world

Iran is planting sea mines in Hormuz. And what threatens to blow up is not ships: it is the world economy

by

On the maps it looks like just a gap of water between deserts, but it passes through that narrow corridor every day. a gigantic portion of the energy that moves the planet. So narrow that in some sections the ships navigate in maritime lanes of just a few kilometers, constantly monitored by radars, drones and military fleets. For decades, any tension at that point in the Persian Gulf has been capable of shake up prices of oil in a matter of minutes. Imagine if will plant mines. A war also at sea. As bombings and missiles focus attention on the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran, a parallel battle has begun to unfold in the Persian Gulf. From the start of the warUS intelligence services They detected signs that Tehran could try to disrupt maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz by deploying naval mines and small fast boats. The threat is serious enough to have triggered public warnings of Washington and preventive military operations against Iranian ships suspected of participating in these maneuvers. In this context, the control of this narrow maritime corridor has become one of the strategic points more delicate of the conflict, because any disturbance there has immediate repercussions on the global energy supply. The strait, the global energy artery. There is no doubt, the tension is explained by the central role that Hormuz plays in the global energy system. Approximately a fifth of the oil consumed by the planet circulates through this strait of just a few dozen kilometers, in addition to a similar proportion of the international trade in liquefied natural gas. Every day they go through it in normal conditions about twenty million of barrels of crude oil from the producing countries of the Gulf heading to Asia, Europe and America. Powers like China, India, Japan or South Korea depend largely of this step to secure its energy supply, which turns any threat in these waters into an immediate global problem. It is no coincidence that even rumors or minor incidents in the area provoke immediate reactions in the oil markets. The new war. In that scenario it has begun a new phase of the conflict: that of oil tankers navigating between the risk of mines capable of shaking the planet’s economies. American intelligence reports indicate that Iran has begun deploying dozens of these explosives in the strait and keeps intact most of its fleet of small boats capable of planting hundreds more in a short time. The Revolutionary Guard controls much of the area next to the Iranian navy and has a combination of speedboats, minelayer boats, drones and coastal missile batteries that can turn the sea passage into a navigation trap. The goal would not necessarily be to sink large numbers of ships, that too, but to create enough uncertainty enough to paralyze global energy traffic, raise transportation costs and trigger a shock in international markets. In other words, a well-placed mine in these waters can have an economic impact that goes much further of the ship that hits it. First shocks. Faced with this threat, Washington has chosen for acting before mine deployment reaches a larger scale. The US military has confirmed (with videos included) a few hours ago the destruction of at least sixteen Iranian vessels involved in mining operations near the strait, in what US officials describe as pre-emptive strikes based on intelligence about Tehran’s operational plans. These actions seek to prevent Iran from turning the strait into a practically closed area to navigation before the deployment of explosives multiplies. At the same time, the White House has warned that any attempt to block the flow of oil will provoke a much more forceful military response than the operations carried out so far. Trapped oil and markets in panic. The economic consequences are already beginning to become visible. Since the start of the war, oil transit from the Gulf has seriously upsetwith millions of barrels per day that cannot leave the region normally. Countries like Iraq or Kuwait depend almost exclusively of this route to export its crude, which amplifies the potential impact of any interruption. Energy companies have started diverting ships or to look for alternative routeswhile Saudi Arabia tries to compensate for part of the problem by increasing the use of its oil pipeline to the Red Sea. In parallel, the International Energy Agency studies a massive liberation of strategic reserves to contain the impact of the energy crisis. A few kilometers to shake the world. The fragility of the situation is also explained by the geography of the enclave itself. At its narrowest point it barely has 34 kilometers wide and the navigation lanes through which the ships circulate barely exceed three kilometers in each direction. This narrowness makes the place extremely vulnerable to mines, drone attacks or coastal missiles. It is not the first time this has happened, in fact, since how do we countduring the so-called “tanker war” in the eighties, Iran already used mines in these same waters to pressure its adversaries during the conflict with Iraq. History, therefore, suggests that these types of tactics can be surprisingly effective in destabilizing global trade. A planetary blow. The extreme sensitivity of the energy markets to any news coming from Hormuz was fully demonstrated very recently, when a wrong message on social media suggested that the US Navy had successfully escorted a tanker through the strait. The simple rumor caused an immediate collapse of crude oil prices and a shake-up in financial markets before authorities clarified that no such operation had occurred. The episode illustrates the extent to which the world watches every movement in these waters with nervousness. In a global energy system so dependent on a few strategic corridors, the mine threat in the Strait of Hormuz has opened a new dimension of war: one in which fate of the world economy it may depend on a maritime corridor just a few kilometers wide. Image | nara, Picryl, naraNZ … Read more

A startup from Malaga is the most used European AI app in the world according to Andreessen Horowitz. It’s called Freepik

by

The venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has prepared its already traditional ranking with the world’s top 100 end-user AI applications. There are many predictable ones in the top positions, but we are surprised because among the top 15 is none other than freepikthe platform created by the Malaga startup of the same name. Freepik in the world top. On the list we have many usual suspects (and some not so usual) in the top positions, but one of the big surprises on the list It is the Freepik platformwhich is ranked number 11 and is the only representative of our country in that ranking. But besides that, it is the first of all Europeans included on the list. This specific list is made with the number of unique monthly visits as a criterion. USA dominates. In that list the dominance of apps from American companies is clear, and only the Chinese one DeepSeek sneaks into the top 10 list. Here ChatGPT dominates the ranking with Gemini and Canva completing the podium, but it is surprising to see the relevance of Grok, ahead of Claude. And Google shines with its own light. Within the list, the presence of Google is also notable, which has four tools on that list: Gemini (in number 2 on the list), Google AI Studio (10), Google Labs (25) and the splendid NotebookLM (30). Most of these apps come from the US. Graphic: Xataka with Gemini. Data: Andreessen Horowitz. China tightens. It may seem that China’s role here is less relevant than it should be, but it must be taken into account that many Chinese startups focus on platforms and applications for the Chinese market. Even so, there are clear protagonists such as Capcut and Doubao (ByteDance), Qwen and Quark (Alibaba), Kimi, Kling, Cutout and of course the aforementioned DeepSeek. Europe has its protagonists. Freepik is the clear standout on this list among the European AI applications, but there are others that stand out and manage to make it onto the list such as Photoroom (France), Turboscribe and Veed (United Kingdom), Remove.bg/Kalleido (Austria) and another standout, ElevenLabs (based in London). An evolution towards hybrid apps. As Andreessen Horowitz points out, three years ago the distinction between “native AI” products and traditional software was clear. Today that barrier has disappeared, since massive tools like CapCutCanva or Notion have integrated generative AI as the core of their experience and revenue engine. They have taken advantage of their inertia, they have adapted and they have won. In mobile apps the ranking changes, and a lot. The most popular AI mobile apps in the world based on their number of active users each month is very different. Here Freepik disappears from the list, for example, and it is China that totally dominates with 22 of the 50 apps (44%). The US has 13 apps on the list (26%), while Europe only has four (8%) and other countries share the other 11 (22%). Here China benefits from its huge user base, who also very frequently use AI applications for all types of functions. ByteDance is especially eye-catching and has five apps on the list (CapCut, Doubao, Cici, Hypic and Gauth). Divergence of approaches. In general, all apps try to build user loyalty through their ecosystems and try to integrate more and more things so that one does not leave them. However, there are important approaches among some such as ChatGPT, very oriented towards being a “super app” for mass consumption, and Claude, from Anthropic, which focuses on professional and technical users. AI wants to be almost invisible. AI is no longer a destination, a website to go to, but is becoming part of the experience, a function integrated into the application. Thus, it now resides directly in the browser, in development environments or in office suites. In Xataka | The war between Anthropic and the Pentagon points to something terrifying: a new “Oppenheimer Moment”

Netherlands warns of Russian cyberattacks against Signal and WhatsApp around the world: they don’t need malware

by

When we think about applications like Signal or WhatsApp we usually immediately associate them with the idea of ​​privacy. Both have been built on a very clear promise: end to end encryption prevents third parties, including the companies themselves, from reading users’ messages. This security model has made millions of people trust these platforms for personal, professional and even sensitive conversations. However, that protection does not mean that accounts are completely safe. The intelligence services of the Netherlands have warned now of a global campaign that seeks to compromise accounts of these unused applications malware nor exploit technical flaws. The objectives. The military intelligence service (MIVD) and the general intelligence and security service (AIVD) indicate that the attacks seek to access accounts belonging to dignitaries, public officials and military personnel. Authorities also acknowledge that Dutch Government employees have been both targets and victims of these attempts. In addition, the report indicates that other profiles that may be of interest to the Russian Government, such as journalists, could also be among the recipients of this type of attack. Social engineering instead of spyware. Unlike other episodes of digital espionage that have affected messaging services in the past, the campaign described by the Dutch services does not rely on malware or the exploitation of technical flaws. The report explains that attackers mainly resort to phishing and social engineering techniques to gain access to accounts. This difference is relevant when compared to tools such as Pegasusthe famous spyware capable of infiltrating mobile phones. In this case, the goal is not to compromise the phone system, but rather to take advantage of the user’s behavior to take control of their account or link a foreign device. “Account take-over”. One of the methods is direct takeover of the account. The attackers, they explain in the report, pose as the official support team of the application and send messages to the victim alerting them of alleged suspicious activities, possible data leaks or attempts to access their account. From there they request that the user complete a verification process and share the code they receive by SMS, as well as the PIN configured in the application. If the victim provides this data, the malicious actor can take control of the account and reassociate it with a number under their control. The trick of QR and linked devices. The report also describes a second access route that does not necessarily imply that the victim loses immediate control of their account. In this case, attackers use social engineering techniques to convince the user to scan a QR code or click on a seemingly legitimate link, for example under the guise of joining a chat group. That QR or link may be designed to link the attacker’s device to the victim’s account using the apps’ linked device features. Once connected, the attacker can access the conversations and, depending on the platform and access mode, see messages in progress or even part of the history, in addition to being able to send messages on behalf of the user. What the intelligence services recommend. The report also includes several practical recommendations to reduce the risk of these types of attacks. Authorities warn that you should never share verification codes or your account PIN through messages, even if the request appears to come from the app’s support service. They also recommend distrusting links or QR codes sent by unknown contacts and always verify these requests through another channel before interacting with them. Another important measure is to periodically review the list of devices linked to the account and remove any devices that are not recognized. The document also adds other useful measures, such as activating the registration block in Signal and notifying contacts by another means if there is a suspicion that the account has been compromised. Images | BoliviaIntelligent | Also AY In Xataka | That they can hack a mobile phone just by entering a website is scary. If that mobile phone is also an iPhone, it’s terrifying

iPhones were supposed to be the most secure cell phones in the world. It was supposed

by

Imagine a tool capable of bend the security of a mobile simply browsing a website, without downloading any file or accepting any permission. It’s scary, but if that cell phone is also an iPhonethings get even worse. It is not the argument of a conspiracy theory, it is reality and it has just destroyed Apple’s aura of invulnerability. What has happened? Google security engineers have published a report detailing ‘Coruna’, a sophisticated hacking kit designed specifically to compromise iOS devices. According to the investigation, Coruna uses a chain of ‘zero-day’ vulnerabilities which give almost total access to the device. It’s going to be something similar to Pegasusbut even more sophisticated. The most disturbing thing is that it has been located in the hands of cybercriminals, but its origin appears to be in US government agencies. What Coruna does. As we said, all you have to do is visit a malicious website for it to take action. Coruna’s architecture is based on an extremely complex exploit chain that takes advantage of flaws in the browser’s rendering engine and in the operating system core itself. In this way, it takes control of the iPhone silently, without the user downloading any files or accepting any additional permissions. The good news is that Apple patched one of these vulnerabilities with iOS 17.3, so if your phone is on this version or higher, you have nothing to worry about. However, despite these limitations, it is estimated to have infected tens of thousands of devices. Image: Google Timeline. In early 2025, Google first detected parts of this exploit chain that had been used by a commercial surveillance company. In the middle of the year he reappeared in a campaign against Ukraine attributed to Russian espionage and at the end of the year he made the jump to China, where he was hiding on fake websites about finance and cryptocurrencies. The kit stole cryptocurrencies and other data from victims, such as photos or email accounts. Who has developed this. In statements to Wiredthe head of the security company iVerify, highlights that the code is “extremely sophisticated and its development has cost millions of dollars.” The most striking detail is that Coruna shares modules with the one known as “triangulation operation”another cyberattack targeting iOS discovered by Kaspersky and attributed to the NSA. At the moment it is a suspicion, but according to iVerify, the signs clearly point to it being the work of some US government agency or contractor. How it has ended up in the wrong hands. It is the question that experts ask themselves and at the moment there is no answer, but there is a hypothesis. Zero-day exploits are those that the manufacturer, in this case Apple, has not yet detected and are the most expensive ones sold on the black market. The theory is that it was sold by an exploit broker to some foreign intelligence service and from there it made the jump to cybercrime organizations. iVerify analyzed a version of Coruna and found that the code had been modified to install malware that emptied cryptocurrency wallets. These additions were “poorly written” and contrasted greatly with the underlying code, which fits with the theory that it was conceived by a very well-funded organization and then ended up in the world of cybercrime. Image | Apple, edited with Gemini In Xataka | Anthropic has become the Apple of our era and OpenAI our Microsoft: a story of love and hate

The California peach industry has suffered an unprecedented collapse. But it will be repeated, it will be repeated a lot, it will be repeated all over the world

by

Richard Lial He lived peacefully in his little house in Escalonnorthern California. He had acres and acres of productive almond trees that he had been exploiting for the last decade. But three years ago, just when costs began to become unsustainable, Del Monte (one of the largest fruit and vegetable companies in the world) made him an offer. A 20-year contract for Lial to exchange its almond trees for the peaches that the company’s large cannery in Modesto needed. Del Monte’s move put on the table some 550 million over the next few years and a business of tens of thousands of tons per season. The problem is that on July 1, 2025, Del Monte Food Corp declared bankruptcythe Modesto plant has closed and, with it, the entire Californian peach industry has collapsed. What exactly happened? Del Monte accumulated a debt of 1,245 million dollars on the day they filed the bankruptcy petition. And the reason is simple: in recent years, the company had been going into debt to make certain purchases in a sector that was in full decline. Today, the world consumes less canned goods and Del Monte executives believed that the only way to survive was to grow and ensure margins. The problem is that, with the rate increase in the months prior to the bankruptcy declaration, interest had doubled to the point of eating into the operating margin (a margin already quite affected by things like Trump’s tariffs that had made cans more expensive). The chaos has lasted for many months, but on February 6 the courts approved the sale of the company in parts. Peach growers breathed easy until they discovered that none of the buyers wanted the plant of Modesto. And why is that plant so important? Well, because Del Monte did not ask farmers to plant the peach they wanted. They were asked to plant the clingstone variety: a peach that simply has no fresh market. The pulp of the clingstone adheres to the bone and makes direct consumption uncomfortable. That is, it is a variety whose only destination is processors. In this case, the Modesto plant consumed 35% of the production of this stone fruit, about 50,000 tons in 2026. They are, to be honest, 50,000 tons that are now almost impossible to place anywhere. But the problem transcends 2026… Because the contracts that Del Monte I was signing Until a few months before the bankruptcy, they forced farmers to make investments of around $8,000 per acre in exchange for the peace of mind that comes with a 20-year contract. They went into debt for it. Many made the transition in 2023. So there are about 140 Californian farmers fgame era and some 1,200 jobs will be lost. But the impact is deeper. And it is not that talking about ‘sector cataclysm’ is not justified, it is that the central issue is the structural dependency that the dynamics of the primary sector are pushing the economy towards. …and that transcends even the peach. Because it doesn’t matter what product we look at: the consequences of financialization are there. It is enough to remember that in 2015 there were only 45 funds specialized in ‘agrobusiness’ in the world; Today they exceed 1,000 and move an enormous amount of money that is radically changed the way everything is managed. The rresult is as simple as it is tragic: Capital arrives, exploits the land as if there were no tomorrow, exhausts the territory’s resources, abuses the local socio-productive fabric and leaves. One day we will realize that there will be nothing left. Image | Ayla Meinberg In Xataka | Spain faces its greatest agricultural challenge of the century: converting 1,901,529 hectares of olive groves into irrigation before it is too late

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

by

Sam Altman sat down over the weekend before his audience at X to answer questions about the agreement that OpenAI has just signed with the United States War Department. What came out of that session was a beautiful involuntary x-ray of the biggest contradiction in the sector at the moment. Why is it important. The CEO of OpenAI said he is terrified of “a world where AI companies act as if they have more power than the government.” The phrase sounds good, it is marketinian and seeks to elevate OpenAI’s position as a powerful but very responsible and honest group. The problem is the context in which he pronounces it: hours before OpenAI signed that agreement, The US government labeled Anthropic, its direct rival, a “supply chain risk” for refusing to sign under those same conditions. Altman went to put out the fire just as someone accused him of setting it. Between the lines. Altman’s speech rests on a premise that must be monitored: that a democratically elected government must always prevail over unelected private companies. It is a philosophically reasonable position, but he applies it selectively. Altman acknowledged that the deal “was rushed and the picture is not good,” and that OpenAI moved quickly to “de-escalate” tension between the Pentagon and industry. In other words, your company made a unilateral strategic decision about how the entire AI industry should relate to the military establishment. That doesn’t exactly sound like institutional deference. The contrast. Anthropic opted for something different: requiring explicit safeguards against the use of its AI for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. But the government penalized her. OpenAI accepted a more ambiguous formula (“for all legal uses”) and won the contract. Various OpenAI employees signed a letter supporting Anthropic’s position. Claude became the most downloaded free application in the App Store that weekend from Apple, precisely surpassing ChatGPT. The market also has opinions. Yes, but. It’s fair to admit that Altman’s position has some internal logic: If AI is going to be integrated into military systems anyway, it may be preferable that it do so under negotiated conditions rather than under coercion. And he’s right about one thing: The labeling of Anthropic as a supply chain risk, a tool intended for hostile foreign suppliers, applied to an American AI security company is, in his own words, “an extremely frightening precedent.” The big question. Who really decides how AI is used in military contexts? The companies that build it, the governments that hire it, or the engineers who design it and who are increasingly organized to influence those decisions? Altman says he believes in the democratic process. But OpenAI negotiated privately, signed privately, and made only a fraction of the contract public. Democratic transparency starts there. In Xataka | Anthropic has become the Apple of our era and OpenAI our Microsoft: a story of love and hate Featured image | Xataka

Germany has a plan to lead the world in nuclear fusion. And it has committed to doing so in the 2030s

by

Germany is very serious about nuclear fusion. The state of Bavaria, the company specialized in the development of type nuclear fusion reactors stellarator Proxima Fusion, the energy company RWE AG and the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) have agreed to collaborate in the development and implementation of the first fusion power plant of type stellarator of Europe. And, presumably, the world. Its strategy seeks to bring this facility into operation in the 2030s with the purpose of demonstrating a net energy gain. This simply means that the reactor should be able to produce more energy than it consumes. Alpha, which is what this demonstration fusion reactor will be called, will be built in Garching, very close to the IPP facilities. However, this is not all. And Alpha will be used to test the technological solutions that will later allow the construction of Stellaris, the first commercial plant of stellarator type fusion energy. The latter will be hosted in the town of Gundremmingen. If the organizations involved in this project achieve their goal over the next decade, Germany will consolidate itself as a world power in fusion energy. Germany firmly believes in ‘stellarator’ fusion reactors Experimental nuclear fusion reactors stellarator They represent a very solid alternative to tokamakas ITER either JET. And they are not exactly the result of recent research. In fact, both designs were designed during the 1950s. He stellarator It was designed by the American physicist Lyman Spitzer and served as the foundation on which the plasma physics laboratory at Princeton University (USA) was built. The design tokamakHowever, it was devised by the Soviet physicists Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm and Andrei Dmítrievich Sakharov based on ideas proposed a few years earlier by their colleague Oleg Lavrentiev. Both reactors were designed with the purpose of confining very high temperature plasmaand, curiously, during the 50s and 60s the design stellarator received great support from the scientific community in the West due to its enormous potential. ‘Tokamaks’ require that magnetic fields be generated by coils and induced by the plasma itself However, when Soviet and American scientists published their results and compared them, they realized that tokamak design performance was one or two orders of magnitude better than that of the stellarator. From that moment on, this latter design was largely marginalized. The most obvious difference between one and the other lies in their geometry, but it is enough to investigate a little about both to realize that the reactors stellarator they still have a lot to say. type reactors tokamak They are shaped like a toroid (or donut), and stellarator They have a more complex geometry that resembles a donut twisted on itself. However, the fundamental difference that exists between these two designs is that the reactors tokamak require that the magnetic fields that confine the plasma be generated by coils and induced by the plasma itself, while in reactors stellarator everything is done with coils. There is no current within the plasma. This means, in short, that the latter are more complex and difficult to build. In Europe we have a type fusion reactor stellarator extraordinarily promising: Wendelstein 7-X. It is installed in one of the buildings of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald (Germany), and its construction was completed in 2015. The first tests carried out in this fusion reactor between 2015 and 2018 went as planned, so in November of this last year an important moment arrived in its itinerary: it was necessary to modify it to install a water cooling system that was capable of more effectively evacuating the residual thermal energy from the walls. of the vacuum chamber, as well as a system that would allow the plasma to reach a higher temperature. The work that required these modifications was successfully completed in August 2022. And in February 2023, the Wendelstein 7-X reactor reached an important milestone: it managed to confine and stabilize the plasma for 8 uninterrupted minutes in which it delivered a total energy of 1.3 gigajoules. During the last two years everything learned in the development and the first tests carried out on this machine has been used by Proxima Fusion. In fact, its founders come from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. If Alpha goes well, commercial fusion energy will be a reality before the end of the next decade. This is the true purpose of Proxima Fusion. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | Interesting Engineering In Xataka | An alternative to ITER in nuclear fusion is being cooked in France: a commercial ‘stellarator’ reactor

All the money in the world won’t satisfy AI’s RAM hunger

by

There is no RAM for so much AI. At this point in the film, no one can ignore that we are fully immersed in a new component crisis. Unlike the perfect storm that shook the technology industry in 2020, the new crisis is due to something very specific: the voracity of data centers and the artificial intelligence. In recent weeks we have seen negativity everywhere, but now one of the main people responsible for the lack of RAM comes to say that things are not going to stay the same. They are going to get worse. 30% of the goal. Chey Tae-won is not just anyone. This is the CEO of SK groupone of the largest conglomerates in the world and a South Korean giant that controls everything from the energy industry to chemicals and telephony. In addition, it has SK Hynix, one of the largest manufacturers of memories from around the world. If there is an authorized voice in this crisisof course it is yours. And what did he say? Well, there’s still a RAM storm left for a while. In a recent interview, stated that memory supply will be more than 30% below AI demand for this year. That is, by turning all their production to high-performance memory for AI, completely abandoning the consumer sector, they will be far from be able to satisfy what companies like NVIDIA they are claiming. structural problem. As we say, we have been talking about the state of the industry for weeks, but now we understand the extent to which the consumer sector has taken a backseat to memory manufacturers. That “we have given everything and we are going to fall within 30% of the goal” is tremendously revealing and explains the reason why everything with a memory chip is rising in price. Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung are the three companies that lead production by memory. They make both consumer memory (that of the mobile phone, the PC, the routerTV or car) as a professional (high-bandwidth HBMs), but their production is not unlimited: if they want to increase performance in one type of memory, they must lower that of the other. And that’s what’s happening: the AI ​​business is memory hungry, and for every unit of high-bandwidth memory produced, several units of standard memory must be sacrificed for other devices. This creates a bottleneck and an “unprecedented” shortage, according to Micron’s vice president, as the AI ​​industry is consuming all memory production capacity, creating a tremendous shortage in the conventional branch. All sold. As consumers, buy an SSD, a RAM module and a Large capacity HDD is a luxury right now, but to those who control chip production, it’s going well for them because they are selling all production before starting to “print” chips. Chey Tae-won himself has commented that the profit margins on his HBM4 chips are stratospheric, around 60%. Micron has already commented that all of its HBM memory production capacity for 2026 is already sold, and These are statements similar to those of Western Digital a few days ago. This implies that they have already sold components that do not exist for graphics cards that do not exist and that will power data centers that do not yet exist. abandoning ship. Samsung, SK and Micron are expanding their production lines and opening factories, but getting clean rooms It’s a slow process for them to start making chips, and Micron’s new plants, for example, aren’t expected to start making RAM until 2028. And when they do, it’ll likely be memory for data centers, not consumer price relief. In the end, there are only a few suppliers for many manufacturers, and that has another consequence: there will be brands that they have to get out of the car. The CEO of the SK group has commented that “there will probably be PC and smartphone manufacturers that will end up abandoning their businesses”, but he has not been the only one. A few days ago, the boss of Phison, a company that makes memory controllers, pointed in the same line. And it is easy to understand: if a manufacturer with low volume costs much more for memory, it has two options: sell a PC/mobile with less RAM or sell that same product much more expensive. Neither is a good idea. The price of 32 GB of DDR5 RAM from Crucial. Micron’s Crucial no longer exists Not very hopeful forecasts. The big question is when this solution will end. From SMIC, the large Chinese foundry, it is estimated that storm remains for a while because everyone wants to build their infrastructure for the next decade over the next two years. There are analysts who estimate that manufacturers – such as those in the automotive sector – are stockpiling AI out of “panic” that it will run out and now HBM4 memory is being produced, but in a few years there will be superior technology that will make AI faster and more capable… and the industry will turn to it again if the bubble doesn’t burst first. Domino. Meanwhile, companies like TeslaIntel or the Japanese giant SoftBank They want to get fully into the DRAM market and the companies Chinese companies like CXMT have an opportunity to meet the demand for AI for devices such as laptops. And, although we now see how it has impacted the price of loose components, we have to wait to see what happens in already assembled devices. Lenovo has pointed that the price of laptops is going to rise, but there are also warnings about important price increases in mobile phones, above all in low and mid-range devices, where the price of RAM represents a large part of the product cost. As I have said before, we have to cross our fingers so that the mobile phone or PC does not break, since once it is time to change it, paying the price will not be something pleasant. Images | Xataka, Bananovaya In Xataka | We … Read more

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

by

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

While half the world is worried about aging, one industry is rubbing its hands: the elevator industry

by

The world ages. And at a good pace too. If the World Health Organization (WHO) hits the nail on the headin 2050 the percentage of people over 60 years of age will double that of 2015. From representing 12% it will become close to 22%. Beyond the percentages, this aging translates into challenges in economic, health and social matters. Also in juicy business opportunities, like the one that he thinks he has before him the elevator industry. In their case, an older world will be a world with more work. What has happened? That TK Elevator has shaken the elevator sector by openly recognizing that the gradual aging of the planet (very visible already in Europe or countries like Japan either Korea) represents a lucrative business opportunity. The reason is simple: the more elderly, the greater the need for elevators in buildings. Especially since these and their services are also aging. “A growing trend”. If TK’s words have generated so much expectation, it is because it is not just any company. The firm, based in Düsseldorf, is a heavy weight within the sector, where it is responsible for both manufacturing machinery and maintaining it. Their models can be found in emblematic skyscrapers in New York, although the bulk of their business comes from much more modest buildings occupied by homes, offices or shops. His prediction about the future of the sector in an increasingly aging world has not been made anywhere either. has shared it with one of the most influential newspapers in the US, Financial Times. “As the population ages there is a need to install elevators. We see this becoming a growing trend,” recognize the firm’s executive director, Uday Yadavl. The example of Japan. During his interview, Yadaval cited a specific case: Japan, perhaps one of the countries that is most clearly suffering from the winds of demographic winter. Although all your attempts to reactivate its population engine (and there have been many), the birth rate continues at levels historically low while on the streets it is increasingly easier to find elderly people. According to Our World in Datathe country has the highest “old-age dependency ratio” (the ratio between people over 64 and people of working age) in the world: in 2021 it exceeded 50%, which means that there are only two people of working age for every elderly person. And since then demographic indicators have not exactly improved. It is estimated that about 30% of the country’s population is 65 or older, which is equivalent to tens of millions of people. A widespread phenomenon. Japan is not the only nation facing an aging population, a problem with which Europe fights and other countries, such as South Korea either China. In general the WHO has warned that the trend seems to be accelerating globally and remember that in 2020 the number of people aged 60 or over exceeded that of children under five. “In 2030, one in six people in the world will be 60 years old or older,” insists the WHO, recalling that by then the world population over 60 years old will total 1.4 billion people, well above the 1,000 in 2020. Demographics (and more). It’s not just that more and more older people live in cities and need elevators to get to their homes, it’s that the buildings themselves need renovations. At the end of the day, we age… and the blocks in which we reside. Yadav estimates There are about 22 million elevators worldwide, of which a third (30%) are more than two decades old. In practice, this translates into an immense number of facilities that probably need improvements and tune-ups, a demand that, assures the manager from TK Elevator, is already “growing in a meaningful way.” “More than remarkable”. Although his weight in the sector gives him special relevance, Yadav is not the first to have publicly recognized the good forecasts that the elevator industry has. Last summer Roland Berger published a report in which he provided several insights into the global elevator market, valued according to his calculations at 107 billion dollars. After “several ups and downs” in recent years, marked by COVID-19 or the real estate crisis in China, companies now face a “more than notable growth panorama.” A trend that connects the sector with the flourishing silver economythe economy driven precisely by aging. Images | Zhuojun Yu (Unsplash) In Xataka | In Japan there is no doubt that they live worse than 30 years ago. Houses are literally getting smaller.

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.