So that we can enjoy a higher standard of living and, and, and ... gasp ... be prepared to defend our democratic way of life, we need our own engineering and manufacturing workforces?! I wonder if these same politicos might suggest we should improve our K-12 education systems?
UK Has ‘No Chance in Hell’ of Making Its Own Tech Champs: ARM Founder
21–30 of 129 posts
Re: UK Has ‘No Chance in Hell’ of Making Its Own Tech Champs: ARM Founder
#22Re: UK Has ‘No Chance in Hell’ of Making Its Own Tech Champs: ARM Founder
#23He's right you know. We've waited long enough for the UK to come up with one for 40 years and the only one people can think hard enough of an example is ARM, which that has become a acquisition football by NVIDIA, Softbank and having the UK government getting involved in the ordeal. (No, Imagination Technologies is also gone before you mention that.) So there are no credible candidates worthy for being a tech giant i…
Don’t forget Autonomy for $11B which turned out to be a fraud. Herman Houser and Mike Lynch are still good friends.
Re: UK Has ‘No Chance in Hell’ of Making Its Own Tech Champs: ARM Founder
#24It sounds to me like he doesn't actually say that. In the article: >The UK has “no chance in hell” of becoming technologically sovereign Well which is it, having our own Tech champs or being technologically sovereign? Because they're totally different things. To be honest I'm not sure any country apart from China stands any chance of becoming technologically sovereign. Like what does that mean? Do we need to mine our…
This is not how the article approached technologically sovereign at all, as is this is just a strawman argument. No one proposed that sovereignty is about producing everything from scratch yourself. Here's the actual excerpt:
> One question countries have to ask themselves if whether they have all the critical technologies needed to run a country and its economy.
> “The answer for Britain” is “absolutely no, there is no chance in hell that Britain could ever become technologically sovereign,” he said.
Re: UK Has ‘No Chance in Hell’ of Making Its Own Tech Champs: ARM Founder
#25For newcomers ARM cpu was/is designed in the UK ... Say nothing about Alan Turing who first conceived of how digital computation can happen using hardware then went on to help design and build one of the first computers and yes he coded it to use a Bayesian algorithm... Not to mention Thomas Bayes, De Morgan, Charles Baggage and Boole of boolean logic fame just for starters
I am neutral on the position of UK "technological sovereignty" but I don't think listing a bunch of people who died before 1900 really helps demonstrate your point.
Re: UK Has ‘No Chance in Hell’ of Making Its Own Tech Champs: ARM Founder
#26It sounds to me like he doesn't actually say that. In the article: >The UK has “no chance in hell” of becoming technologically sovereign Well which is it, having our own Tech champs or being technologically sovereign? Because they're totally different things. To be honest I'm not sure any country apart from China stands any chance of becoming technologically sovereign. Like what does that mean? Do we need to mine our…
"Technologically sovereign" means that a country is able to get the technologies it needs to achieve it's goals either internally or through alliances that don't create a "one-sided structural dependency." [1] Saying that the UK isn't technologically sovereign is essentially saying that the UK has an undersized technology sector and doesn't have enough power to import effectively. On the flip side, you could view it…
Flip side is more compelling.
I don't think loss of empire is an easy pill and takes generations to process. Different cultures cope differently. Would be interesting to hear from Turks (Ottoman) on this. Russians clearly are still not over their loss of standing. I remember scenes from BBC's spy shows (Smiley stuff) where old IC hands (recruited from elite colleges) lament and make ironic comments. British Empire was a big deal. Can you imagine the shock of dropping from that height? And you know, the brits have one quality that has always impressed me: they are irrepressible. They just don't give up. Really admire that.
p.s.
this is the moment of realization. You can see it on his face, sitting on his '[shorter] chair'. location is Tehran, Iran, 1943: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Tehran_C...
Re: UK Has ‘No Chance in Hell’ of Making Its Own Tech Champs: ARM Founder
#27It sounds to me like he doesn't actually say that. In the article: >The UK has “no chance in hell” of becoming technologically sovereign Well which is it, having our own Tech champs or being technologically sovereign? Because they're totally different things. To be honest I'm not sure any country apart from China stands any chance of becoming technologically sovereign. Like what does that mean? Do we need to mine our…
I think it's a huge stretch to say the two concepts aren't related.
To take the example of the military; we have the "military industrial complex" which is the collection of private companies that form the vital part of the state's war functions.
To become technologically sovereign will require a similar basket of private companies based in your own State, unless you expect the government to be capable of all of these tasks effectively itself. Think universities, chip designers, fabs, factories. This is also not an all or nothing choice - the absence of Lithium in the UK is not a good argument against considering strategically what aspects of the tech industry should be sovereign.
Re: UK Has ‘No Chance in Hell’ of Making Its Own Tech Champs: ARM Founder
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
No nation, anywhere on the planet, is by itself technologically sovereign. The ability to get by in the world is a cooperative venture for everyone, even the US. What makes first tier technological nations different is the alliances of which they are active contributing members. Those alliances make trade flow smoothly and securely. That is what creates prosperity in an interconnected world. That is especially import…
China also has a security agreement with the Solomon Islands. While a tiny nation in and of itself, the use of the islands by the Chinese navy allow for quite a bit of force projection into the pacific. It would be very hard, for instance, for the U.S. to use their navy to defend Australia or Taiwan.
Australia is kind of a fortress, just by being so physically far away from most places. All the important population centers are far to the south, so the north becomes a continent sized staging area for battle
Re: UK Has ‘No Chance in Hell’ of Making Its Own Tech Champs: ARM Founder
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> China has one formal alliance. This is a geopolitical trope about 20 years out of date. Don’t be surprised when dozens of African and Asian countries choose China over Western interests if push comes to shove.
> Don’t be surprised when dozens of African and Asian countries choose China over Western interests if push comes to shove. And don't be surprised if they don't. Even if China has a lot of frenemies on its border in Asia, every country in Asia has some fear over China, and this often pushes them to improve their relationship with the USA (e.g. Vietnam). Even Russia and North Korea have some antagonism with China. Non…
1. China has been building out their railroad net for years now, both internally and reaching outwards
2. Those synergize with the loans. They are not "some" loans
3. Cultural exports have been going on for a while, though it has not been as successful as South Korea or Japan
4. China has been seriously wooing back Western-educated citizens to head R&D in a variety areas, for the past ten years or so. Quality-of-life, career advancements, respect and social status exceeds that of staying in the West. That's more the sufficient to successfully bring expertise back.
5. China has been adding more people into the international computing and network standards community. They are starting to influence that.
6. China has been developing its naval power. While it has yet to field a fully operational carrier group, its drone carrier program is probably further along than the US Navy
7. China needs to secure a supply of crude oil, since they are a net importer. The SE Asian shipping corridor, of which the Taiwanese strait anchors one end of it, is going to be hotly contested.
8. Along with some other countries, China has been involved in creation of an alternate world reserve currency. That is not yet successful as far as I know.
I think the general nationalist sentiment among Chinese citizens is along the lines of, "we were once a superpower, why shouldn't we be again?". And, the culture tends to be more amendable to thinking generationally; that is, the benefits may not be realized in this generation, but that's ok.
Re: UK Has ‘No Chance in Hell’ of Making Its Own Tech Champs: ARM Founder
#30The problem is a hierarchical, deferential culture. Ex-UK countries that have been successful have thrown that yoke off - India is currently struggling to do so - and moved to a model less concerned with status and offense. Bureaucracy is great for running an empire, terrible for fostering startups.
This is the same reason the hinterlands are so neglected and Ireland hates the English so much, by the way. The caste/Eton-focused system means that power will always be concentrated in London, and newcomers are not welcome. One day it will crumble, but that day has yet to come.