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Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

politico.eu

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Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#331

Post by ur-whale »

adev_ wrote: post #65
realusername wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, the usual way it is done is a disaster: top-bottom, funding some existing behemoth company that will have no capacity whatsoever to innovate, nor will to do so. But they will get the money because they have good connections. That's the tragedy of the government-backed tech in France. You also have a lot of very skilled tech companies there, but they are not the ones getting government support to grow furth…

>That's the tragedy of the government-backed tech in France. You also have a lot of very skilled tech companies there, but they are not the ones getting government support to grow further. That's almost an universal tragedy. The good techies, the innovative engineers or the avant-garde researchers... Typically, the one doing the work... are generally not the one doing outreach, going around in convention, networking,…

I deem you ready for a re-read of _Atlas_Shrugged_ :D

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#332

Post by dukeyukey »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #180
namdnay wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh that's honestly not the number one problem in france. I'd even say it's a competitive advantage. Not everyone is willing to expatriate for salary, you can get really great engineers for half or even a third of what they'd be paid in SV

But then why hasn't France been invaded by US companies to hire these great engineers for half of SV money? I know they have some small offices on campus at top universities where they employ a hand full of PhDs for ML/AI research but that's a drop in the ocean.

Can't speak for France but London's tech scene is brimming with overseas offices of American companies. Out of my 5 tech jobs, 3 were with American companies, the other 2 being British.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#333

Post by joelbluminator »

ketzu wrote: post #320
joelbluminator wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not according to most surveys I saw https://qubit-labs.com/average-software-developer-salaries-s... . Australia is just like Germany or west europe in general. The big payers are U.S and Switzerland

Not trying to discredit those numbers, but I wonder about the split per US state. Are they very close? Are there states that pay a lot more than others?

I'm not American, but everything I read suggests that yes, of course; California pays much more than Missouri. I think the difference could be 2x - 3x. Then again cost of living is also 2x-3x more in SV.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#334

Post by Udik »

Pedrit0 wrote: post #290
Udik wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe has to start from somewhere in a market currently dominated by the US and the Chinese... Yes, and it has to start by copying them. Copying to the letter, like following a recipe, humbly. That's how absolute beginners learn. Not by proclaiming absurd moonshots (by the way, it's "France and Germany", as usual, not the EU) and insisting that we'll build something different, new and innovative and blah blah. Jus…

I think you did not get the purpose of the project and its context. 1. What should we copy ? We already have cloud companies in Europe. The issue is not about a lack of knowledge about cloud technologies. It is a matter of market share. Our companies are not big enough to provide adequate services to european states and sensitive industries. 2. The goal is not to create from scratch a European cloud giant that would…

True, I don't think we need to copy the technology: that is probably easily available, you just need good engineers and money. The problem is exactly the second you mention: why is it that EU companies don't have the market share that US ones have? Why are our companies not big enough? What prevents entrepreneurs in Europe from creating tech giants such as the US ones? These are the things we need to copy- not the technology.

> The goal is not to create from scratch a European cloud giant ... It is just way not to rely on them

And how do you avoid relying on them? Are you going to force EU companies to choose a EU cloud provider, even when they would have preferred a US one? No, you need to create an offer that is competitive: and once it is, it will be competitive for everyone, not just our companies.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#335

Post by eythian »

baxtr wrote: post #137

This is so sad. As a European I would love to see some Internet giants created. Everybody says it's because we don't have homogenous market and so on. But my hunch is it is something different: Existing European companies are much more protected than their US counterparts, or even their UK counterparts. Think ThomasCook - would have been definitely been "saved" like TUI in Germany. That doesn't happen that much in th…

Do we need internet giants though? Are they a good thing for people? Perhaps a system that encourages a handful of really big companies in de facto control of large swaths of our communications infrastructure is not something that's actually good for the world.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#336

Post by adev_ »

hydraxis wrote: post #251
adev_ wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you including social contributions of employer and employee in your 20% tax rate? Only income taxes. The employer taxes are mainly pension / health insurance.

Compare for example with Denmark where the social contributions are close to 0 and the income tax up to 50%. The total of the employment taxes paid in Denmark is still lower than the total in France.

Denmark seems to be a particular case compared to other OECD countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_in_Europe#/media/Fil...

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#337

Post by blopeur »

This project is still born because they are missing a federated accounting and payment service at the heart of the platform.

Why? Because it's damn near impossible to deliver such feature for dynamically orchestrated services from a federation of providers.

Sovereignity, interoperability, compliance is a nice sales pitch. But it seems that when it comes to getting paid or paying you are on your own. Imagine trying to pay for hundreds of services from companies spread across dozens of countries...

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#338

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

namdnay wrote: post #319
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then why hasn't France been invaded by US companies to hire these great engineers for half of SV money? I know they have some small offices on campus at top universities where they employ a hand full of PhDs for ML/AI research but that's a drop in the ocean.

You could probably ask the same question of Romania, Russia or Poland. I think it's just a question of the general business friendliness of the place. And there are quite a few American companies in Paris and Sophia-Antipolis

Actually, I bet my horse Romania and Poland are hosting more US tech companies than France since they can get more developers per dollar there.

Sophia-Antipolis is mostly semiconductor and hardware and has the weather and property prices of SoCal without the pay.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#340

Post by LeanderK »

f6v wrote: post #270
gspr wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the two first points are more specific to Germany than to the old world as a whole. Up here in Scandinavia, we often laugh at how much Germans interact with humans, send letters and faxes, and make phonecalls in their business lives. They are woefully far behind. From what I understand the same is true for the south. While I agree with the basic premise of the last point too I think you maybe underestimate th…

Milage varies in Europe. In Germany, opening a bank account "over internet" means sending paper letters back and forth, while in Belgium I didn't have to sign or send anything by post.

I recently opened a bank account on a major german bank (commerzbank). It took 15 minutes and I didn't have to send a single letter!
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