Europe's AI ambitions rest on somebody else's supply chain

Europe is one of the world's largest markets for AI datacenter infrastructure, but its own local companies capture only a fraction of the value, because overseas suppliers dominate chips, servers, and cloud infrastructure. According to the Global Electronics Association (GEA), EU-headquartered companies account for only six …

[Jason Bloomberg]

Tell us something Europeans don't already know

To say "Europe has fallen behind other regions in much of the electronics supply chain" and then go on to name Taiwan, the US and South Korea who are the esatblished well known dominators of supply is a little disingenuous. How do European counties compare with other non-dominating non-European countries?

I anticipate a considerable number of readers would particularly like to know how the UK compares with EU and other non-dominating countries, would like see how that fits with their perceptions and beliefs, which are quite likely "fucked" since we left the EU.

The UK is at a disadvantage to EU member states because "sovereignty" to us means "only British" while EU members can accept "anything EU". They will have a far better chance of achieving something they can call sovereign than the UK will.

[RM Myers]

Electronics Supply Chain

I'm not disagreeing with the author, but ASML and Zeiss dominate the base of the processor supply chain, and the last time I looked they were headquartered in Europe. Their chip making technology may be the most important part of the whole electronic supply chain, even if their not the biggest corporations in monetary terms.

[BoHu]

Re: Electronics Supply Chain

Yeah, there's ASML, then a big hole, then SiPearl, Bull, OVHcloud, Scaleway, CapGemini ... afaics. But ASML claims it's currently selling absolutely nothing at all, zilch, nada, bupkis, in Europe! Go figure ... And while the EU's putting together an EU OS Linux, it's based off Fedora (IBM) rather than SUSE ... So it's like their target shooting sight's a bit crooked ATM, imho. I'm still optimistic-ish though.

And hopefully freedom-fighting US allies everywhere can help put the brakes on the orange inquisition crusade of invasion and pillage -- that seeks to overthrow EU democracies with like-minded proto-fascist totalitarianians -- through substantial protest vote at the US mid-terms and by any means necessary as well, really. It's better to have allies in trade and travel than pestilential reactionary isolationist wankers in my view, and chihuahuas!

[Sproggit]

Re: Electronics Supply Chain

"...totalitarianians..."

You know what? They sound extra scary...

;)

[Sproggit]

It's the Response that Matters

I don't think any rational person - at least none with a good grounding in the facts - is going to argue with the points in this article...

But it reminds me of a moment in my career shortly after I'd been asked to lead a small "risk" function for the infrastructure part of my employer's IT shop. I took up the widely-used 30-60-90 framework and spent my first month meeting people and finding out about our core risks. I spent the next 60 days identifying and driving change on "quick wins" and then on prioritizing the big ticket items that we needed to "move the needle". I spent the final 30 days standing up programs and pulling together virtual teams so that all the big issues had assigned names with clear accountability to get sh*t done. From there we transitioned smoothly to more of an execute phase and started driving change.

Reading the report strikes me as though we got as far as 60 days, decided to stop and publish at that point and now we're waiting for someone else to take up the initiative and drive forward from here.

ASML - the only commercial manufacturer of Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithorgraphy systems - needed for nanoscale chip fabrication - is based in the Netherlands...

ARM Computers - originators of the most successful microchip architecture the world has ever seen - is a UK company [at least, until it was sold to Softbank of Japan in 2014].

Europe has multiple companies with the ability to produce world-class motherboards and networking equipment...

The $64,000,000 question is: what is Europe going to do about it?

What is Europe's strategy? Who is leading the analysis? What gaps have they identified? (Like, where in Europe do we have SSD or HDD manufacture?).

Meanwhile, the EU has a reputation for creating wine lakes and butter mountains. At one point in time - albeit back in the 1980s and 1990s - parts of Italy were shown to have "fictitious farms" such that the total amount of land for which the criminals in the region were claiming farming subsidies - for growing olives, no less - worked out to be more land than the entire land area of the region concerned...

https://www.politico.eu/article/italian-mafia-arrests-lay-bare-the-scale-of-eu-farm-fund-subsidies-abuse/

https://www.politico.eu/article/reform-of-aid-to-olive-growers-delayed-by-north-south-division/

There's lots to like about Europe, but if the region is going to survive in to the future, it needs to get its act together.

And, footnote: the UK has an idiom - "taking coal to Newcastle", used as an expression of pointless activity - since Newcastle was the heart of the UK's coal mining industry back in the day. Yet when you look at the links above, you realize that this is exactly what the EU is doing - paying a fortune in farming subsidies to encourage farmers to grow olives... in a part of Europe where the most abundant crop is... olives. Yes: that is every bit as idiotic as it sounds.

Maybe some of the EU's subsidy budget would be better sent on helping the region to set up and end-to-end integrated technology industry, to allow the region to become independent of the highly politicized global supply chains...