If you always brush your teeth after eating, science has something to tell you: you’re doing it wrong

“Almost everyone brushes their teeth,” concluded a group of researchers from the University of Gothenburg in 2012. The problem is that “only one in ten does it well.” The results were limited to Sweden, but from what we know They are still perfectly valid In the Western world: we spend a disproportionate amount of time and resources cleaning our teeth poorly. It’s not just the citizens’ fault. And it is that, as the BBC explainedstudies have found at least “66 different types of expert advice, sometimes contradictory to each other.” So we’ve asked ourselves… what does the available evidence say about brushing your teeth? How to brush your teeth? The most effective way to brush our teeth is one that understands why we brush them. We usually believe that we brush to remove food from our mouths; but there is something else. The teeth develop a dense biofilm (dental plaque) that surrounds them and is not easy to remove with just rinsing. We brush our teeth to manually remove that sticky layer as much as possible. To remove it from the teeth and gums, of course. There is various techniques for thisbut now we are going to focus on the most important: that “the movement should not be made horizontally, but rather the brush should move from the gums to the bottom of the tooth”, explained the dentist Juan Casado Adán. And go through all the teeth, one by one, without much pressure or haste. Oh, and by the way, after you brush, spit. But don’t rinse. If you do, most of the fluoride ends up going down the drain. How many times do you have to brush your teeth? Twice at least the experts tell us: one before we go to sleep and another as soon as we wake up. It may seem strange, but it has an explanation: saliva plays a key role in inhibiting bacterial plaque. but while we sleep we produce less saliva. Like, while we sleep, our mouth becomes more hospitable to bacteria, prior washing helps to eliminate ‘residues’ that bacteria can use to develop their activity and weaken the enamel. For this reason, the key function of washing after waking up is to renew the bacteria-laden environment in our mouth and help saliva fulfill its function. Shouldn’t you brush your teeth after meals? In reality, by using medium-hard brushes, we can brush our teeth as many times as we want. And yes, it is usually a good idea to do it after eating because this way we remove waste that bacteria could use. However, there are exceptions: if we have consumed a lot of acidic drinks (“such as soda, coffee or alcohol”), sweets or vomited, brushing immediately may be a mistake. According to Luis Cabezas Vallejo, pediatric nurseWhen the pH of the mouth is acidic, the enamel weakens and brushing at that time can cause damage (even if it is negligible). As Juan Carlos Llodra explained on ABCdeputy secretary of the Executive Committee of the General Council of Dentist Associations of Spain, in this situation it is better to wait, let the saliva neutralize the acids (or sugars) and then brush. Image | Quang Tri Nguyen In Xataka | We are a little closer to fulfilling the dream of dentists: teeth that grow back

Xiaomi has a full-time humanoid robot in its car factory. You’re ready to stop being an intern

Xiaomi has made its car factory cause a sensation. With the SU7 and YU7 in the market, the company has managed to make people stand in line and pay a fortune to see how these cars are manufactured, something they have achieved thanks to a good marketing strategy and, above all, a futuristic factory with a hook that is difficult to ignore: humanoid robots riding the cars. It was this past March when we learned from Lei Jun, founder and CEO of the company, that they had put a series of humanoid robots to work. “do internships” inside the factories. The tasks of these robots were not at all exciting, as they were dedicated to one thing: putting self-tapping nuts on the floor parts of cars. However, the period of being robo-interns is coming to an end and it has been the CEO himself who has commented that robots have climbed several steps. Specifically, they are almost on the same level of success as their human “companions.” From robo-interns to robo-experts The task they had to do is the most alienating and example of chain work that you can imagine. The system collects the nuts from an automatic supply equipment and deposits them in the indicated place, where the automatic screwing is subsequently carried out. Indeed: the robots were putting nuts… and that’s it. In March, Lei Jun said the robots had achieved a 90.2% success rate in placing nuts during three hours of continuous autonomous operation. This figure indicates the number of correct operations compared to the total attempts made and, in addition, they detailed that they adjusted to a production cycle of 76 seconds. Timing in these factories is crucial, especially when all steps are so automated if the car output goals are to be achieved. Now, although putting on nuts seems simple, they are not like those on an Ikea piece of furniture and there are some things to consider. A key challenge in this process is getting the self-tapping nut to precisely align, center and seat on the locating pin before screwing. Otherwise, the system crashes and the join is incomplete. And this process is complicated by three main factors: Grip variability: The orientation of the nut on the robot gripper changes with each cycle. Design and physical forces– The internal knurling of the nut and the magnetic attraction of the pin make exact adjustment difficult. Operating environment: There are limitations on the working angle and external interference in the assembly area. For the robot it is more complicated than it seems, but now it has been Lei Jun himself who has turned to come to the fore to point out that robots have gone from that success rate of 90.2% to 98%. They are, according to the executive, just one percentage point behind human workers. And most importantly, they are ready to take on more complex tasks. Because thanks to that success, it has been decided that Robots can begin to tackle more complex tasks. Because from tightening nuts, they have moved on to new stations that included tasks such as installing the side panels of the center console, as well as folding and recycling parts. The side panel task is complex because it is a large, flexible, irregularly shaped component that requires multiple pick-and-place cycles in different positions. Xiaomi says this is the first time a humanoid robot has completed prolonged manipulation of such a part on a real automotive production line and estimates the success rate to be over 90%. In four months we will see where that percentage is, but although it is clear that the evolution of the company’s humanoid tobots It is being remarkable, we are talking about robots that are still in the testing phase and in a single workstation. They are taking data and running every possible metric to determine if they are up to par for a productive, full-scale deployment. Human workers can rest easy, at least for a few more months. What I don’t understand is why they have to look like robots taken from the reboot from ‘Robocop’. In Xataka | In the war of humanoid robots, those from the United States dance and those from China work by the piece. It is not a technological issue

ByteDance has decided that Intel and AMD are too expensive. So you’re going to make your own CPUs

ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, has been purchasing the processors it needs for its data centers from Intel and AMD for many years. He’s going to stop doing it. And this Chinese company has decided that this model has just come to an end. According to Reutersis already developing its own processors with the purpose of supporting its infrastructure. artificial intelligence (IA) in response to a combination of supply shortages and price increases that have made dependence on external suppliers unsustainable. The increases are not marginal: Intel and AMD have raised their rates between 10% and 35% quarter by quarter in recent months, a pressure that is difficult to bear for a company that plans to invest around $22.8 billion in AI infrastructure during 2026. However, the underlying trigger is not only the price. The industry is experiencing a structural change in the way AI is used because it has left behind the phase of mass training of models dominated by Nvidia GPUs to enter into the age of inference. That type of workload demands much more from the CPUs, which work in tandem with the GPUs and have become the new bottleneck of AI. The most immediate consequence of this scenario is a shortage of processors that Intel and AMD are not able to meet. In fact, the company led by Lip-Bu Tan has warned its Chinese customers, again according to Reutersthat their delivery times are going to be extended up to six months. And Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, has declared that the global CPU market is stressed and the situation is not going to improve in the short term. ByteDance has two weapons: Arm and RISC-V The strategy that ByteDance has developed involves developing two architectures in parallel: one based on Arm and another on RISC-V, the open source standard that China has embraced with great interest precisely because of its independence from Western licenses. Designing two variants simultaneously is not at all a symptom of indecision: it responds to the usual coverage of large technology companies before committing to large-scale production of a specific proposal. In 2024 ByteDance partnered with Broadcom to design a custom AI accelerator and manufacture it with TSMC’s 5nm lithography ByteDance has been hiring talent specialized in chips since 2022. In 2024 it partnered with Broadcom to design a custom AI accelerator and manufacture it using TSMC’s 5nm lithography, known as the SeedChip. Its mass production is planned for this year. However, the CPU it is developing is a different piece of the puzzle: a general-purpose processor for servers and not a specialized accelerator. Even so, both initiatives point in the same direction: they pursue reduce dependence on external suppliers in a context in which US export restrictions and market volatility make this dependence increasingly costly. This moment is also relevant because of what is happening at the other end of the market. Nvidia has built its dominance on GPUs, but is now entering the CPU market with your Vera processors with the intention of capturing an additional $200 billion market. In March it also presented an inference system developed with Groq technology in a clear attempt to consolidate its positions before the fragmentation of the AI ​​chip market reduces its share. Be that as it may, ByteDance for the moment continues to depend on Nvidia for its GPUs, although it is already playing on that same board with its own cards. Image | Intel More information | Reuters In Xataka | The condemnation that afflicts China: after decades of manufacturing a competitive desktop processor, it is six years behind

“If you’re still awake twenty minutes after going to bed, get up.”

Going to bed and starting to toss and turn while watching all the early morning hours pass by on the clock is something that may be familiar to more than one person. Right now, the truth is that the simple act of closing your eyes tightly and thinking about falling asleep doesn’t work too muchbut it further increases anxiety and frustration due to not being able to be rested the next day. But here the experts suggest that it is better to get up. A simple rule. Beyond breathing techniques and treating a blank mind, we have a good ally with us: the “20 minute rule.” A practice that, far from being viral advice on social networks, the truth is that it has scientific support behind it that indicates that the best strategy against the inability to fall asleep is to get up. Its operation. To understand it, we must first descend to the substrate of associative learning, where the human brain is, above all, an optimizer of environmental patterns. In this way, when a healthy person goes to bed, the central nervous system interprets the physical stimulus of the mattress, pillow and darkness as a signal to initiate a transition to sleep. However, if we spend long periods awake in bed experiencing anxiety or having the same idea running through our minds all the time, the pattern becomes corrupted. Here the brain already associates the bed with frustration, and the bedroom stops being a parasympathetic sanctuary and becomes a way to activate our body. Your defender He is currently Dr. Matthew Walker, professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Center for Human Sleep Science. And it is so important that he includes it as another piece of advice in one of his published books titled ‘why we sleep’ that says the following: Don’t stay awake in bed. If you’re still awake twenty minutes after going to bed, or if you start to feel anxious or worried, get up and do some relaxing activity until you feel sleepy. The anxiety of not being able to sleep can make it harder to fall asleep. What must be done. To follow the rule, it is important to get up and, logically, not turn on all the lights in the house, but rather use dim lights and, under no circumstances, look at screens such as television since it can activate us more. The ideal here would be to read a somewhat monotonous book (or in the case of students, notes), do breathing exercises or mechanical hobbies. From here you should return to bed only and exclusively when you feel sleepy again to try to sleep again. The guides say it too and, more specifically, the Clinical Practice Guide on Insomnia in Primary Care which specifically points to the following advice for patients: If it’s been 30 minutes since you went to bed and you’re still not sleeping, get out of bed, go to another room, and do something that doesn’t activate you too much, like reading a magazine or watching TV, for example. When you feel sleepy again, go back to your bedroom. The goal is for you to associate your bed with falling asleep as quickly as possible. Images | Magnificent In Xataka | We thought insomnia was just not being able to sleep. Now we know that there are five different disorders

If you’re wondering where all those shared scooters went, this study gives you the answer

You probably remember it if you have lived in a Spanish city in the last ten years. Overnight, your city was filled with electric scooters and shared bikes. Everywhere. Everywhere. Some well parked, others that made you feel like a 3,000 meter steeplechase athlete. As the last decade nears its end, Spain joined the wave of shared micromobility. Our streets were filled with operators who put on the streets, under the pay-per-use formula, electric scooters, bicycles and cars that promised to revolutionize the way we move. The formula coincided with another movement: low emission zones. At the end of 2018, Madrid launched Madrid Central. With this project he intended to reduce the volume of cars on the street in its central almond. In 2019, Barcelona began to apply similar measures in a much larger area, in this case it extended to the entire metropolitan area of ​​the city. The general feeling is that we were facing a model that had come to stay. The message was that the volume of cars in city centers had to be reduced and that young people, increasingly less interested in their own car, would combine public transport with scooters and electric bicycles for shared use. A new, more efficient door-to-door mobility. Today, almost nothing remains of that. The new and shared mobility that disappeared To understand what happened with that movement, Andrés Camacho Donezar, Professor of Business Strategy and business models, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, and Carmen Valor Martínez, teacher and researcher at the Faculty of Economics and Business Sciences (ICADE), Department of Marketing, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, have carried out a study in which the evolution of 10 operators that were or are part of micromobility services in our country has been studied. The conclusions have presented them in The Conversation which explains the problems that these companies had to face and how what seemed like a perfect business, with clear benefits for citizens, ended up being diluted over the years. The study indicates that shared micromobility has three obvious benefits: it is affordable for the vast majority of citizens, it is good for society as a whole because it facilitates access to mobility for all types of incomes and, in addition, it is environmentally beneficial since it should reduce traffic and polluting emissions. These promises laid a rug for all types of companies put their vehicles on the street. The most paradigmatic case was that of Madrid, which had up to 18 companies fighting for users and a regulation that allowed having on the street up to 10,000 electric scooters. After various regulatory attempts and closing the concession to three companies, in 2024 it ended up banning them completely. The process was similar to that of Barcelona, Saragossa either Sevilleto give a few examples. In all these cities, the private companies They tried to do business by attracting new users, the neighbors were divided between those who enjoyed them and those who suffered from them. Until, finally, the City Councils ended up banning them. The reasons have almost always been the same. The study details the problems that operators have had to make the service profitable. From an expansive phase to cover the maximum possible territory, we have moved on to atomization, closing the circle. Vandalism, high collection costs and repairs they began to complicate the business from a purely commercial point of view. To this we must add the neighborhood complaints that led to greater pressure from the City Councils towards the companies. Already in 2018, articles began to proliferate that echoed a problem: the streets were invaded by shared electric scooters. Due to a lack of civility and clearly insufficient control by companies, pedestrians began to encounter new obstacles. After many complaints, also in European cities with Paris in the leadthe City Councils began to put their restrictions. In Madrid, for example, it happened from “door to door” to virtual stations. Users could only pick up or park an electric scooter in limited and geolocated spaces. It was a mortal wound for a service that promised to save the last mile. To this we must add that these same town councils saw another business opportunity: controlling micromobility services themselves. And in most of the large Spanish cities public bicycle sharing services have been launched. With limited spaces to collect and release bicycles and a maintenance service that is not pressured by extraordinarily narrow profit margins. The result is that these shared electric scooter companies, the few that remain, have mostly pivoted to offer themselves as a solution to tour operators that offer rides or tourist visits using this means of transport or supply vehicles to the town councils themselves, like Lime in Getafe (Madrid). With mandatory restrictions (geolocation systems, limited parking spaces…) and some citizens who have rejected the use of electric scooters, shared mobility with these vehicles It has been impossible to make profitable. And public bikes have killed the possibility of the business pivoting to this vehicle. The result is a micromobility service that seemed perfect on paper but failed in practice. Photo | Jonas Jacobsson In Xataka | Madrid bans electric scooters on public transport: the latest explosion has broken the camel’s back

You bought an electric car to save. Here’s why you’re not doing it

It’s 7:30 p.m. You get home, put away your coat, plug in the car and forget about it. You’ve done it like this every day since you bought the electric one. Until the electricity bill arrives and nothing adds up. The car doesn’t consume gasoline, yes, but something has gone wrong. That something has a name: you’ve been paying the most expensive electricity of the day to charge a battery that could have been filled for half the price while you were sleeping. It’s 7:30 p.m. You get home, put away your coat, plug in the car and forget about it. You’ve done it like this every day since you bought the electric one. Until the electricity bill arrives and nothing adds up. The car doesn’t consume gasoline, yes, but something has gone wrong. That something has a name: you’ve been paying the most expensive electricity of the day to charge a battery that could have been filled for half the price while you were sleeping. The 280 kWh error. Think of any family: apartment, refrigerator, washing machine, some heating. About 290 kWh per month. The day they park an electric car in the garage and start charging it at home, those 290 kWh become 570. The car adds about 280 kWh per month on its own, counting what is lost in the charging itself. If they plug it in in the middle of the afternoon, they are paying for that mass of energy at the most expensive price of the day. The same amount of kWh can cost twice as much depending only on the time at which it is consumed. The key is no longer just how much is consumed, but when it is consumed. The three traps. The first instinct when buying an electric car is to call the company and ask for more contracted power, for fear that the leads will trip if the car is connected with the washing machine running. Alejandro Diego Rosell, energy consultant and professoridentifies it as one of the most common and most expensive mistakes: oversizing the power means paying an unnecessary safety margin every month, even if you never use it. But the thing doesn’t stop there. Many users believe that the regulated market (PVPC) is the safest haven. According to Sergio Soto’s calculations, energy expert Roamsa model household with an electric car would pay about 101.67 euros per month in PVPC, penalized by hourly volatility and increases in prices in certain sections. Cheap when the price drops, yes. But unpredictable when it rises, and rises just when it is most consumed. And there remains the one that is most abundant in advertising and the one that deceives the most: EV rates. Rosell sums it up with a rule that should not be forgotten: “You are still saving 8 euros by charging the car and losing 15 in the rest of the house.” You have to look at the nightly price, but also what they charge during normal hours and what is in the fine print of the fixed term. Some EV rates offer a very cheap early morning to recover the margin the rest of the day. The name does not guarantee anything. The roadmap. For the electric car to be truly profitable, experts propose following these steps: Apply the exact power formula: Rosell proposes a simple account: Necessary power = simultaneous consumption of the house + charger power + safety margin. If at dawn you have a refrigerator, water heater and air heater consuming 1.5 kW and you charge the car at 3.7 kW, you need about 5.2 kW in total. With a safety margin, you would hire 5.75 kW, not 10. And there is a nuance that changes everything: a smart charger can automatically reduce the car’s power if it detects that the house is consuming more. The car waits. The leads don’t jump. Play two powers: Current legislation (2.0TD rates) allows contracting a lower power for the day and a higher power only for the night (valley). This way you don’t pay all day for a power that you only use while you sleep. Escape from commercial trends: Faced with the avalanche of so-called ‘EV Rates’ (specific for electric vehicles), Soto warns that the most economical option is usually a well-optimized classic rate with three-period time discrimination (DH3). In a practical case, this rate would lower the bill to 74.90 euros per month, representing a saving of 26.3% compared to the regulated market. EV rates are still competitive (about 77.50 euros), but they can be slightly more expensive than a good DH3. To compare without trusting advertising: the official comparator of the CNMC and the hourly prices of the PVPC published by Red Eléctrica in ESIOS are the reference tools. Install a smart charger. A conventional plug is slow and offers no control. A wallbox allows you to program the load so that it starts on its own during the cheapest hours and adjusts the energy so as not to exceed the contracted power. Rosell places the cost of the equipment between 400 and 800 euros; Soto, adding the complete installation, between 600 and 1,500 euros depending on the case. Important: the wallbox does not pay for itself only by the kWh saved, but also by the control, security and comfort it provides. And the investment is significantly cut with the Auto+ Plan, which subsidizes up to 70% of the installation for individuals and up to 80% in municipalities with less than 5,000 inhabitants. What if we collapse the network? With an increase in plug-in vehicle registrations which exceeds 44%it is legitimate to wonder if there will be blackouts when we all charge at dawn. Soto calls for calm: the problem is not that everyone charges at night, but that everyone does it at the same time and at high powers. With smart charging and distributed management, the grid holds up. Rosell adds something more important for the long term: the “eternal cheap night” is … Read more

If he wants to beat Anthropic, he needs more hands. So you’re going to double your template.

OpenAI just realized that they had been launching products without rhyme or reason and they need to focus on something. And that something is the business sector, where an Anthropic with a much clearer business plan has been eating up their ground. To achieve this they need to increase their staff. A lot. More hands. According to Financial TimesOpenAI is planning to increase its staff throughout the year, almost doubling it. They currently have around 4,500 workers and the idea, according to internal sources, is to reach 8,000. To reach that figure they would have to hire 12 people a day; human resources will be on fire. The departments that need the most personnel are product development, engineering, research and sales. In addition, there is a figure that the company wants to reinforce; These are “technical ambassadors”, who will be a type of advisors who will guide companies that use their products so that they get the most out of them. They have also rented new offices in San Francisco, which will bring the total surface area to more than 90,000 square meters. Unstoppable Anthropic. This is part of a strategic reform that seeks to regain ground in the business segment, where Anthropic has gained a very solid position. According to data from Ramp AI IndexAlthough OpenAI is still the most used solution in business, adoption is falling while Anthropic is doing like a shot. 70% of companies that buy AI solutions for the first time choose Anthropic, at this rate, in a short time they will overtake them in the number of business users. It’s not that big of a deal. OpenAI has downplayed this figure because Ramp is a financial service and its data comes only from transactions made with your credit card “it’s like saying that global sales of lemons can be calculated based on my son’s lemonade stand,” said a company spokesperson. Be that as it may, the reality is that OpenAI is taking steps towards a restructuring of its product portfolio and its organization, and recovering business share is among its priorities. Unify portfolio. As part of this strategic pivot, OpenAI is planning the launch of a super app that will unify Codex, ChatGPT and the Atlas browser into a single tool. During 2025, OpenAI launched many very disparate products, many of them being half abandoned along the way like ChatGPT Atlas. In addition to showing a clear lack of focus, it is a very inefficient strategy; There are many computers, they all need computing capacity and no one is clear about what to prioritize, a disaster. The change is led by Fidji Simo, the company’s apps manager, who recently told employees “We cannot waste this moment because we are distracted by parallel projects.” The agreement with the Pentagon. All this coincides with the soap opera of Anthropic and the Pentagon. After weeks of tensions, Anthropic finally ended up on the government’s blacklist and OpenAI signed the agreement. What followed was that people started uninstalling ChatGPT en masse and in the public eye ChatGPT became the bad AI and Anthropic became the good AI that had not given in to government pressures. Sam Altman assured that there was no problemthat we could rest assured and that they also had red lines, a statement that has little to do with the facts. In Xataka | OpenAI wants us to have sex with ChatGPT. Your wellness advisors think it’s a terrible idea Image | Levart_Photographer, Nathan Sack on Unsplash

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

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

If you’re in a hurry to upgrade your PC, NVIDIA’s CEO has bad news: don’t be in a hurry

Talking about artificial intelligence is talking about Jensen Huang. The CEO of NVIDIA has become the figure of an industry: that of artificial intelligence. In large part, it is your company’s products that are driving the engine of the data centers and, at the same time, enormous semiconductor industries and memory are the essential components of NVIDIA GPUs. And if Huang has been commenting for a few weeks that this 2026 it’s going to need wafers and a lot of RAMhas now asked for patience with AI. Because he has another seven or eight years of unchecked climbing left. In short. When we talk about artificial intelligence, there are two poles. On the one hand, those who see signs of a bubble that will burst in the short term. On the other hand, those who defend the billion-dollar investment against all odds. In that boat is Jensen Huang, who recently noted in CNBC that this massive spending is “necessary and appropriate” because a “once-in-a-generation infrastructure” is being shaped. The most interesting thing is that, for him, this career will continue for several years, pointing that the investment and construction of infrastructure for AI has seven or eight years left. Mortars of money. In his statements, Huang pointed out that companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are making money despite everything invested and that their current brake is not so much the budget as the limit of computing power. That is why you want your suppliers –Samsung in HBM4 memories new generation or TSMC with the processors- increase the pace. It remains to be seen, however, if the pace can be maintained over the next five years. On CNBC, the CEO of NVIDIA pointed out that, despite the astronomical amount of money, the spending is sustainable. And proof of this is that it is increasing. If in 2025 the total spending of Big Tech did not reach 400,000 million, wait that this year the number of American companies will rise to 650,000 million. Only between Amazon and Alphabet -Google-, they will invest about 385,000 million. They see the AI ​​computing race as the next “whoever wins the most,” and none are willing to lose – DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria speaking to Bloomberg Parallel career. And that, as we say, in American companies, since China is the other pole in this race for artificial intelligence. The Asian giant is the birthplace of several extremely capable models, but also something that is missing in the United States: energy to feed the enormous needs of AI. China is betting on AI, but also on robotics, and all this at the same time buy NVIDIA products and develop your own semiconductor network with the goal of achieving technological sovereignty. It is another race parallel to that of the United States, and apart from the two poles of infrastructure development, we have particular names. That so much money is being invested means that opportunities are being created, and there are companies that have gone through a bad patch and want to surf the wave. For example, a Intel that, after needing a rescue by the United Statesis positioning itself as one of the great foundries in the United States. In addition, they are putting their foot in a segment that they had not explored, that of DRAM memory, and They are doing it with the Japanese giant SoftBank. Japan has not had a say in the memory industry since the 80s, when South Korea snatched their positionand now they may have another chance. Translation for the user. These are a couple of examples of companies that are taking advantage of the conditions to obtain financing and expand, seeking to position themselves in what they have determined is the future of the technology industry. With that amount of money and investment, there is a question you may be asking yourself: will I be able to buy a PC? The answer It is not hopeful. Giants like Micron -one of the heavyweights in the RAM segment- They are investing a lot to expand facilities and be more capable when creating memories, but they will not be for us: they will be for data centers. If the end of 2026 or 2027 was targeted as the end of the component crisis like the RAM or SSD (which are still components with memory modules), now it is Lip-Bu TanCEO of Intel, who states that It won’t be until 2028at the earliest, when we can see a horizon in the current panorama. So, yes, the entire tech industry has turned to AI and those that can increase their production of key components will do so over the next few years. The issue is that they are going to focus on components that users neither care about nor care about, neglecting those that we really need on a day-to-day basis. AND an example is NVIDIA itself. Image | NVIDIA In Xataka | Apple has been the industry’s first customer for decades. AI is relegating it to the background

In China, glaciers have become a tourist attraction. So you’re protecting them from global warming with XL blankets

Located in the province of Sichuan, just 300 kilometers from Chengdu, the Dagu glacier offers such fabulous landscapes that every year it receives several hundred thousand tourists. They come from other parts of the country or the planet to enjoy the snow and the views from their cable car. For scientists, however, Dagu is more than just a white paradise. In his opinion it looks more like a “terminally ill”a patient they must care for to avoid (or at least delay) the fatal outcome: the slow and unstoppable loss of ice due to climate change. For this purpose, a group of Chinese researchers has had a curious idea, to say the least: ‘covering’ part of the glacier with a gigantic blanket. A threatened paradise. Dagu is more than a glacier the tibetan plateau full of landscapes instagrammable. It is also a fundamental piece in the region’s economy. The enormous mass of ice attracts more than 200,000 tourists per year, which keeps an industry that employs thousands of people, and its melting supplies the populations with drinking water and even energy thanks to hydroelectric generation. Neither one nor the other has stopped scientists from referring to Dagu as a “dying glacier” or “a terminal patient.” Thus, in such a heartbreaking way, he defined it a few months ago Wang Feiteng, glacier expert and member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Is your condition that serious? The data are certainly not encouraging. In an article published in 2025, the Chinese organization recalls that since the 1960s its ice has “fragmented into scattered remains” and the frozen surface of the glacier has been reduced more than noticeably. And the trend does not seem to ease. “During the last four years the terminal end retreated another 20 meters,” warn from the academy, which insists that if nothing stops the process the situation of the glacier will be critical and irreversible at the end of this same decade. “Without urgent intervention, the Dagu glacier will disappear by 2029.” Beyond Dagu. The Chinese academy is not the only one to warn of the degradation of the environment. In 2003 Bloomberg dedicated him a chronicle in which he already pointed out that in the last half century alone the glacier has lost more than 70% of its ice. Regarding the reason, researchers have few doubts: The retreat of the ice mass is explained by the climate and the increase in temperatures. The problem is actually much bigger. Dagu may be one of the most vulnerable, but China has many other glaciers spread across its vast geography. Many. It is estimated that about 69,000, the tenth part of the glacial mass of every planet. And only between 2008 and 2020 its frozen surface receded by about 6%. If we broaden the perspective, since the 60s it has shrunk 26%. A blanket for the sick. Dagu’s situation may be critical, but… “As a doctor, can one just walk away?” he wonders Wang Feiteng. Convinced that the answer is ‘no’, a few years ago he and his colleagues decided to apply a striking strategy on the Tibetan glacier. They are dedicated to covering part of their frozen surface with a blanket that protects it (at least in part) from the effects of global warming, slowing down the loss of ice. It may sound strange, but the key is in the physical properties of that ‘protective quilt’. What they use are “glacial blankets”layers that stand out for their reflective capacity and provide thermal insulation, minimize the absorption of shortwave radiation and improve the albedo of the glacier, that is, the proportion of reflected solar radiation. The result? Less ice loss. The technique is not exactly new. It is inspired by what they already wear decades doing the ski resorts of Austria or Switzerland to protect the snow, although the approach does change. The idea was put into practice in Dagu in 2020 with six rolls of white cloth covering a selected area of around 500 m2. And does it work? It seems so. The program has been attractive enough to attract the attention of UNESCO, which a year ago published an article by professors Kang Shichang and Du Wentao, both linked to the CAS, in which some results of the experiment are described. To begin with, experts have found that the melting rate in the area covered by the glacial blanket was reduced by 34% between 2020 and 2021. “Even a year after removing the fabric, the area melted 15% slower due to the extra ice,” clarify from the CAS. The scientists were not limited to Dagu. In an attempt to go further, they used “more advanced nanomaterials” to cover a section of the Urumqi glacierin the Tian Shan Mountains. Thanks to the use of nanofibers, the researchers claim that they have managed to reduce the melting rate up to 70% in summer. The key is in a new material that, according to a team from Nanjing University, is capable of reflecting more than 93% of sunlight and dissipates the heat to which glaciers are exposed, reducing ice loss. Not everything is advantages. The results They are hopeful, but they leave some questions raised and also have limitations, such as recognize Kang Schichang and Du Wentao: “Covering glaciers with blankets has been mostly applied to small, tourism-focused glaciers on the brink of disappearance. While it has been proven effective in slowing their retreat, it poses environmental risks, high costs, and can only be applied in small environments. Large-scale retreat of glaciers cannot be addressed using nanomaterials alone.” The Chinese Academy itself recognize that Dagu is “an atypical case”, since unlike most of the glaciers in China, which are remote and difficult to access, this one “is located in the center of an urbanized tourist destination, which has electricity and access to water all year round.” That’s important for several reasons. First, because it has generated an infrastructure that makes it easier to deploy programs such as blankets or the … Read more

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