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Communication on European Tech Sovereignty, and an EU Open-Source Strategy

digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu

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Re: Communication on European Tech Sovereignty, and an EU Open-Source Strategy

#21

Post by yourusername »

cryo32 wrote: post #5

I look forward to the day we have a sovereign CPU, RAM, storage, ancillary ICs, production line, supply chain, software stack and associated infra than I can walk into a shop and buy and use myself. I don't think it'll ever happen though. These initiatives are mostly fluff. Throw everything into AI because it's the current fad but not even look at stuff that runs everything RIGHT NOW. If anything was to happen war-wi…

>If anything was to happen war-wise, we'll be running everything on recycled trash.

ESMC should be online in a few years with 16nm class ICs. That will be tech that's over a decade old at that point but it's also "good enough" for anything except AI training.

Re: Communication on European Tech Sovereignty, and an EU Open-Source Strategy

#22

Post by RandomLensman »

cryo32 wrote: post #20
dgellow wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re describing having a bunch of data centers in different location and enough redundancy. What makes you against data centers themselves? They are just a way to pool resources to benefit from economy of scale. They don’t have to be enormous

Centralised "economies of scale" mean consolidating risks into geographical and corporate ownership. I mean look at the current situation: that consolidation means there are a few corporate players, any of whom could just pull the plug on a huge amount of infrastructure in a war or other geopolitical mess. Also we have a layer of abstraction above the datacentre now which is the cloud provider. And that does not nece…

Large domestic corporates pulling the plug in a war seems unlikely to impossible as wars tend to go with what are effectively command economies.

Re: Communication on European Tech Sovereignty, and an EU Open-Source Strategy

#23

Post by cryo32 »

yourusername wrote: post #21
cryo32 wrote: post #5

I look forward to the day we have a sovereign CPU, RAM, storage, ancillary ICs, production line, supply chain, software stack and associated infra than I can walk into a shop and buy and use myself. I don't think it'll ever happen though. These initiatives are mostly fluff. Throw everything into AI because it's the current fad but not even look at stuff that runs everything RIGHT NOW. If anything was to happen war-wi…

>If anything was to happen war-wise, we'll be running everything on recycled trash. ESMC should be online in a few years with 16nm class ICs. That will be tech that's over a decade old at that point but it's also "good enough" for anything except AI training.

That's enough to do useful work. AI training is useless if you don't have something that'll do office work and supply chain logistics.

Re: Communication on European Tech Sovereignty, and an EU Open-Source Strategy

#24

Post by cryo32 »

RandomLensman wrote: post #22
cryo32 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Centralised "economies of scale" mean consolidating risks into geographical and corporate ownership. I mean look at the current situation: that consolidation means there are a few corporate players, any of whom could just pull the plug on a huge amount of infrastructure in a war or other geopolitical mess. Also we have a layer of abstraction above the datacentre now which is the cloud provider. And that does not nece…

Large domestic corporates pulling the plug in a war seems unlikely to impossible as wars tend to go with what are effectively command economies.

It's not just pulling the plug. It's serious economic disparity between regions and legally mandated espionage as well.

Re: Communication on European Tech Sovereignty, and an EU Open-Source Strategy

#25

Post by cryo32 »

soco wrote: post #15
cryo32 wrote: post #5

I look forward to the day we have a sovereign CPU, RAM, storage, ancillary ICs, production line, supply chain, software stack and associated infra than I can walk into a shop and buy and use myself. I don't think it'll ever happen though. These initiatives are mostly fluff. Throw everything into AI because it's the current fad but not even look at stuff that runs everything RIGHT NOW. If anything was to happen war-wi…

No true Scostsman, aye me lad. Now really, because big bang doesn't work, means nothing else should be even tried? Are you even from the EU to actually know, or just feel bothered by the anti-US sentiment oozing from those initiatives? If that helps, my feeling is that it's not anti-US, just a normal reaction to the acts and thoughts of the beloved best-leader-ever ruling the US right now, and his faithful elite. It'…

I'm in the UK. My partner is German. I spend a lot of time in the EU.

It's really the "this is fine dog" realising that it's not fine and apathy and poor governmental and corporate decisions over the last 30 years have blown up in our faces.

Re: Communication on European Tech Sovereignty, and an EU Open-Source Strategy

#26

Post by RandomLensman »

cryo32 wrote: post #24
RandomLensman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large domestic corporates pulling the plug in a war seems unlikely to impossible as wars tend to go with what are effectively command economies.

It's not just pulling the plug. It's serious economic disparity between regions and legally mandated espionage as well.

If the EU had own large corporate hyperscalers that would be an issue there for the EU?

Re: Communication on European Tech Sovereignty, and an EU Open-Source Strategy

#27

Post by TacticalCoder »

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #4

I'm cautiously optimistic. The Cloud and AI Development Act looks especially interesting: --- # Capacity * at least tripling the EU’s data centre capacity within the next 5–7 years; * simplifying and accelerating permitting and deployment of data centres; * improving access to key resources such as energy, land, water and financing; ensuring sufficient computing capacity to support AI, cloud services and data-intensi…

I'm more than cautious too:

> ... initiatives that are interconnected and mutually reinforcing across each stage of the value chain, from chips, to infrastructure, to software, cloud and AI, and in synergy with past and ongoing initiatives such as AI Factories and AI Gigafactories

Software / Cloud: yes, Europe can try to do something but I doubt it. Although it should be pointed out that the EU has one software company in the Top 100 companies in the world by market cap. One. And it's that fucking lame piece of uber-shit that SAP is.

SAP: that's what europeans can do. While the US has Google, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Oracle, Palantir, CloudFlare, etc. Not that these are all great companies but these are heavyweights compared to that pointless, irrelevant, turd that SAP is.

Chips? Besides ASML (which is only part of the chain), we're a wasteland and ASML is mostly US-owned.

Not going to see the next Intel / AMD / NVidia from the EU: that simply is not going to happen. It just won't.

AI gigafactories? Bull-fucking-crap.

The only area where Europe can try something is software but this must be put in perspective: SAP vs all the US software companies.

Don't forget all we could do is SAP. And that is a monstrous piece proprietary lock-in shit.

Re: Communication on European Tech Sovereignty, and an EU Open-Source Strategy

#28

Post by cryo32 »

RandomLensman wrote: post #26
cryo32 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just pulling the plug. It's serious economic disparity between regions and legally mandated espionage as well.

If the EU had own large corporate hyperscalers that would be an issue there for the EU?

Yes it would still. Which is why I think the process is misguided. I mean look at Hungary which was a near miss. It needs to be resilient to state failure as well.

This means that the entire idea of a corporate EU spanning hyperscaler should never exist.

Re: Communication on European Tech Sovereignty, and an EU Open-Source Strategy

#29

Post by hanzeweiasa »

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #4

I'm cautiously optimistic. The Cloud and AI Development Act looks especially interesting: --- # Capacity * at least tripling the EU’s data centre capacity within the next 5–7 years; * simplifying and accelerating permitting and deployment of data centres; * improving access to key resources such as energy, land, water and financing; ensuring sufficient computing capacity to support AI, cloud services and data-intensi…

[dead]

Re: Communication on European Tech Sovereignty, and an EU Open-Source Strategy

#30

Post by s_dev »

RandomLensman wrote: post #3

Where is the investment coming from (the capital markets union/savings and investment union isn't there so far)? How to make building infrastructure faster? Could some other regulation be removed to aid AI and tech use? Not convinced adding regulation alone will solve things in European tech.

Trump's actions are pushing Europeans towards federalisation as a broader trend.

More specifically things like this are happening quietly in the background:

https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/eu-inc-maki...

This mandates a few things:

Countries must do certain things in English to ensure a common language.

Simple liquidation for bankruptcies, register once and operate across the EU.

Places like Germany have loads of talent but are cumbersome to setup a startup etc. This reduces that.

Things won't change overnight but a decade from now things will look a bit different, capital markets won't match the US by then but I expect the dependence trend will start to have reversed. There is no crystal ball for these things.

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