Earlier quoted context omitted.
You do not need a 2nm processor to run an engine, perform an ultrasound, drop a missile on someone's head, make 10 million parts in a factory, or fly a plane. The vast majority of the increased processing power we've developed since the mid-2010s gets pissed away rendering 30MB websites or generating AI cheating fruit husband videos. Every phone SoC release for the last 10 years combined has done less in the real, co…
>You do not need a 2nm processor to [...] drop a missile on someone's head, make 10 million parts in a factory, or fly a plane. What a silly argument. You DO NEED those 2nm CPUs and GPUs to run the CAD and CAE work to design an effective missile and run the battlefield sensor fusion and intelligence data processing to decide when and where to drop that missile. Otherwise if you stay low tech on 20 year old HW, you en…
We've been able to do intensive CAD and CAE to make effective missiles for a long while now. Modern process nodes are not required. Iran has been doing appreciable missile damage to US bases, and has never entered the TOP500.
> and run the battlefield sensor fusion and intelligence data processing to decide when and where to drop that missile.
We have current, ongoing conflicts where it's clear that battlefield sensor fusion and intelligence data processing is taking the backseat to just shooting people, blowing people up, and blowing obvious buildings and installations up. I know that is a gross oversimplification, but militaries worldwide have been chasing after sci-fi shit that's going to be The Future of War just for 99% of the ideas to hit the scrap pile while the remaining 1% develop into incremental improvements in doctrine. The most impactful idea to come out of the Russia-Ukraine war has been strapping an RPG-7 round to an ATmega328-controlled quadcopter, no Nvidia H200s involved.
>Otherwise if you stay low tech on 20 year old HW, you end up like Russian army today.
I'm sorry, but I don't know how you can say with a straight face that technological issues are even close to the top of the list of issues for the Russian military.
>Look at EU supercomputers that run these tasks, along with the computation needed for high-margin EU industries like pharma such as Novo Nordisk, and it all runs on low-nm US chips made in Taiwan,
Something being high margin doesn't mean it's a critical part of European sovereignty. Novo Nordisk making 75% of its profits on selling weight loss drugs to overweight Americans is indirectly good for the bloc because money is generally useful, but it's hardly a matter of security. A lot of low-margin businesses are massively subsidized for this reason. Why do you think the US has such massive subsidies for farming?
>not EU made microcontrollers and mosfets. Where's EU domestic sovereignty there?
The MCUs and FETs are what allows any semblance of day-to-day life to continue. If you had to choose to be a nation with only power electronics and MCUs, or a nation with only high-end CPUs, any sane person is picking the former. It follows that you focus on making sure the former is in place first.
>An out of touch argument on manipulating a definition of "real work". Work done by industrial controllers isn't "more real" than that done by CPUs and GPUs.
In a literal sense, yes, in most cases it is. You NEED the microcontrollers and power electronics to support the production of critical infrastructure and equipment more than you need the latest phone SoC. Even if you have the cutting edge CPUs and GPUs, if you are cut off from other componentry, you're not getting very far with it.
>By this definition the janitors and handyman in the hospital does more "real work" than the x-ray tech sitting looking at cat videos between looking at x-rays all day.
The tradesmen built the hospital in the first place, and the support staff keep it running. Yes, the x-ray tech would massively outstrip the strategic importance of the people that actually build and maintain the hospitals if buildings lasted forever and you never planned on building another hospital again.
>Our economy, yes even in the EU, works on who and what creates more added value to the economy, not whose job is more tough and gritty getting their hands dirty. Work smart, not hard.
Alcohol, advertising, gambling, and porn create a huge amount of added value. These are of very little interest to national security.
>Again, more ignorance. Jobs on vibe coding a SaaS pays way better in Europe and gets you better perks and working conditions, than writing the code of a PLC. Ask me how I know(former embedded programmer here in the semi industry). Or just look up the salaries on the jobs market. The SW industry just pays way better than the industrial controller HW industry. Yeah, the latter is important too, but clearly not important enough when you see the salaries you're offered, meaning they don't actually value it as much.
Those salaries are massively suppressed by various cultural dynamics in Europe, and a misplaced trust in the US to protect it. Europe is waking up to the possibility that the US may not be a permanent ally. The government that no longer trusts NATO's biggest spender isn't concerned about your wish that they would primarily invest in cutting edge technology that has as-of-yet undetermined returns in national security so that you can have a salary closer to what you would see in an American tech company.
>Your luddite comment just reeks of the typical German/European ignorance and arrogance that made us fall behind the tech race, the EV race, etc leading to the EU losing a lot of GDP and influence on the world stage: "We don't need this battery EV car shit, you can just use diesel engines from 10 years ago", "we don't need this fancy self driving shit, our drivers love driving our cars themselves".
I'm in the US. I don't have a dog in the hunt. I do agree that European ignorance/arrogance has put your nations and you personally in a bad position. I truly am sorry that you can't make the money you want working on the things that will allow you to endure if the rubber actually meets the road. Even though that's all true, prioritizing cutting-edge chip fab over the basics that are supporting your ability to defend and provide for yourselves at the most basic level is just an incorrect move. It is not a coincidence that this stuff picked up steam after the war in Ukraine started, and Trump started floating the idea of leaving NATO.