays, the one that signs contracts, and the one that justifies valuations—absolutely essential for these IPOs to be successful. The initial share price and real valuation of these companies will depend on how well positioned they are, and at OpenAI they want to recover the lost ground in the enterprise market. In the meeting with the staff Simo explained that “we are acting as if this were a code red.” The paradox of being the pioneer. OpenAI unleashed the AI ​​fever with the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 and made generative AI an almost everyday phenomenon. However, being the first usually has a trap, because it forces you to explore and diversify to maintain your reference position and that is very expensive. Anthropic came along later, saw where the real money was, and focused specifically on that sector. The student has surpassed the teacher, it seems, and at OpenAI they want to correct the strategy. What will happen to so much product?. It remains to be seen how this OpenAI strategy affects its entire product catalog. If you start focusing on developers and enterprise solutions, what will happen to your imager, Sora or Atlas? The structural tension between being a “research laboratory” and being a “product company” can pose a challenge for a company that naturally did not stop exploring new ideas to apply AI to them. Image | TechCrunch | Wikimedia Commons In Xataka | Sam Altman says he’s terrified of a world where AI companies believe themselves to be more powerful than the government. It’s just what you’re building

Netflix spends 17 billion on producing content and YouTube does it for free. And that’s why YouTube is winning the game

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Alphabet first revealed in its Q4 2025 earnings report that YouTube generated more than 60 billion dollars over the past year, adding advertising revenue and subscriptions. The figure is 33% higher than the 45,000 million that Netflix reached in the same period and places the video platform above all the entertainment giants except Disney, which had a turnover of 95.7 billion. The data confirms what many in the industry already sensed: YouTube is not simply another competitor in the online video market, but the main beneficiary of the transformation in audiovisual consumption habits. Paradigm shift. YouTube’s victory reflects a profound transformation in how we consume video. While subscription platforms opted for the Netflix model (closed catalogs of professional productions), YouTube added in July 2025 13.4% of total television viewing time in the United States. It expanded its lead over Disney (9.4%) to establish the largest difference recorded since these measurements began. Youtube on your TV. Time spent watching YouTube on television has grown 53% since February 2023. The traditional streaming market, meanwhile, is going through what is known as “subscription fatigue“: the average number of subscriptions per consumer in the European market has stagnated at 2.35 in both 2023 and 2024, after growing systematically for years. This saturation has caused structural changes: the number of original series released in the United States fell 11% in 2025third consecutive year of declines from the 2022 peak. The difference in the plan. Breaking down where the money comes from can point to the reasons for this triumph. Of the 60,000 million in YouTube revenue, we have: Advertising revenue in the last quarter of the year was 11.38 billion dollars, with a growth of 8.7% year-on-year 325 million paid subscriptions on all your consumer services, such as YouTube Music or YouTube Premium For its part, Netflix: It reported revenue of $12.05 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, with a growth of 17.6% For the year as a whole, the platform reached $45.2 billion, with more than 325 million paid memberships The most notable difference lies in the business model. While YouTube maintains a hybrid model where advertising remains dominant, Netflix revealed its advertising figures for the first time: in 2025, its third year selling ads, advertising revenue exceeded $1.5 billion, multiplying by more than 2.5 compared to 2024. The company projects double that ad revenue in 2026. Why YouTube wins. YouTube’s competitive advantage lies in features that traditional platforms cannot replicate. On the one hand, the radical democratization of content creation: Netflix invests 17 billion dollars annually to produce, while on YouTube the creators assume the production costs. The base of 69 million creators generates a volume of content that is impossible to match: every minute 500 hours of video are uploaded to the platform The second differentiating factor is the algorithmic recommendation system. YouTube’s recommendation system uses large-scale language models that can handle massive amounts of data. This allows YouTube to do something that closed catalog platforms cannot: recommend videos based not only on general categories, but by fine-tuning suggestions based on specific interests. In 2025, YouTube’s recommendation system is the most sophisticated and user-focused. The third advantage is the absence of entry barriers for the public. While Netflix requires a mandatory subscription, YouTube offers free ad-supported access, with premium subscription as an option. This hybrid model maximizes potential reach: YouTube’s monthly active user base reached approximately 2.7 billion people in early 2025. This means that more than 25% of the world’s population uses YouTube in any given month. What it points to. YouTube’s triumph over Netflix in annual revenue represents more than a change in leadership: it signals a structural transformation in how audiovisual content is produced, distributed and monetized. The centralized studio model, a direct heir to the Hollywood system, is giving way to a decentralized ecosystem where millions of creators generate content for hyper-segmented audiences. And the implications for the industry are very profound. Header | Photo of NordWood Themes in Unsplash In Xataka | A YouTube video that lasts 140 years has gone viral. Nobody is clear why

today it is winning contracts in Vietnam thanks to it

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Ineco and Renfe have obtained the initial contract to develop Vietnam’s first high-speed linea 1,541-kilometer corridor between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh with a planned investment of 67 billion dollars. This macro project joins the long list of large railway constructions in which Spanish operators participate. Why it is important. Vietnam joins an increasingly extensive list of countries that have chosen to trust Spanish railway companies to develop their high-speed networks. Let us remember that Renfe already has more than three decades of experience in the AVE and it is the second most extensive network in the world. after china. The national market is saturated, for this reason and among other reasons, Spain has converted its railway model into a strategic export product. The contract in Vietnam comes after the visit of Pedro Sánchez to the Asian country last April, and is a symptom that the most important Spanish railway operators continue to have a presence in emerging markets. A corridor that would pass through almost the entire coast of Vietnam. Image: Óscar Puente (X) In detail. Ineco will lead the winning consortium together with the French company Artelia and the local RCIC, with Renfe Proyectos Internacionales as the main collaborator. Just like they count From El Economista, for more than ten months, the team will develop the technical, economic and operational feasibility study, in addition to the basic engineering that will define the scope, requirements and costs of the project. Ineco will be in charge of the railway layout, civil works, tunnels, structures, electrical supply and BIM methodology. This work will be the key for the Vietnamese Government to decide on the next phases of the project. A list that never stops growing. The Vietnam project joins a long list of railway projects outside Spain. The best known case is the Haramain High Speed ​​Railway in Saudi Arabia, where a consortium led by Spanish companies built and operates the 450 kilometers between Mecca and Medina. But the list is extensive: Renfe operates international services in France, Talgo has supplied high-speed trains to Uzbekistan and is present in the German market with a framework contract for up to 65 trains for FlixTrain, CAF manufactures rolling stock for Morocco, and Ineco and Renfe participate in projects such as Rail Baltica in the Baltic countries or the Dallas-Houston corridor in the United States. There is also collaboration on the Mexican Mayan Train and technical advice in multiple markets. Between the lines. The strategy combines public and private presence. Ineco currently has 134 contracts in 34 countries, and Renfe seeks 10% of its income to come from international markets in 2028, as account the middle. The public operator already has a presence in Saudi Arabia, France, Italy, Mexico and the United States, and has recently closed a strategic alliance with Central Japan Railway to compete together in high-speed projects. Since the beginning of the AVE. Spain began its commitment to high-speed rail in the early 1990s, with the inauguration of the Madrid-Seville AVE in 1992, and since then it has developed an extensive network and notable technical capacity in rail planning, construction and operation. Much of the reason why Spanish companies and public organizations have been able to successfully participate in international projects has been thanks to this accumulated experience of more than three decades. And now what. The next step will be to check if any Spanish operator or construction company also manages to position itself for the construction and operation phase of the Vietnamese AVE, the ballots are there. Furthermore, the Spanish presence in Asia continues to grow: Ineco maintains an office in Singapore, has worked in Malaysia and as well as indicates El Economista also shows interest in Thailand and Japan. The project would open its doors to a market of more than 100 million inhabitants. Óscar Puente has not hesitated either show your chest on social networksalthough it is truly true that Spanish companies are having an increasing presence in railway projects of such magnitude at an international level. Cover image | Sam Williams and Kabelleger / David Gubler In Xataka | Ten years ago, seeing the blue sky of Beijing was nothing short of a pipe dream. Until electric cars arrived

There is brutal competition to guard the fortunes of the planet’s millionaires. The same guy as always is winning: Switzerland

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The ultra-rich around the world move their millions of dollars in search of the place safer for your fortunes. In recent years, countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia they have stepped on the accelerator as a destination for the greatest fortunes in the world. However, amid the latest geopolitical tensions, a report from the consulting firm Boston Consulting Group reveals a disturbing fact: Asian millionaires are turning their gaze to the old and reliable Switzerland to protect your wealth. According what was published for him Financial Timesmany Asian millionaires are diversifying the refuge for their assets and, instead of keeping them in their place of residence in Hong Kong, Dubai and Singapore, they prefer to deposit part of their fortune in Swiss banks. Switzerland remains the world’s safe deposit box. According to the report Global Wealth Report 2025 Prepared by Boston Consulting Group, Switzerland managed $2.74 trillion in assets in 2024, which maintains it as the main offshore wealth center in the world. Very close to Switzerland’s management figures are important economic enclaves in Asia such as Hong Kong (which managed 2.65 trillion dollars) and Singapore (with 1.92 trillion dollars in the same year). The study estimates that, by 2029, these three destinations will concentrate almost two thirds of the new cross-border wealth. Boom of the rich in Asia. The study recognizes the enormous growth of Asian and Middle Eastern wealth centers, which have recorded a growth 50% since 2014. However, many of these funds end up in Switzerland, registering a increase in wealth cross-border savings held in the coffers of Swiss banks of 8.7% in 2024, up from 6.3% annually recorded in 2023. That is, although Asia has become a fertile ground for generating wealth, millionaires continue to see Switzerland as a safer place to store it. Geopolitical concerns. One of the main reasons for this behavior of the great fortunes settled in Asia are the political and geopolitical decisions that increase economic uncertainty. An example cited in the report points out that events such as the implementation of the national security law in Hong Kong in 2019 or the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, raised questions about the security of assets in Asia. “Private banking focuses on diversifying geopolitical risk: clients are always looking for safe havens,” declared to Financial Times Giorgio Pradelli, CEO of the Swiss private bank EFG. “Clients increasingly began to feel that, geopolitically, the situation was less predictable and therefore it was important to have assets in different jurisdictions,” says Christian Cappelli, head of Julius Baer’s Asia office in Zurich. Financial Times. That is, they were betting on sending part of their fortune to Switzerland to protect themselves against economic blockades, political changes or war conflicts. London is no longer a refuge. On the other hand, the tax changes that the United Kingdom has implemented have caused London to lose much of your interest for millionaires Asians, putting Zurich back on the map. According to Christian Frie, head of the Asia-Pacific business in Switzerland for LGT Private Banking, the majority of Asian clients managed by his banking entity allocate between 10% and 15% of their assets outside their countries, mainly to Switzerlandaccording to the report The Global Entrepreneurial Wealth Report 2025 prepared by UBS. In Xataka | The rich neighborhoods of Madrid and Barcelona have changed their accent: millionaires from the US and Mexico invest their fortunes in Spain Image | Pexels (Peter Steiner), Unsplash (Chi Lok TSANG)

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

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

It’s about how Asia is winning the cultural battle

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When I went to China for the first time in November 2023 with other colleagues, one of my travel companions wanted to take advantage of the few free hours we had to buy a Labubu to give to his daughter. I had no idea what he was talking about. He explained it to me and I stayed the same. A couple of years later, the Labubu are such a mainstream phenomenon that POP MART has opened its first store on Gran Vía and They even appear in ‘South Park’, one of the reference adult series in the West of the last 30 years (with permission from The Simpsons). The opening of a POP MART on the most iconic street in Spain, where theaters, popular fashion brands and franchises gather (special mention deserves Uniqlo and Miniso), is just the tip of the iceberg of something: the East is no longer just the factory of the world (with China as a prominent head), its weight has transcended from the industrial to the cultural to sneak into the mainstream of the West. It is a true victory for Asian pop culture, until now concentrated in its own borders with few exceptions that transcended the niche to the popular. The attractive lottery of the closed box. Of David Beckham to Rihanna passing through Dua Lipa either Lisa from Blackpink: They all have their Labubu. Born in 2015 by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung for his illustrated book series “The Monsters”, the Labubu they exploded when POP MART started releasing them as collectibles in surprise boxes back in 2019. What started as something niche has become a trend that knows no boundaries or classes. They have them to the Thai royal house and when there is stock, it flies: fans crowd at the door in such a way that you don’t know if they are queuing to buy a ticket for a concert or if there is a rare edition. And she can be a millionaire: the human-sized, mint green Labubu has been auctioned for 230,000 Australian dollars. The Labubu as an expression of identity, status and belonging. You don’t know which one you’re going to get until you open them like it’s the reward mechanism in a video game. Of course, Labubu is not just for boys and girls. It reflects changes in consumer culture reaching millennial and generation Z adults thanks to collecting, nostalgia and the need for comfort. You buy more than a doll: it is an experience full of emotion, the status that comes with having the most exclusive edition and of course, the profitability of resale. It is the almost ideal intersection between gaming and finance: a supply and demand market where assets are stuffed. And little joke with this: POP MART has had to suspend sales in cities like london due to fights between fans and the counterfeit market It is already a reality. Whether you see it as a toy or a fashion accessory, what is clear is that Labubu has emerged as the spearhead of the soft power Chinese. China no longer (only) manufactures products, it also manufactures desire A lot of muscle, a little soft power. China is the second largest economy in the world, but in cultural influence it is quite a few steps below. The Asian giant has a legendary cultural heritage of more than 5,000 years, but for the West it is limited to silk or tea. Naming a movie or a movie star comes down to Bruce Lee (American-Hong Kong born in San Francisco). The reasons? Many and varied: from following content guidelines from the Chinese Government and censorship, but also from considering it as lower quality from a prejudiced perception. China is no longer exotic, it’s cool. First it was economically, but China is also opening up culturally to Western markets, more products appear on social networks and Western audiovisuals and the West is welcoming them with open arms. China had started promoting its brands, the New Silk Road wave visa-free entry for tourism, but nothing as effective as an innocent stuffed animal that has transcended thanks to fans, TikTok and celebrities. At a time (actually, it almost doesn’t matter when you read this) when the global perception of China is often shaped by geopolitics and surveillance, Labubu offers something different, adorable, creative and exciting. And they are not alone: ​​the game’Black Myth: Wukong‘ was a global hit in 2024 and more of the same for the ice cream and bubble tea chain Mixueto cite a couple of examples. It may end up being another fad, but right now they are objects of aspiration and desire. It is proof that Chinese cultural products can do it. That POP MART stores are in the most central streets of large cities is another way to demonstrate this. It has taken Labubu a decade to get here, China will probably have a harder time creating a solid narrative around its cultural products such as Nintendo and its Mario universe. But it’s on its way. China begins to look closely at Japan and Korea. The country of the rising sun is famous for its exports of anime, fashion and gastronomy and since 2010 it has in its strategy “Cool Japan“a government strategy to promote its creative industries abroad. However, this initiative has had its ups and downsthe weight of the market and fans in hits like Pokémon or ramen being undoubted. South Korea has what is probably Asia’s latest and most effective softpower model. With strong support from the state, the Korean wave has achieved great successes from the film ‘Parasites’ to the K-pop phenomenon. China with Labubu is another third way, with a commercial ecosystem focused on intellectual property, lifestyle and trends. In Xataka | There are people burning their Labubus in nets. The reason: a crazy theory that links them to a Mesopotamian devil In Xataka | The Labubu’s half-humanity bags are becoming too small. So its creator already knows how to … Read more

Mathematicians have a simple way to increase the odds of winning the jackpot. Another thing is that it compensates

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By more than try Abel Caballero, the beginning of Christmas (at least in Spain) is not marked by the lighting of the lights of Vigo, but by a much more consolidated tradition: the raffle of the Christmas Lottery. Every December 22, thousands of Spaniards tune in to TV, radio or press the ‘F5’ key on their computers every so often in the hope that the children of San Idelfonso sing your number. However, the probability of this happening is very low, as much as choosing a name at random from the census of a city and getting it right. The question is… Are there ways to expand that probability? 1 in 100,000. The Christmas Lottery generates excitement and makes thousands of Spaniards get out of bed on December 22 with a special tingle: the hope of seeing how their bank accounts suddenly add a handful more zeros. That is undeniable. Just as it is that, if we leave aside the illusion, the chances of our tenth(s) winning are very small. Lower case. The data speaks for itself and leaves little room for hope: in the hype 100,000 balls enter with numbers from 00000 to 99,999. Your number has the same exit options as the other 99,999, one 0.001% probability. Mathematics VS hope. “In these cases the probability is easy to calculate. Since all numbers are equally probable (there is a ball for each number), it would be calculated with Laplace’s rule: the number of favorable cases divided by the number of possible cases,” comments Miguel Ángel Morales, mathematician and author of the blog Gaussians for almost two decades. “Assuming that we have only one tenth, the probability of winning El Gordo would be 1 (there is only one Gordo) in 100,000 (since there are 100,000 numbers that enter the draw). That is, a probability of 0.00001.” What does that mean? Since talking about drums, tenths and statistics can be too abstract, Morales transfers the figures to something we are much more accustomed to: people. In this case we would exchange the tenths for cards and the drums for the municipal registry of a medium-sized city. “Let’s imagine that we have a DNI of someone from Santiago de Compostela and a list with the names of all its inhabitants (about 1,000,000),” reflects the professor. “The probability would be similar to the one we have of choosing one of those names at random and turning out to be the person with the DNI that we had at the beginning.” “If we talk about the total number of prizes, the way to calculate the probability would be the same: we would have to change the 1 (a single Gordo) for the number of prizes. Sticking to the main prizes, as there is a First, a Second, a Third, two Fourths and eight Fifths, the probability of getting a main prize with a single tenth would be 13 divided by 100000, 0.00013.” The big question. There is no Christmas without its Lottery and there is no draw in which it is not considered the same question: Do we have any way to increase our chances of success, however slim they may be? Is there any way to scratch a little more probability, even a few tenths? The answer is yes. And not. The starting data is what it is, but precisely for this reason our chances of being happy on the morning of December 22 increase as the number of different tenths that we have in our portfolio increases. More options? More tenths? “The only way to increase the probabilities is, effectively, to buy more tenths of different numbers,” confirms Morales. “If we have five of different numbers, the probability of winning the jackpot would be 5 in 100,000, which is 0.00005. There are no more mathematical ways to increase the probability of winning a prize.” That is, if what you want is to “maximize” your chances of success, you will have no choice but to put more eggs in the basket. Having more bills of the same number (even if you have a hunch) will only help you win more money in case that combination wins, it does not increase your options. “Speaking of refund, the probability would be one in ten if we have a single tenth. Obviously, buying more tenths with different endings would help us have a greater probability of getting that refund,” he adds. And Doña Manolita or the ‘tricks’? The Christmas Lottery is not only peculiar because of the Gordo, the stones and its symbolic value. It is also because in it statistics and pure hunch go hand in hand (just like in other games of chance). Hence there are people willing to endure long lines outside to buy a tenth at Doña Manolita or to always play the same number, perhaps a special number that coincides with your birthday or the date your child was born. Works? Do these ‘tricks’ improve our chances? Morales is very clear about whether the latter (repeating a number year after year) influences our fortunes: “No, it does not increase it. All draws are independent, which means that what comes out in a draw does not depend on what happened in the previous ones. They have no memory. Mathematically speaking, always playing the same number does not increase the probability of winning.” The administrations of “luck”. There is also no difference between buying a tenth at the corner fruit shop or doing it in administrations so famous like Doña Manolita, The Bruixa d’OrLotería Valdés or El Gato Negro. Manuel García, an expert in Statistics at the European University, was also very clear about this a few days ago in an interview with the diary ACE. “They give out more prizes because they sell more numbers, not because they are luckier. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy effect. It’s very important because since it has that reputation (I don’t know how it originates) people usually go there to buy. They are the ones that … Read more

China is quietly winning the AI ​​race thanks to something very simple: cheap energy

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“China is going to win the artificial intelligence race,” warned Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia. Many thought he was exaggerating, interested in fueling demand for his chips. But, as analyst June Yoon explained in her column for the Financial TimesHuang’s argument contains an uncomfortable truth: the availability of electricity—not chips—is becoming the critical factor for the development of AI. A model like GPT-4 can consume more than 460,000 megawatt-hours per year, the equivalent of the energy consumption of 35,000 American homes, according to a study. The world’s data centers—already colossal—could double their electricity consumption before 2030. And that changes the rules of the game. When there are plenty of chips, but there are no plugs. The race for AI It started with a GPU fever. Big tech companies rushed to buy every Nvidia chip available, but they soon discovered something more worrying: there weren’t enough sockets to connect them. Satya Nadella himself, CEO of Microsoft, he said it bluntly: “The biggest problem we have now is not excess chips, but energy.” Electricity demand has skyrocketed so much that Google, Microsoft and Amazon are already contemplating build nuclear reactors to keep your servers on. The paradox sums up the moment well: the digital leadership of the West encounters a physical limit, that of cheap energy. Energy as a new geopolitics. Analyst June Yoon throw a question that reorders the technological map: what if the AI ​​race had nothing to do with chips, but with electricity? If the last century was defined by oil, this one will be defined by the current China no longer lives off oil: generates it. It has gone from being a petrostate dependent on crude oil to becoming the first electrostate on the planet. More than one quarter of your electricity It comes from renewable sources and its network is growing at a speed that no other country can match. Now that energy sovereignty fuels a new front: artificial intelligence. How did you find the formula? Since September, the Chinese Government Subsidizes up to 50% of energy costs of data centers that use national chips. The inland provinces—Guizhou, Gansu, Inner Mongolia—have become “electric hearts” of Chinese AI: there energy is abundant and cheapand local governments offer historically low rates of just 0.4 yuan per kilowatt-hour. The measure has a dual purpose: Compensate for the lower efficiency of domestic chips compared to Nvidia’s. Promote technological independence in the midst of a trade war. As Bloomberg has detailedthese regions are connected by ultra-high voltage (UHV) lines that transport renewable energy from the interior to the coastal areas where big technology companies, such as Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance, are concentrated. The goal is clear: ensure abundant, low-cost energy for AI training clusters. According to Rystad Energythe electricity consumption of data centers could more than double before 2030, reaching 1,800 terawatt-hours in 2040. Beijing is preparing to absorb it. The result is a planned, centralized energy ecosystem designed to scale AI. An example is the Talatan Solar Parkwhich extends like a sea of ​​metal mirrors: more than 600 square kilometers of panels that are combined with wind and hydroelectric parks. From there, the power travels along high-voltage lines to data centers on the coast. It is a postcard of the new Chinese power: sun, wind and silicon. China’s electrical advantage. The strategy is also working in the markets. According to Bloombergshares of Chinese power companies have risen up to 40% in a week, driven by demand for AI data centers. UBS forecasts that electricity demand in China will grow 8% annually until 2028. Meanwhile, in Washington, the Trump administration has launched an AI Action Plan to accelerate the construction of data centers and remove obstacles to energy projects. But, as FT analysts point outchip improvements are stuck in single digits, while Chinese renewable energy grows by double digits every year. The power is in the socket. In the race for artificial intelligence, chips are the brain. But the heart beats with electricity. The United States retains leadership and has the best semiconductors (for now); China, the network that keeps them on. As June Yoon wroteall the technological superpowers in history—from coal England to oil America—were built on a source of cheap energy. Today, artificial intelligence needs electricity as it once needed steam. And on that new board, China seems to have found the key: plug in the future before anyone else. Image | Pixabay and Hanwha Xataka | SoftBank abandons the king of chips in its prime. And he bets everything on OpenAI

The two most important weather models in the world are discussing whether Santander is going to freeze next week. And the cold is winning

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Where has all the cold gone? So far this fall (with the sole exception of Siberia), temperatures have been relatively mild on all continents. And it seems that the situation is going to continue like this: it is true that the forecasts speak of a progressive decrease in temperatures in the southeast of Canada, the eastern United States and northern Europe; but no model paints a scenario that is particularly cold (except some very long term prediction). However, all eyes are on the polar vortex. If the models are right, it is very possible that the vortex will experience an unprecedented disturbance in November, leading to an interesting weather period starting in December. “There is no way this is fulfilled.” While November continues with its strange meteorology, the models draw increasingly strange scenarios. At this point in the week, we cannot rule out that on the 18th and 19th we have a more than considerable winter storm with the ‘beast from the east‘looming over Western Europe. In the next few hours we will have a war between models: The American marks a cold entry on Santander, the European said no. Little by little, the two seem to be converging towards a cold scene. It’s too early to say, but in a very few hours the daisy will be shedding its leaves. Anyway, the central issue is that all of this is minute sin. The breaking of the vortex. Except for that event in the middle of next week, autumn will continue to be very warm and mild on almost all continents. However, this could change if sudden stratospheric warming appears. That is, the vortex breaks. Sudden stratospheric warming? To understand it simply, we have to remember that the atmosphere is a kind of “lasagna of air layers” and each of them follows its own logic. That is, they work quite differently and independently. As far as it affects us: the circulation of air in the troposphere (the one closest to the surface) and the circulation in the stratosphere (the layer directly above) are related, yes; But, in general terms, they each do their own thing. During the “sudden stratospheric warming“, a part of the troposphere warms rapidly and, as a consequence, invades the stratosphere, causing a profound alteration of the circulation at high altitude. That is, for a few days, everything turns upside down. And what happens? The most common consequence of this is that the polar vortex weakens and may break down. The polar (arctic) vortex is a current of air that runs from west to east around the north pole and contains cold air at high latitudes. When this current is strong and stable, preventing it from flowing towards places like Spain. If the vortex It destabilizes and its winds lose strength (due to, for example, “sudden warming”), it is relatively common for cold air masses to escape on their way south. What if it doesn’t break? In reality, the vortex does not even need to break. It only needs to move from the Arctic region to lower latitudes. By moving a huge mass of cold air with it, the result is always very similar: an icy cold that can turn any country upside down (even the best prepared ones). And that seems to be what we are going to see. It’s hard to know if it will affect us or not, but there’s no doubt that the late fall weather is getting “interesting.” Image | Meteociel In Xataka | The last hope of winter in Spain is desperate, but increasingly possible: the breaking of the polar vortex

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