TECH

Chinese cars are arriving so rapidly that European logistics are beginning to feel the strain...Why is this both a good and a bad thing?

For years, Europe has sought to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles through incentives, environmental targets, and openness to new brands. This strategy helped boost competition and drive down prices. However, a curious phenomenon is now capturing the automotive industry's attention: the success of this Chinese expansion is creating bottlenecks that extend far beyond dealerships and factories. The impact is already visible at some of the continent's largest ports.

The presence of Chinese automakers in Europe has grown impressively in recent years. Companies such as BYD, Chery, MG, Omoda, Jaecoo, Great Wall Motor, and Changan have accelerated their entry into various European markets with a combination that is hard to ignore: competitive prices, advanced onboard technology, and a growing lineup of electric and hybrid models.

The results of this strategy are not limited to sales figures; they are also evident at the ports receiving thousands of vehicles from Asia.

Ships arrive laden with cars, but distribution to dealerships and logistics centers does not always keep pace. In some instances, areas intended merely as transit points are turning into massive temporary storage yards.

The issue goes beyond the sheer volume of vehicles. European logistics systems are already facing significant constraints, including a shortage of specialized truck drivers, limitations in rail transport, and difficulties in rapidly expanding the infrastructure needed to handle such large numbers of units.

Furthermore, many Chinese brands are still in the process of building their networks for dealerships, service centers, parts distribution, and after-sales support. Yet, thousands of cars have already arrived on the continent while this infrastructure is still being established.

This creates an inevitable bottleneck. While China is capable of producing and exporting on a massive scale, absorbing that volume depends on a logistics chain that takes time to adapt.

The Port of Barcelona stands out as one of the most emblematic examples. Its strategic location makes it a key gateway for vehicles destined not only for Spain but also for other countries in Southern Europe, the Mediterranean region, and even North Africa.

Activity has been so intense that new investments have begun to emerge. A highlight is the infrastructure expansion undertaken by Japan’s NYK, featuring a new facility designed to significantly boost vehicle handling capacity.

The message behind this investment is clear: Barcelona aims to establish itself as a major logistics hub for distributing Asian automobiles across Europe.

However, the situation extends beyond Spain. Other major European ports are also seeing a steady rise in the flow of vehicles imported from China. This demonstrates that China's expansion has moved past the experimental stage and is now taking place on a massive scale.

At the same time, there is a significant reason driving this push. China’s domestic market is facing extremely aggressive competition. With numerous manufacturers vying for market share, shrinking margins, and excess production capacity, exporting has become a strategic necessity.

Europe stands out as a natural destination, offering consumers with high purchasing power and a growing demand for electrified vehicles.

The true barometer of the global automotive contest...The battle between European and Chinese manufacturers is often framed in terms of price, technology, and innovation. Yet, ports are revealing a less visible side of this rivalry.

A car sitting in a port area represents a cost. It takes up space, requires logistical management, and reduces capacity for incoming shipments. The greater the accumulated volume, the greater the operational challenge.

Consequently, the success of the Chinese strategy also entails risks. Simply manufacturing good vehicles and shipping them to Europe is not enough; it is essential to build a comprehensive infrastructure capable of transporting, selling, financing, and supporting thousands of customers.

The current situation reveals a curious reversal of roles. For decades, the challenge was producing enough vehicles to meet global demand. Now, in some cases, the problem appears to be exactly the opposite: finding the space and logistical capacity to handle a volume of cars arriving faster than they can be distributed.

This is the new reality for the automotive industry. The battle is not playing out solely in factories or dealerships; it is also being waged at ports, on railways, on trucks, and at distribution centers.

And the logistical bottlenecks now emerging send a clear message: China’s expansion into Europe has moved faster than many had anticipated.

Europe seeks to shield itself from the 'flood' of Chinese products... In April, the trade deficit with China surpassed the €30 billion mark—a level deemed unsustainable by the European Commission itself, which is proposing to equip the Union with tools to rebalance its trade relationship with Beijing.

Among the measures under consideration is a mechanism that would exclude certain products from European public procurement markets and limit the acquisition of European companies by Chinese groups. France, in particular, advocates for the creation of a European equivalent to the United States' "Section 301," which allows for the imposition of targeted surcharges on products from countries accused of unfair trade practices.

"We must adopt defensive measures," argued French President Emmanuel Macron, asserting that Europeans have the right to react "when our sovereignty is at stake."

Trade war...Since 2024, with the imposition of additional tariffs on Chinese electric cars, the trade relationship between the EU and China has become an extremely sensitive issue. Some European countries fear the onset of a trade war with uncertain consequences for the EU.

Following the European surcharges on Chinese electric vehicles, Beijing retaliated by targeting sectors such as cognac, pork production, and European dairy products.

Another major concern is the EU's heavy reliance on China, which controls rare earth elements and strategic raw materials essential to high-tech industries. Restrictions imposed by Beijing last year on certain exports served as a wake-up call for Europeans.

"This shows just how important it is to diversify our sources of supply," declared Ursula von der Leyen during the G7 summit in Évian.

mundophone

TECH

Affordable Raspberry Pi 4 Model B surfaces with binned CPU

You'll recognise the price along with the basic shape and size, so you can simply drop your new Raspberry Pi into your old projects for an upgrade; and as always, we've kept all our software backwards-compatible, so what you create on a Raspberry Pi 4 will work on any older models you own too.

The speed and performance of the new Raspberry Pi 4 is a step up from earlier models. For the first time, we've built a complete desktop experience. Whether you're editing documents, browsing the web with a bunch of tabs open, juggling spreadsheets or drafting a presentation, you'll find the experience smooth and very recognisable — but on a smaller, more energy-efficient and much more cost-effective machine.

The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B originally launched in 2019, featuring a CPU with support for a 1.8GHz clock speed. Cytron, an official reseller, is offering a "special version" of the SBC with a binned chip, and it's more affordable.

There's a new version of the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B available. This one costs less than the regular SBC variant, but it's not exactly the same. Specifically, it has a binned chipset, which runs slower than the CPU found in the standard edition.

As Cytron, the reseller offering the affordable Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, notes, the Broadcom BCM2711 of this affordable SBC runs at 1.25GHz. To look back, the original variant, launched in 2019, had its CPU clocked at 1.5GHz, but with a software update, it got support for a 1.8GHz clock speed.

The reseller further highlights that these binned Pi 4 Model B are sourced directly from Raspberry Pi, but they "don't meet the peak 1.8GHz specifications." Instead, they are said to run "flawlessly" with the CPU frequency set at up to "1.25GHz."

This downgrade in the clock speed shouldn't be a big issue for most applications. If anything, the binned Pi 4 Model B would be a little slower than the standard unit. Of course, there can be a notable difference in benchmarks and heavy workloads (GeeekPi aluminum heatsink for the SBC curr. $11.99 on Amazon).

Regarding how affordable the binned version is, there are two configurations available, and the one with 4GB of RAM costs $87.25. To compare, the regular SBC with the same memory goes for $110 on Cytron, while the 8GB configuration costs $181.50.

The binned 8GB version, on the other hand, costs $147. So, these newly surfaced configurations would be good picks for projects with very tight budgets.

mundophone

TECH

Dog-bone design helps 2D nanoribbon transistors stay fast and efficient as widths shrink

Transistors, small semiconductor-based switches that control the flow of electricity, are central components of all electronic devices, from computers to smartphones, wearables, sensors and smart appliances. Over the past decades, electronics engineers have been continuously working to boost the speed and performance of transistors while also reducing their size.

A promising approach for miniaturizing transistors entails the use of two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors, materials that are only one or a few atoms thick. Despite their potential, most high-performing 2D transistors have so far been demonstrated using relatively wide channels, and it has remained unclear whether their performance can be preserved when the channels are made much narrower.

Researchers at Stanford University recently developed new compact transistors based on narrow strips of monolayer 2D semiconducting materials known as nanoribbons. These transistors, introduced in a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, were found to perform remarkably well despite their small size, outperforming previously developed nanoribbon transistors based on the same 2D materials.

"We wanted to reduce 2D transistors in all dimensions, including width," Eric Pop, senior author of the paper, told Tecplor. "Using a monolayer 2D semiconductor, the channel is automatically sub-nanometer thin, but to be technologically relevant, such transistors should also be very small in both length and width."

The team's recent study specifically focused on reliably reducing the transistors' width without significantly affecting their performance.

"Most academic works have looked at the 2D channel's thickness and length, which motivated us to systematically study width scaling in these materials and their devices," said Tara Peña, co-first author of the paper.

To prevent nanoribbon delamination (i.e., peeling from the surface during fabrication), the researchers employed a new approach, patterning 2D semiconductors into a dog bone-like shape. Metal contacts were integrated on the wider regions of this bone-like pattern, acting as anchors.

"This approach allowed us to study many nanoribbon channels as the narrow part of the dog bone, for several 2D semiconductors," said Pop. "In future industry use cases, the anchoring of nanoribbons will need to be achieved in a more compact way."

Using their approach, the researchers fabricated nanoribbon transistors based on three different monolayer 2D semiconductors, namely MoS2, WS2 and WSe2. Electrical measurements showed that the narrow nanoribbon channels retained good transistor behavior across all three materials.

"Importantly, the nanoribbons all behaved well with our nanofabrication approach at dimensions down to about 25 nanometers, including both n- (MoS2, WS2) and p-type behavior (WSe2)," explained Pop.

"This means that the edges are not fundamentally limiting the performance of these materials, and the edges could be further improved. The WS2 transistors were also able to carry about one hundred times higher current density than previous demonstrations, partly due to our improved contacts."

When they tested their newly developed transistors, Pop and his colleagues were surprised to discover that they did not show higher off-state leakage than wider transistors based on the same 2D materials. This suggests that despite their reduced width, the edges of the nanoribbons did not cause excess leakage, which is important for low-power operation.

"Another important part of our approach to reach the narrowest widths was how we etched the transistor channels," said Anton Persson, co-first author of the paper. "Instead of etching the channel in one step, we used two separate etching steps, which etched the channel from opposite sides. This allowed us to form narrower channels than with the conventional one-step approach."

The transistors developed by the researchers achieved good on-state currents of 560 µA/µm for n-type MoS2, 420 µA/µm for n-type WS2 and 130 µA/µm for p-type WSe2. Notably, all three transistors performed better than most other nanoribbon 2D transistors introduced in the past.

"We found that nothing dramatic happens when the transistors become very narrow," said Persson. "We were concerned that the etched-out edges of these semiconductors would cause problems, but the devices still behaved well or at least similarly to their wider counterparts. This suggests that these monolayer 2D semiconductor channels are relatively robust when scaled down in width."

Future research directions...The design and fabrication strategies introduced by this research team could soon be refined further and used to create other electronic components based on 2D semiconductors. This study demonstrated the potential of these strategies for realizing extremely small devices.

"The 'dog-bone' design and multi-step etching approaches both helped with adhesion and achieving narrower widths," said Peña.

"We also believe reducing electron beam dose and polymer contamination during the fabrication process allowed us to obtain 'cleaner' edges for our 2D nanoribbons. We hope our work will inspire other groups (and industry) to think carefully about how to limit sources of disorder that ultimately impact 2D device performance."

Pop and his colleagues are now planning further studies aimed at evaluating their proposed design and patterning approach. They will also try to realize nanoribbons that can operate at lower voltages, with improved edges and smaller contacts.

"For example, here we showed pretty good behavior is possible at 1 V drain-to-source voltage," explained Pop. "It will be important to achieve good behavior at 0.5 V on both the drain and gate, in order for these to be considered viable alternatives to silicon nanosheet transistors."

As part of their next studies, the researchers are curious to determine how far their downscaling approach can go before the performance of transistors starts declining.

"We expect that the devices will eventually start to degrade as the channels become even narrower, but we do not yet know at what width that happens," said Persson. "Understanding what happens below 10 nanometers in width will eventually be important if 2D semiconductors are to be compared seriously with future silicon nanosheets."

"Understanding how various strains and defects impact these ultra-scaled 2D nanoribbons will also be critical, which will require sophisticated materials characterization approaches," added Peña.

2D nanoribbons are ultra-narrow, strip-like structures of two-dimensional (2D) materials (like graphene, transition-metal dichalcogenides, or boron nitride) with widths typically scaled to under 50 nanometers. By restricting 2D sheets into 1D-like ribbons, researchers unlock tunable bandgaps, high charge mobility, and superior quantum edge effects.

Why 2D nanoribbons matter:

-Bandgap engineering: Unlike pristine 2D sheets (such as zero-bandgap graphene), nanoribbons exhibit tunable electronic bandgaps, which are strictly dictated by their precise width and edge orientation.

-Enhanced performance: Nanoribbon architectures offer highly exposed active edges that facilitate rapid electron transport and improved charge mobility, making them ideal for scaling down semiconductor logic devices.

-Quantum confinement: The extremely narrow channels lead to quantum effects, giving rise to unique magnetic behaviors, spin-filtering capabilities, and potential applications in quantum computing.

Key applications:

-Next-generation nanoelectronics: Nanoribbons are highly promising for the creation of ultra-compact Field Effect Transistors (FETs). For instance, researchers have developed high-speed, 35 nm channel nanoribbon transistors using monolayer 2D semiconductors to maintain performance despite shrinking dimensions.

-Energy storage & catalysis: The high surface-area-to-volume ratio and edge activity allow 2D nanoribbons (like those derived from unzipped carbon nanotubes) to act as excellent catalysts for hydrogen evolution, oxygen reduction, and energy storage.

-Optoelectronics: Their tunable optical and electrical properties make them prime candidates for advanced solar cells, sensors, and photodetectors.

Common types:

-Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs): The most well-studied type, often created using bottom-up molecular polymerization or unzipping of carbon nanotubes. They are prized for ballistic electron transport.

-Transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) nanoribbons: Materials like MoS₂ are naturally semiconducting and thin, making them optimal for extreme miniaturization in modern computing without the leakage currents found in traditional silicon.

-Boron nitride nanoribbons (BNNRs): Structurally similar to graphene but with a large bandgap, often used as an insulating dielectric layer or combined with graphene in heterostructures.

mundophone

DIGITAL LIFE

OECD warns of AI-induced “cognitive laziness”

Over-reliance on generative models may impair human judgment in the long run, according to new OECD data pointing to a pattern of AI-induced cognitive laziness. The document indicates that repeatedly delegating analytical tasks to automated systems can weaken autonomous intellectual skills and diminish critical capacity when these tools are unavailable.

Picture the scene. You’re behind the wheel in an unfamiliar city. Twenty years ago, a crumpled map lay on the passenger seat, eyes shuttling between paper and road, the mind charting streets, landmarks, intersections. Today, a soft, synthetic, almost reassuring voice takes care of everything. Attention drifts off, memory dissolves, and thought becomes a simple act of obedience. The comfort is total, almost anesthetic.

In the same way, when a question arises, there’s no need to search, to doubt, to build an answer step by step. You simply pose it to a machine. Within seconds, an artificial intelligence delivers a clear, well-argued, polished synthesis. The slowness of reasoning has vanished, replaced by immediate efficiency.

We now live in a world of universal assistance, a world where everything seems fluid, rational, effortless. These tools promise to free us from the burden of tedious tasks, to augment our capabilities, to make life simpler. Yet behind this technological comfort lurks a discreet paradox: as we delegate our cognitive faculties, we risk losing the ability to use them. By being constantly assisted, we cease to exercise what made us unique: autonomous thought.

It’s this slow drift—what I call cognitive laziness—that I’d like to discuss today. A laziness born not from disinterest, but from delegation. That of a mind that gradually surrenders to the machine to sort, choose, decide. The temptation of shortcuts becomes permanent, the fatigue of thinking disappears, and with it, the effort that forged lucidity.

Students who use digital assistants for academic assignments show a drop in performance on analog assessments. The OECD’s *Digital Education Outlook 2026* report reveals that introducing these platforms into the educational ecosystem creates an illusion of technical proficiency. Statistical data collected by the international organization suggests that the initial quality of schoolwork produced with computational support does not translate into retained knowledge.

In-person exams conducted without network access showed a reversal in grades for students who rely on automation. Removing intellectual friction during the research and writing phases hinders the consolidation of concepts in long-term memory. The OECD warns of the risk of widespread intellectual disengagement in educational institutions if language models continue to be integrated without criteria for maintaining analog-based analysis.

The illusion of competence in the professional environment... A decline in autonomous judgment is also becoming apparent in the corporate world—a phenomenon researchers liken to the loss of spatial awareness caused by the systematic use of GPS. A study cited by Harvard Business School measured the performance of professionals assisted by generative models. The results show that immediate gains in speed can come at the cost of quality or rigor in certain tasks, particularly when users encounter problems that lie beyond the AI's capabilities.

Professionals using the technology completed tasks 25.1% faster. However, when dealing with complex problems outside their specific area of ​​expertise, users showed a 19-percentage-point higher likelihood of making serious errors. The study further suggests that many employees accept incorrect machine-generated answers without verification, reinforcing the risk of over-reliance on AI in learning and operational oversight.

The loss of critical friction also affects system development and software coding. Research from Stanford University focusing on the use of autonomous computational assistants found that automation reduces the natural skepticism of technical operators. The study quantified output quality and found that professionals assisted by algorithms produce solutions with a higher rate of structural security flaws.

The research highlights a specific cognitive bias in which the user assumes automated work is correct due to the tool's seamless interface. This dynamic eliminates traditional manual validation processes, leading to an accumulation of logical errors that overwhelms senior professionals during the auditing phase. Reliance on generative models alters work structures, necessitating the reintroduction of verification methodologies based on primary sources.

Data presented by the OECD and academic institutions demonstrate that digital tools should serve to amplify, not replace, human intellect. Mitigating skill erosion requires creating artificial barriers that force a period of mental deliberation before resorting to algorithms. The sustainability of technological evolution depends on organizations' ability to preserve critical thinking as a strategic asset that cannot be entirely delegated to automation.

mundophone

TECH

SpaceX targets US consumers with Starlink mobile service push

SpaceX has told investors it is considering launching a standalone Starlink mobile service for US consumers, according to the Financial Times. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell raised the possibility during the company's IPO roadshow, saying SpaceX could build its own terrestrial US mobile network and sell directly to consumers rather than through carrier partners.

SpaceX is reportedly preparing to launch a direct-to-consumer mobile service in the US using its Starlink satellite network. According to a report from the Financial Times, the Elon Musk-helmed company is looking to build its own US mobile network” to directly compete against telecommunication giants like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

While SpaceX currently works alongside T-Mobile to provide some extra cellular connectivity in rural regions, the company is now reportedly considering its own Starlink retail product. At a recent IPO roadshow, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell hinted to investors that the company is exploring creating its own network infrastructure.

In a sense, the groundwork for this move has already been quietly laid out. Over the course of late 2023 and last year, SpaceX bought close to $20 billion worth of wireless spectrum licenses from EchoStar. Those airwaves give Starlink the ability to build an affordable, strong direct-to-cell service without having to rely completely on other telecom companies. Oppenheimer analysts believe that as Starlink branches off into more direct-to-consumer products, it could seriously shake up the $1.6 trillion US comms industry.

SpaceX has told investors it plans to launch a Starlink mobile service for U.S. ‌consumers, the Financial Times reported on Friday, in ‌a move that could allow the Elon Musk-led company to compete directly with ​Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.

Here are some details:

• SpaceX already offers direct-to-cell connectivity with T-Mobile in the U.S., providing supplemental coverage from space to extend internet access to remote areas.

• SpaceX is ‌now considering launching ⁠a Starlink retail product and could build its own terrestrial U.S. mobile network, President Gwynne Shotwell ⁠told investors during a recent IPO roadshow, the FT report said, citing sources.

• Reuters could not immediately verify the report. ​SpaceX did ​not immediately respond to ​a Reuters request for comment ‌outside regular business hours.

• In September last year, SpaceX bought wireless spectrum licenses from EchoStar for its Starlink satellite network for about $17 billion and then again for $2.6 billion in November, giving it the ability to quickly create a strong ‌and affordable direct-to-cell service by ​using EchoStar's wireless airwaves.

• SpaceX will ​disrupt the $1.6 trillion U.S. ​communications industry as its satellite broadband unit ‌Starlink expands, brokerage firm Oppenheimer said ​in a ​note earlier this month.

• SpaceX's record valuation is grounded in Starlink, which has over 10 million subscribers, and ​a launch business ‌that analysts and investors say has transformed access to ​orbit.

This aggressive expansion into the mobile sector fits well with SpaceX’s overall push to squeeze every last drop of revenue out of their Starlink satellite internet service while satisfying new shareholders after its recent public offering pushed its valuation past the $2 trillion mark. As we recently reported, Starlink ended its free dish perks to shift to a new hardware rental model. Rather than offer the Standard dish as a free rental on Residential plans, the company now charges a $10 monthly kit fee.

The complementary Mini dish perk for the $130/month Residential Max plan was also retired. Those hardware monetization moves pave the way for the launch of a new, highly portable Starlink Standard Gen 4 kit and an upgraded Mini dish with a built-in battery.

Though its new terrestrial mobile network is focused on everyday consumers, SpaceX’s ambitions stretch further into heavy enterprise computing. SpaceX has been quietly working on building out a separate AI Orbital Data Center satellite constellation called Starmind. Designed to launch as a prototype in early 2027, the Starmind project will consist of up to a million AI-powered satellites intended to offload heavy computing workloads into orbit. By relying on limitless solar power and natural vacuum cooling, SpaceX aims to avoid the space, power, and water limits that are choking down Earth-bound AI data centers.

TECH

Plain-language AI workflow tool could cut cloud energy use and costs dramatically

Agentic workflows are artificial intelligence-powered software systems that chain together multiple models and external tools to tackle complicated tasks, like analyzing a video and answering questions about it. But the way these highly fragmented systems are designed and deployed often causes inefficiencies that can lead to wasted computation, energy and cost.

To improve efficiency, researchers from MIT and Microsoft developed an intelligent system that streamlines the process of designing agentic workflows and automatically optimizes how those workflows are implemented. With this new method, a developer can describe what they want the agentic workflow to do in plain language, without needing to specify all the details of their application in advance.

The system automatically figures out the best models and tools to use, as well as the ideal hardware configuration and computational resource allocation when the workflow is executed by a cloud provider. It adjusts those configurations on the fly based on each user's priorities, such as minimizing costs or maximizing speed.

When tested on several agentic workloads, this new system reduced the number of computational units needed for deployment, significantly cutting energy requirements and costs compared with traditional approaches without hampering performance.

"Agentic workflows are getting very complicated and quickly becoming the backbone of what cloud providers are doing. Energy usage is a huge concern, so we need to be very careful about how efficient these workflows are. It is very easy to over-allocate resources, wasting energy and money. Enabling a cloud provider to intelligently make these workflows more resource-optimal is a win for everyone involved," says Gohar Chaudhry, an electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) graduate student and lead author of a paper on this system posted to the arXiv preprint server.

He is joined on the paper by Adam Belay, an associate professor of EECS and a member of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; senior author Ricardo Bianchini, technical fellow and corporate vice president at Microsoft Azure; and others at Microsoft Azure. The paper will be presented at the USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI 26), held in Seattle, July 13–15.

A configuration conundrum...An agentic workflow is a system composed of several autonomous AI agents that collaboratively use various models and tools, like databases or Python programs, to dynamically complete a multistep task, such as data processing or code generation. These workflows can serve as behind-the-scenes processes that power user-facing applications.

Typically, developers must hard-code all technical choices upfront. They need to define which AI agents, models and tools to use, and the order in which to use them. They also must specify the hardware that runs the workflow and how to balance trade-offs like speed versus cost.

This is especially challenging because agentic workflows bring together multiple black-box models and diverse tools, each with its own configuration options, which may be offered by different companies. If a new AI model is released that would improve the application's accuracy or efficiency, the developer would need to start from scratch to implement it.

"Even if you wanted to do all this manually, it is unlikely that you'll be able to configure the workflow optimally because the space of possible configurations is so large," Chaudhry says.

In addition, the cloud data center that deploys the application for customers can't see inside the workflow to allocate its hardware resources in the most efficient manner at the time of the user's request.

With this new system, called Murakkab (an Urdu word that means a composition of things), the researchers sought to optimize the entire agentic workflow process.

Murakkab manages end-to-end workflow life-cycle: from development to optimized deployment and execution. Credit: arXiv (2025)

Dynamic decision-making...First, Murakkab enables developers to create an agentic workflow by describing their intent for the application in high-level terms, rather than detailing how the many components of that workflow should be combined. For instance, a developer might describe a video Q&A application that extracts key frames, generates a transcript and then answers user queries about the video.

"There are many ways to do this, and all these different models and tools have implications on how fast the application can finish the task," he says.

Murakkab takes the developer's straightforward specifications and automatically identifies the best existing models and tools to put together into the workflow. It also determines which components need to run sequentially and which can be run in parallel to boost performance.

"The platform makes configuration decisions dynamically over time, so if a new model or GPU accelerator comes out tomorrow, the developer doesn't need to worry about that," he says.

When the cloud provider deploys that application for a customer, Murakkab optimizes the workflow by configuring its components to meet the user's constraints, such as prioritizing accuracy while meeting a latency requirement. It adaptively identifies ideal hardware allocations and deployment schedules to maximize efficiency in real time, then generates a workflow that is ready for the cloud provider to execute.

"Our system also gives cloud providers visibility into multiple workloads, so the provider can share computational resources in the most efficient manner while satisfying the constraints of users," he says.

When tested on diverse agentic workflows for video Q&A and code generation, Murakkab met user requirements while using only about 35% of the computation required by other methods. It consumed only about 27% as much energy for less than 25% of the cost.

The dynamic nature of Murakkab also enables users to balance trade-offs. In one instance, the system lowered energy consumption of an agentic workflow by more than an order of magnitude with only about a 2% drop in accuracy for the customer.

The system was also able to identify an unexpectedly ideal configuration for a model that selects video frames, optimizing performance for a video Q&A task. This type of optimization would be nearly impossible for a developer to do manually, Chaudhry says.

Next, the researchers plan to expand their system to more complex workflows and larger computing clusters while exploring opportunities to optimize new agentic applications. "There is a lot of potential to make these workflows more resource-optimal so they consume far less energy, but we need to be thinking about this at the scale of major cloud platforms," says Chaudhry.

Provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

TECH

Operation Endgame neutralizes dangerous malware networks

Europol announced a global offensive that resulted in the dismantling of malware networks, involving the takedown of hundreds of servers dedicated to digital extortion campaigns and credential harvesting. The joint law enforcement action, dubbed Operation Endgame, neutralized the operational nodes of the SocGholish, Amadey, and StealC criminal infrastructures.

The intervention, coordinated directly from The Hague by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre and Eurojust, took place over the last two weeks. Financial and cyber authorities identified and froze illicit digital assets valued at over €41 million.

In terms of pure technological infrastructure, the operation took down 326 active servers and seized administrative control of 142 internet domains. These computing resources directly supported the spread of malicious agents and the centralized management of compromised computer networks.

Operation Endgame: Strategy Targets the Digital Crime Assembly Line... The focus of this operation represents a methodological shift in the activities of international law enforcement agencies. Instead of directing efforts toward the isolated mitigation of incidents or specific virus variants, police forces focused on dismantling the distribution chains for shared cybercrime services.

This integrated approach caused severe operational disruption within the access-provision ecosystem. According to technical reports validated by Microsoft—a private-sector partner in the operation—the Amadey and StealC tools alone were directly linked to active infections on more than 140,000 personal computers worldwide during the first half of May 2026.

The chain of these threats followed a corporate model of task division. The Amadey agent secured initial access to victims' systems, while StealC carried out the systematic extraction of passwords, access keys, and stored identities for subsequent sale on underground forums.

WordPress under monitoring following the mitigation of malware networks...The impact of the campaign linked to the SocGholish vector necessitated the urgent cleanup of 14,971 legitimate websites that had been compromised. The malicious code affected pages belonging to everyday service businesses—such as auto repair shops and restaurants—by exploiting vulnerabilities in content management platforms.

The tactic involved distributing fake web browser updates. Cybercriminals compromised the code integrity of WordPress installations and forced the display of fraudulent pop-up alerts, which downloaded the harmful executable file as soon as the user agreed to the installation.

Technical analysis links the SocGholish network to the Russian-based collective Evil Corp. This criminal organization has a long-standing history of developing large-scale financial threats, having been directly responsible for creating the Zeus and Dridex malware, as well as maintaining ties to global money laundering schemes. Operation Endgame relied on the real-time sharing of tactical data via SIENA, Europol’s secure communication platform. The Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce ensured the alignment of national investigations to prevent the loss or scattering of evidence.

The effort combined operational expertise from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Danish Police, Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office, the Netherlands’ National High Tech Crime Unit, the UK’s National Crime Agency, and US federal agencies. The private sector contributed security experts from Microsoft, Proofpoint, IBM X-Force, Bitdefender, and the Shadowserver Foundation. In the context of information recovery, the operation enabled the retrieval of approximately 27 million sets of credentials that were in the attackers' possession. Europol began sharing this data with victim notification networks—including the NoMoreLeaks platform and the HaveIBeenPwned portal—to rapidly alert affected users.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

-What distinguishes Operation Endgame from other law enforcement actions?

This operation focused on the simultaneous neutralization of the entire technical supply chain of the cybercrime operation. By simultaneously disabling the servers supporting three malware variants, authorities cut off the supply of access and the harvesting of credentials that fueled subsequent digital extortion attacks.

-How did the SocGholish malware infect WordPress-based platforms?

SocGholish exploited vulnerabilities in WordPress-managed websites to inject malicious code. This code displayed fake web browser update alerts to visitors. Clicking the alert downloaded code that granted attackers remote control of the user's computer.

-How can users check if their credentials were recovered during this operation?

International authorities transferred the 27 million recovered records to trusted security databases, such as the HaveIBeenPwned service. Website owners and individual users can submit their addresses to these portals to confirm if they appear on the list of compromised accounts.

Key points:

-Seizure of over €41 million in crypto assets of criminal origin.

-Removal of 326 servers and administrative takeover of 142 domains used by the malware networks.

-Mitigation of the impact on 14,971 legitimate websites running on the WordPress content management system.

-Recovery and protection of 27 million access credentials stolen from users worldwide.

mundophone