Latest news with #GobiDesert
Zawya
23-07-2025
- Automotive
- Zawya
Trinasolar's Vertex modules revive the Gobi Desert
Amid the vast expanse of the Gobi Desert in Jinta, Gansu Province, rows of solar panels are transforming once-hostile sands into a thriving 'blue ocean' of green energy, for which Trinasolar supplied 100MW of high-performance Vertex series modules to this project, helping drive both energy output and environmental renewal. Trinasolar's Vertex modules, based on 210mm technology platform, provide high power output, superior efficiency, and long-term reliability. These features lower the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), while ensuring stable energy yield despite harsh environmental challenges like drought and sandstorms. The plant site benefits from about 3,200 hours of usable sunshine annually, thus making it an ideal place for photovoltaic development. Now operating at full capacity, this 500MW project generates about 736.5 million kWh of electricity annually, saving approximately 300,000 tons of standard coal, reducing CO₂ emissions by over 800,000 tons, and cutting particulate matter emissions by nearly 4,000 tons. Besides, PV panels can help mitigate land degradation by lowering surface temperatures, reducing water evaporation, and mitigate wind and sand erosion. 'This project goes beyond energy generation—it exemplifies how solar power can actively restore degraded land,' said Cao Yunduan, Head of Global Branding and Marketing at Trinasolar. 'It stands as a compelling testament to the successful integration of ecological preservation and sustainable energy.' Drawing on its high-efficiency photovoltaic modules, Trinasolar has established itself as a highly reliable manufacturer. Its products and solutions are widely adopted and recognized by customers worldwide, with extensive expertise accumulated in delivering tailored solutions for desert and arid environments. A 1.3GW solar-storage power station in northwestern China has been recently connected to the grid, using all Trinasolar's Vertex N modules. An agrivoltaics power plant in southwestern China's Guizhou province with a total capacity of 67.5MW has also been grid-connected using Trinasolar's Vertex N 720W series modules. A 1GW solar-storage project under construction in northwest China, with Trinasolar supplying 210MW of its high-efficiency Vertex N 720W series modules is scheduled to be grid-connected by the end of this year. Trinasolar remains committed to leading the way in smart PV and energy storage solutions. Going ahead, Trinasolar will continue to innovate and enhance its technologies, providing more efficient and reliable products and solutions to customers worldwide, contributing to a net-zero future About Trinasolar (688599. SH) Founded in 1997, Trinasolar Co Ltd (stock symbol: Trinasolar; stock code: 688599) is engaged mainly in PV products, PV systems and smart energy. PV products include R&D, production and sales of PV modules. PV systems consist of power stations and system products. Smart energy comprises mainly PV power generation and operations and maintenance, smart solutions for energy storage, smart microgrid, and development and sales of multi-energy systems. We are committed to leading the way in smart PV and energy storage solutions and facilitating the transformation of new power systems for a net-zero future. On June 10, 2020, Trinasolar was listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board (STAR Market) of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE). It was the first PV and energy storage company to go public on the STAR Market providing PV products and systems, as well as smart energy. For more information, please visit For media inquiries please contact: Mariam Agag – PR Manager, Trinasolar MEA Email: Lojayne Mohsen – Senior Consultant, Fekra Communications Email:
Bloomberg
08-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
China Wants 115,000 Nvidia Chips to Power Data Centers in the Desert
By Andy Lin Mackenzie Hawkins Colum Murphy James Mayger Graphics by Jin Wu Adrian Leung July 8, 2025 Yiwu Advanced Computing Cluster There's a construction boom under way on the edge of the Gobi desert in Xinjiang, where cranes are at work in fields of rock and the sound of jackhammers fills the air. Here in the modest county of Yiwu, China is building out its ambitions to lead the world in artificial intelligence. The futuristic structures are data centers that the operators seek to equip with high-end American semiconductors — chips that the US government doesn't want its geopolitical rival to obtain. A Bloomberg News analysis of investment approvals, tender documents and company filings shows that Chinese firms aim to install more than 115,000 Nvidia Corp. AI chips in some three dozen data centers across the country's western deserts. Operators in Xinjiang intend to house the lion's share of those processors in a single compound — which, if they can pull it off, could be used to train foundational large-language models like those of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek. The complex as envisioned would still be dwarfed by the scale of AI infrastructure in the US, but it would significantly boost China's computing prowess as President Xi Jinping pushes for technological breakthroughs. Such a project also would raise serious concerns for officials in Washington, who restricted leading-edge Nvidia chip sales to China in 2022 over worries that advanced AI could give Beijing a military edge. Yet the Chinese documents contain no explanation of how companies plan to acquire the chips, which cannot be legally purchased without licenses from the US government, permits that haven't been given. The companies listed in the filings, state officials and central government representatives in Beijing declined to comment when asked to explain. To gauge whether Chinese entities could realistically procure that quantity of restricted processors, Bloomberg News spoke with more than a dozen people who've been involved in or privy to US government investigations into the matter, as well as several people with direct knowledge of the black market in China. None of those familiar with the US probes said they previously knew of the data center buildout in Xinjiang. All said that while they believe there are indeed banned chips in China, they're not aware of an illicit trade network sophisticated enough to procure more than 100,000 such processors and direct that hardware to a centralized location. But the US government doesn't appear to have reached a consensus on the number of restricted Nvidia chips currently in the Asian country. Most of the people interviewed for this story said they were unaware of an agreed-upon estimate, while some offered rough numbers that differed by tens of thousands of processors. Two senior Biden administration officials said they believe there are around 25,000 banned Nvidia chips in China — a number that, one of them added, would not be terribly concerning. That volume of semiconductors, assuming they are integrated into servers and designated for the same facility, could power at most one mid-sized data center. The US Commerce Department — whose Bureau of Industry and Security, known as BIS, is tasked with implementing and enforcing chip trade restrictions — did not answer detailed questions for this story, including how many banned Nvidia chips the Trump administration believes are in China, nor whether Trump officials were previously aware of the projects in Xinjiang. 'Posting a web page asking about restricted products is not the same as successfully licensing, building, and operating a datacenter,' Nvidia said in an emailed response to questions about the Chinese companies' claims. 'Datacenters are massive and complex systems, making smuggling extremely difficult, and we do not provide any support or repairs for restricted products.' The California-based company also said that 'trying to cobble together a datacenter from smuggled, previous-generation products makes no business or engineering sense,' especially since chips and servers made by Huawei Technologies Co. are widely available in China. Jensen Huang, Nvidia's chief executive officer, made his position clear at a May conference in Taipei: 'There's no evidence of any AI chip diversion,' he said. Yet the head of BIS pointedly contradicted that assertion just weeks later, telling US lawmakers that there is clearly a problem with AI chip smuggling. 'It's happening,' said Commerce Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler. 'It's a fact.' Although Kessler didn't mention Nvidia by name, the company is by far the dominant provider of such semiconductors. Kessler also said that US efforts to restrict Huawei's chipmaking capabilities will keep China's output at just 200,000 AI processors this year — a number far short of domestic demand. To be sure, Bloomberg News has not found evidence that China has amassed, or can amass, 115,000 banned Nvidia chips — nor evidence that smaller volumes of restricted semiconductors that US officials believe are in the country have been directed to centralized locations. And yet in Yiwu, the construction goes on. Looming out of the desert, a tower the height of the Golden Gate Bridge radiates an intense light that pierces the surrounding dust clouds. Arrays of reflectors focus the sun's energy onto a receiver that allows the daytime heat of the arid plains to be stored, ensuring continuous power generation. It's one main reason for the choice of Yiwu, just to the south over a mountain pass. On the barren hill behind one new building stands a wall with a slogan picked out in red Chinese letters two meters high: 'Data-electricity fusion shows great promise.' Xinjiang, and especially the Hami region which includes Yiwu County, is rich in wind and solar energy, as well as abundant in coal, offering a ready source of affordable power. Local governments there are at the forefront of a state strategy to take advantage of those energy resources — along with cheap land and cool weather at altitude, helping counter the heat generated by racks of servers — to meet the AI computing-power demand of more economically developed regions such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. Xinjiang, China's Major Hub for Renewable Energy Rich in wind and solar energy resources, Hami in eastern Xinjiang has become one of China's largest renewable power bases On a midweek day in March, workers loaded windmill blades onto the back of trucks traveling the road between the prefectural capital of Hami City and Yiwu, over bleak terrain past occasional camels grazing, and through a new tunnel leading out to a plain with views of snow-capped mountains. The main road into town leads past the first data center, still under construction, with a man welding from his perch on metal scaffolding. Hami is best known for its sweet melons, and Yiwu claims to be the site of the last battle on the mainland of the Chinese civil war in 1949. There's a monument downtown dedicated to a horse that played a role in the final engagement between Communist forces and nationalists loyal to Chiang Kai-shek. The authorities in Xinjiang are particularly suspicious of foreigners due to Western allegations of human-rights abuses against ethnic Uyghurs. Interview requests sent to eight data center operators in Yiwu were ignored, rejected or agreed to and then cancelled at short notice. The Xinjiang government and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the central government ministry overseeing data center development, didn't reply to Bloomberg requests for comment. The most important part of a giant data center is relatively small. Nvidia dominates the market for so-called AI accelerators, highly coveted components that have propelled the chipmaker's valuation to nearly $4 trillion. The processors are connected together in giant arrays numbering tens of thousands and used to sift through mountains of data to create new computer code that can in many ways approximate human intelligence. The US barred China from importing Nvidia's best chips in October 2022, a month before OpenAI's ChatGPT debut roiled the tech industry and sparked a global race that now includes DeepSeek among its top players. Washington several times has ratcheted up those curbs, restricting sales to China of a variety of advanced semiconductors and the machines used to make them — with additional sanctions levied on specific Chinese tech companies. That sweeping effort, which dates back to Trump's first term, has become a primary source of tension with Beijing — one that Chinese officials repeatedly raised in recent trade talks with the US after the Trump administration imposed punitive tariffs. 'All the greatest chips in the world are American, right? So of course they want them,' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC last month, speaking about China's position during negotiations in London. 'And of course we said 'absolutely not.'' The Xinjiang effort suggests that China's AI ambitions — which hinge in large part on locally produced chips from the likes of Huawei — still include some hope of accessing restricted Nvidia hardware too. Project approval documents show that in the fourth quarter of 2024, local governments in Xinjiang and in neighboring Qinghai province green-lit a total of 39 data centers that intend to use more than 115,000 Nvidia processors. All of the companies stated in their investment plans that they aim to obtain H100 or H200 chips, two Nvidia GPUs, or graphics processing units, that were the industrial standard for training large language models such as OpenAI's GPT4o and Google's Gemini through last year. Nvidia this year debuted a new, more advanced model — dubbed the Grace Blackwell — that is banned along with the H100 and H200 from export to China without a US government license. Seven Xinjiang projects that aim to use those processors had started construction or won open tenders for AI computing service as of June 2025, according to tender documents obtained by Bloomberg. One operator says it's already using advanced hardware facilities to support cloud access to DeepSeek's R1 model, according to local news reports. Still, the provincial projects' description of their intended computing capabilities may be somewhat aspirational: Local party officials try to signal to Beijing that they are working toward national priorities, but Chinese companies frequently launch initiatives that are never completed. One of the largest projects involves a company ultimately controlled by Nyocor Co., a Tianjin-based energy firm mainly engaged in solar and wind power. It proposes to build a data center powered by 625 H100 servers, one of the banned Nvidia models. It would start with 250 servers in the first phase. That's 2,000 H100 chips. Tender documents show the Nyocor project has started installing servers and other equipment at the data center building, and has asked China Bester Group, a Hubei-based IT company, to supply the hardware. Unlike the investment approval documents, which explicitly state the company wants to use H100s, the tenders don't specify whether the installed servers run on Nvidia chips or some alternative. The amount of the investment was not disclosed. Nyocor is selling its computing power to Infinigence AI, one of the largest AI infrastructure companies in China. The company has raised one billion yuan since creation. "Our goal is to turn computing service into facilities like water and gas, readily available when developers turn on the switch," said Infinigence's CEO in an interview with local media in September 2024. Bloomberg estimates that in order to complete all of the 39 projects as outlined, companies would need to figure out a way to purchase more than 14,000 data servers or 115,000 Nvidia H100 or H200 chips, both banned for China-based entities. Bloomberg estimates these chips would be worth billions of dollars based on black market prices in China. Nyocor declined to comment. China Bester and China Energy Investment didn't reply to requests for comment. Infinigence AI couldn't be reached for a response. Around 70% of computing power planned by the identified projects is in a single compound set up by the local government in Xinjiang. That makes the region — the epicenter of Western charges of Chinese rights abuses including forced labor and religious persecution — pivotal to China's efforts to seize the lead from the US in a sphere seen as key to future global technological, and geopolitical, dominance. Even if successful, the Xinjiang complex would only involve the number of Nvidia chips that one major hyperscaler — a term for massive data center operators like Microsoft Corp. and Amazon Web Services — deploys in a single week, according to data Nvidia provided on a recent earnings call. Still, Chinese companies like DeepSeek are beginning to show they can do more with less. 'The gap between leading US and Chinese AI labs is closing,' said Kevin Xu, a tech investor and founder of US-based Interconnected Capital, who put it at around three months. Players like DeepSeek, which says it trained its R1 model using less-advanced Nvidia chips, are 'very serious and sincere' about pursuing artificial general intelligence, Xu said. The fact that leading Chinese models are open source means they spread faster globally, he added, while noting that diffusion is hard to track: 'Beijing sees this trend as a source of technological soft power worth embracing.' DeepSeek and other Chinese AI startups have already expressed interest in collaborating with the data center projects in Xinjiang, according to an employee of one of the largest investors in the Yiwu sites. That employee, whose name has been withheld to protect their identity, said in a message exchange that their company will invest more than 5 billion yuan ($700 million) in data center projects there in 2025 and 2026. China's data center industry is expected to surpass 300 billion yuan in scale this year, according to the Securities Times. Chinese entities are collectively expected to invest nearly that amount on an annual basis by 2028, according to the China Communications Industry Association — a more than threefold increase from a half-decade prior. Xinjiang has already brought its first 'intelligent computing center' online, and constructed 24,000 petaflops of computing power for demand from the logistics hub of Chongqing, Chairman of the People's Government of Xinjiang Erkin Tuniyaz said in an annual government work report in January, without specifying the type of chips installed. The cited computing power is equivalent to roughly 12,000 server-integrated Nvidia H100s. Prospective investors in such projects are attracted with the promise of free electricity worth up to 20% of total power costs. Data center operators also can access government support ranging from one-off payments for construction to operation incentives for up to five years, depending on company size, according to local government documents reviewed by Bloomberg. Experts in 'green computing' areas are also eligible for favorable terms on accommodation, children's education and research funding. From a standing start, 'Xinjiang's intelligent computing has achieved a historic breakthrough,' Tuniyaz said in January. China's Planned Computing Power Corridors China's East Data West Computing initiative brings together AI data centers and computing power demands Policymakers in Washington for years have been aware that limiting China's access to US technology is not as simple as writing a regulation. Not two months after the chip restrictions took effect, Chinese officials caught a woman hiding forbidden hardware in a baby bump. The American AI company Anthropic recently said smugglers have packed GPUs next to live lobsters. Nvidia has dismissed both examples as 'tall tales' that ignore the complexity of building data centers, which require operational support to run properly — support that Nvidia does not provide for restricted products in China. Still, conversations with people privy to illicit semiconductor transactions, as well as media reports from a range of outlets, indicate that smuggling networks have gotten more sophisticated over time. Those stories — which have helped inform US investigations, people familiar with the matter said — have cited examples ranging from dozens of illicit processors to more than a thousand. Potential smuggling in Malaysia has become a big concern for the Trump administration, which plans to restrict Nvidia sales there to halt possible diversion to China, and also has asked Malaysian authorities to crack down on the issue — a request the government has said it'll heed. Officials in Singapore, meanwhile, are prosecuting three men for alleged fraud in exports to Malaysia of AI servers that likely contained advanced Nvidia processors — bound for an unknown final destination. In response to queries about Washington's export control plans, Malaysia's Ministry of Investment, Trade & Industry said the country will 'act firmly against any company or individual should there be strong evidence' of misuse or diversion of advanced tech. The ministry added that Malaysia welcomes a dialogue with the US and other nations to 'clarify any misunderstandings and to strengthen mutual trust.' Trump officials are separately investigating whether DeepSeek may have accessed restricted chips through intermediaries in Singapore, and a bipartisan congressional committee focused on China recently requested Nvidia's customer data for 11 Asian countries, related to concerns that DeepSeek may have circumvented US export controls. (None of the documents viewed or interviews conducted through the course of this investigation indicated any link between the Xinjiang projects and supply chains in Singapore or Malaysia. Nvidia is not accused of any wrongdoing in Singapore's probe or in the US investigation into DeepSeek.) Read More: Lutnick Urges Tougher Enforcement of Export Curbs on China Nvidia consistently has said it abides by all US rules, but Huang has made no secret that he doesn't like Washington's strategy. Years of curbs — including on crucial semiconductor manufacturing equipment — have 'failed' to contain Huawei's rise, he said at the May conference in Taipei. Nvidia now sees Huawei as a formidable competitor, and the company worries its Chinese rival will continue to improve and gain market share — unless the US government allows Nvidia to compete on Huawei's home turf. Washington isn't buying it. The Trump administration has already further limited the types of chips Nvidia can sell in China, at a $5.5 billion hit to the company. White House AI Advisor Sriram Krishnan, asked about Huang's urge to lift those curbs, said that 'there is still bipartisan and broad concern about what can happen to these GPUs once they're physically inside' the Asian country. Meanwhile, Chinese companies continue to build their data centers, a sign they expect to receive AI chips from somewhere. Two such construction projects were approved by the Qinghai government in December 2024, with a total investment of 13.5 billion yuan, documents from Qinghai's investment review website show. The companies applying for construction permits for both projects were founded that same month. China's company registry services show both entities can be traced by shareholding data to the same group of controlling companies: one real estate firm in Qinghai named Qinghai Borong Group and one AI tech company in Sichuan called Chengdu Qingshu Technology. They didn't respond to requests for comment. Neither is on Nvidia's official resellers list. Related tickers: NVDA:US (NVIDIA Corp) 40978Z:CH (Huawei Technologies Co Ltd) 600821:CH (NYOCOR Co Ltd) 603220:CH (China Bester Group Telecom Co Ltd) Additional reporting by Ian KingYuan GaoEdwin ChanJenny Leonard Edited by Alan CrawfordJane PongPeter Elstrom Photos edited by Yuki Tanaka Methodology Bloomberg News obtained the investment plan documents from Xinjiang and Qinghai's government websites exhibiting investment approvals, the description of which specify the investing company's name, date of approval and how many H100/200 servers are to be installed or the planned total computing power. Bloomberg cross-checked the company details in the documents with China's company registry information to identify their ultimate parents, and looked them up in the tender databases in China for announced procurement and tender information. Bloomberg reporters also found details of Yiwu's AI development project when conducting reporting in the town, with billboards showcasing the industrial park's master plan. Terms of Service Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information Trademarks Privacy Policy Careers Made in NYC Advertise Ad Choices Help ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. All Rights Reserved.
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sandvik gains Oyu Tolgoi's $28m order for underground mining equipment
Sandvik has secured an order valued at Skr270m ($28.3m) from Oyu Tolgoi LLC for underground mining equipment. The equipment, including loaders and trucks, will be used at the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in the South Gobi Desert, Mongolia. The order was recorded in the second quarter of 2025, with deliveries scheduled to commence in October and continue until November 2026. Sandvik Mining business area president Mats Eriksson stated: 'Sandvik loaders and trucks have consistently delivered industry-leading performance for Oyu Tolgoi, and we are very pleased to be able to continue to support safety, productivity and cost efficiency in the mining operations.' Oyu Tolgoi LLC, a joint venture between Rio Tinto and the government of Mongolia, operates the Oyu Tolgoi mine, which is considered one of the world's largest known copper-gold deposits. The partnership structure of Oyu Tolgoi comprises the government of Mongolia with a 34% stake and Rio Tinto with 66%. Rio Tinto also manages the operations. The Oyu Tolgoi mine has been producing copper concentrate since 2013, when its copper concentrator, Mongolia's largest industrial complex, began operations. The initiation of underground production in March 2023 has elevated Oyu Tolgoi to a leading position among global copper producers, with an expected peak production of 500,000 tonnes per annum (tpa). In addition to the mining equipment order, Sandvik Mining has also recently obtained IEC 62443-4-1 certification at Maturity Level 2. This certification underscores Sandvik's commitment to embedding cybersecurity measures into its product design and development processes. The IEC 62443-4-1 standard is an internationally recognised benchmark that ensures secure product development practices within the industrial automation and control systems sector. "Sandvik gains Oyu Tolgoi's $28m order for underground mining equipment" was originally created and published by Mining Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Daily Mail
29-06-2025
- Daily Mail
I was waist deep in a hippo's mouth... here is how I narrowly survived
It's been nearly 30 years since Paul Templer was almost torn to shreds by a hippopotamus - but he hasn't let that slow him down in any way. In 1996, Templer was only 28 when he was attacked by the massive animal while he was leading a guided tour down the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe, finding himself waist-deep in the creature's mouth. Despite losing his arm in the terrifying attack, he has continued to motivate and educate over the last three decades - as well as set records in athletic pursuits. Just two years after the incident, the determined survivor, along with a team, made history when they traveled on the longest recorded descent of the Zambezi River to date. It took three months and was 1,600 miles long, requiring him to learn how to canoe using one arm. The father-of-three continues to challenge himself, recently revealing on social media that he is about to embark on a 155-mile ultra-marathon in Mongolia that includes rucking - walking and running with a weighed backpack - through the Gobi Desert. 'It's going to be awesome! This year we're raising money to help provide early intervention support for children with special needs and epilepsy meds to impoverished kids who wouldn't otherwise be able to get them,' he enthusiastically wrote. Templer previously recalled that he had agreed to take the place of a fellow tour guide who had malaria on the day of the hippo attack, explaining that he knew the 'idyllic' stretch of water well and loved showing it off. 'Things were going the way they were supposed to go,' he shared in a previous interview with CNN Travel. 'Everyone was having a pretty good time.' There were three canoes on the tour, which were carrying six customers in total as well as two apprentice guides and Templer. Templer's canoe led the way on their journey before he was forced to pull to the side to wait for the rest of the group after one of the canoes fell behind. 'Suddenly, there's this big thud. And I see the canoe, like the back of it, catapulted up into the air,' Templer remembered. He said that Evans, the guide in the back of the canoe, was 'catapulted' out of his seat, but the two other passengers with him managed to remain inside. 'Evans is in the water, and the current is washing Evans toward a mama hippo and her calf 490 feet away. So I know I've got to get him out quickly,' he continued. While he worked on getting Evans out of the water, another tour guide got the passengers left in the attacked canoe to safety, leading them to a rock that the hippo would not be able to climb up. 'I was paddling towards him… getting closer, and I saw this bow wave coming towards me,' Templer said. 'If you've ever seen any of those old movies with a torpedo coming toward a ship, it was kind of like that. I knew it was either a hippo or a really large crocodile coming at me.' 'But I also knew that if I slapped the blade of my paddle on water… that's really loud. And the percussion underwater seems to turn the animals away,' he continued. 'So I slapped the water, and as it was supposed to do, the torpedo wave stops.' He said what happened next was like a 'made-for-Hollywood movie.' 'I'm leaning over... Evans is reaching up… our fingers almost touched. And then the water between us just erupted. It happened so fast I didn't see a thing,' he recounted. 'My world went dark and strangely quiet,' the tour-guide said, adding that he could feel water from his waist down, but oddly was 'warm' from the waist up. 'It wasn't wet like the river, but it wasn't dry either. And it was just incredible pressure on my lower back. I tried to move around, I couldn't,' he continued. Then, Templer made the horrifying realization that he was 'up to his waist down a hippo's throat.' 'I'm guessing I was wedged so far down its throat it must have been uncomfortable because he spat me out,' Templer shared. He burst up to the surface to breathe in some fresh air and came 'face to face' with Evans, with them both now frantically trying to escape. However, as he was attempting to grab Evans and swim to safety, he was attacked again - this time by a different hippo. 'So once again, I'm up to my waist down a hippo's throat. But this time my legs are trapped but my hands are free,' he recalled of the horrific incident. Thankfully, that animal also spat Templer out. After reemerging, he was unable to spot Evans - who he assumed had been rescued - so frantically tried to swim towards the shore. 'I'm making pretty good progress and I'm swimming along there... and I look under my arm – and until my dying day I'll remember this – there's this hippo charging in towards me with his mouth wide open bearing in before he scores a direct hit,' he said in horror. At this time, Templer was in the viscous hippo's grip again, with his legs dangling out one side of the mouth and shoulders and head on the other as the animal thrashed about, with the guide holding his breath every time he was thrown under the water. Horrified onlookers described the hippo going 'berserk' like a 'vicious dog trying to rip apart a rag doll' in the minutes-long attack. Another apprentice guide Mack bravely managed to pull up his kayak next to the hippo so he was just a few 'inches' from Templer's face. He then grabbed onto the handle before being dragged to the safety of the rock. Once there, they had to work out how to get back - with the first aid kit, radio, and gun all lost and only two canoes and one paddle left. Templer's foot was severely injured, he was unable to move his arms, and there was a wound in his back that had left him with a punctured lung. They had to use saran wrap to stop the bleeding, and Templer recalled being in such immense pain, he 'thought he was going to die.' 'When I didn't, I kind of wished I would,' he admitted of his mindset in the gruesome moments after the attack. It took eight hours for Templer to get to a hospital, where a surgeon managed to save both his legs and one arm. He sadly lost is left arm in the attack. Tragically, Evans had drowned, with his body being found three days after the attack, Templer reflected: 'Evans did nothing wrong. The fact that he died was purely a tragedy.' Hippos can grow up to 16.5 feet long and 5.2 feet tall, and weigh up to 4.5 tons, according to National Geographic. Dr. Philip Muruthi, chief scientist and vice president of species conservation and science of the African Wildlife Foundation, told CNN at the time that hippos don't intentionally attack humans. 'Do not get close to them,' he warned. 'They don't want any intrusion… They're not predators, it's by accident if they're injuring people.' 'Follow the rules,' he advised. 'If you are a tourist, and it says 'stay in your vehicle,' then stay in your vehicle. And even when you're in your vehicle, don't drive it right to the animal.' He said once a hippo is attacking there's 'nothing you can do' - except fight and 'watch for any chance to escape.' Templer advised those facing a hippo try not to panic especially if they're dragged underwater, as he urged any victims to 'remember to suck in air if on the surface.' Muruthi also recommended making noise in areas hippos are found, particular at night when they come out to forage. He also suggested being hyper-aware during the dry season as that's when food is scarce and they're extra hungry.
The Guardian
26-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
The world wants China's rare earth elements – what is life like in the city that produces them?
Central Baotou, an industrial hub of 2.7 million people that abuts the Gobi desert in north China, feels just like any other second-tier Chinese city. Large shopping malls featuring western chains including Starbucks and KFC stand alongside street after street of busy local restaurants, where people sit outside and children play late into the evening, enjoying the relative relief of the cooler temperatures that arrive after dark in Inner Mongolia's baking summer. But a short drive into the city's suburbs reveal another typical, less hospitable, Chinese scene. Factories crowd the city's edges, with chimneys belching white plumes of smoke. As well as steel and silicon plants, Baotou is home to China's monopoly on rare earths, the metallic elements that are used in oil refining equipment and car batteries and that have become a major sticking point in the US-China trade war. More than 80% of China's rare earth reserves are in Baotou. Metals such as cerium and lanthanum are crucial for modern technologies ranging from smartphone screens to vehicle braking systems. Certain rare earths, such as samarium, are used in military-grade magnets, including by the US. That has made them a useful bargaining chip for Beijing in the trade war. China has long objected to Washington's embargo on the export of advanced semiconductors to China, and now appears to be returning in kind by cutting off western manufacturers from critical elements in their supply chain. In April, Beijing restricted the export of several rare earths, before agreeing to reinstate export licences for some of them after recent talks in London. The restrictions have already had global effects, with Ford temporarily closing a car factory in Chicago because of the shortage. On Monday, a Ford executive said the company was living 'hand to mouth' to keep its factories open. In a fiery speech last week, the president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, accused China of 'weaponising' its dominance of the rare earths supply chain. Access to the commodities is reportedly top of the agenda for an upcoming EU-China summit. Rare earths have been central to life in Baotou since long before the region's geology made global headlines. The metals were first discovered in China in Bayan Obo, a mining district 150km north of Baotou, in the 1930s. But production did not ramp up until the 1990s, when China entered a period of rapid economic reform and opening up. Between 1990 and 2000, China's production increased by 450% to 73,000 metric tonnes. At the same time, production in other countries, namely the US, declined, giving China a near monopoly on the global supply. In 2024, the government's quota for rare earths production was 270,000 tonnes. The Bayan Obo mining district is now a closely guarded community of people living in the shadow of massive mines and their toxic waste products. Baotou's rich reserves of natural resources have been good for the economy. The city's GDP per capita is 165,000 yuan (£17,000), compared with the national average of 95,700 yuan, although locals grumble about an economic slowdown, which is affecting the whole country. According to state media, last year the industry generated more than 100bn yuan for the city for the first time. But the industry also has an environmental impact. Toxic, often radioactive byproducts of rare earths processing are dumped into man-made ditches known as 'tailings ponds'. One of the most notorious tailings ponds in the area is the Weikuang tailings dam, owned by the state-owned Baogang Group. For many years it was the world's biggest dumping ground for rare earths waste products. It was not properly lined and there were fears about its toxic contents seeping into the groundwater and towards the nearby Yellow River, a major source of drinking water for northern China. According to the Ministry for Ecology and Environment, a clean-up project of one of the Yellow River's tributaries in Baotou resulted in levels of ammonia nitrogen, a rare earths processing byproduct, decreasing by 87% between 2020 and 2024. In the 2000s and 2010s, investigations into the villages around Baotou revealed orthopaedic problems, birth defects and an 'epidemic' of cancer. Because microscopic rare earth elements can cross the blood-brain barrier and deposit in the brain, exposure has been linked to a number of neurological problems such as motor and sensory disabilities, and they can also affect the neurological development of foetuses in pregnant women. A study published in 2020 found that children in Baotou were particularly likely to be exposed to rare earth elements through road dust, something that the researchers described as a 'serious risk'. Another study found that the daily intake of airborne rare earths elements in mining areas was up to 6.7mg, well above the 4.2 mg level that is considered to be relatively safe. 'Large-scale extraction quite often proceeds at the expense of the health and well-being of surrounding communities, pretty much regardless of the context,' says Julie Klinger, an associate professor at the University Delaware who specialises in rare earths. Although the technologies to process rare earths in less environmentally harmful ways exist in theory, they are rarely used because of cost. 'I doubt they could maintain their production costs if they took such steps,' says Craig Hart, a lecturer at John Hopkins University who focuses on rare earths. Environmentalists note that part of the reason that China has been able to dominate global supplies of rare earths at competitive prices is because, as well as being rich in natural resources, it has also been willing to let poor, rural people bear the brunt of the toxic, dirty work. But now China wants to clean up its image. In 2022, state media announced that Baotou's major tailings pond had been transformed into an urban wetland. Birdwatchers could come and enjoy the pristine waters of the newly purified pond, which apparently attracted a range of migratory birds. When the Guardian visited the site of the new birders paradise, however, most of the site was blocked from view behind a newly built concrete wall. A peek over the wall revealed an expanse of arid mud. Around the area the demolished remains of the once notorious 'cancer villages' were scattered among rusting pipes and dilapidated warehouses. One overgrown, abandoned dumpling restaurant was the only evidence of the communities that used to live there. At the site of another village once cited locally as having particularly high cancer rates, a large silicon factory occupied the area. It's not clear where the residents have been moved to. A nearby, newly built complex of multi-storey apartment buildings appeared to be intended as housing for the relocated villagers, but few people roamed the streets. Local officials physically blocked the Guardian from speaking to any residents around the villages. Baotou's local government did not respond to a request for comment.
