From what I can see, Europeans are bent on recovering their digital sovereignty. First - the cloud. An entire lobby has formed around this issue. Banks are reconsidering their commitments to American providers. And everyone knows how important a theme digital sovereignty is in Brussels, despite all the fiascos and farcical efforts.
So on one hand, it seems like a long shot to assume they’ll choose to tie themselves even more closely to U.S. companies, especially if one considers, with pragmatic optimism, that AI will become the new layer or interface of the internet and of everything digital.
On the other hand, the optimistic case for an AI stack export regime is, in fact, a pessimistic case for Europe. The Old Continent will accept this new dependency only when backed up against the wall (through an inability to build sovereign capabilities) or while sleepwalking - which has basically been the story of the last twenty years in the EU.
They absolutely will choose to tie themselves to US firms, with random cosmetic tweaks to make themselves feel better (see recent deals eg sap-openai-germany). They don’t really have a choice. I hope they can do what they need to do to feel good about their precarious situation, but their situation is precarious indeed.
I think the main problem with the AI export strategy is that the current AI administration has made it clear that being an US allied, or a liberal democracy, is not sufficient to be treated respectfully or as a partner. If that is the case, how can allies trust that the US will not just sell them when convenient?
Is the AI stack resistant to nationalization? What would stop foreign countries from letting America do the hard work of (and pay for) building out their datacenters, then turning to China and letting China run them (presumably with many fewer rules and regulations on how they're used) instead?
Internationalizing the infrastructure buildout will also likely require the further development of national electric grids and energy resources. This should create many more opportunities for partnership, and by creating demand for power electronics, transmission, generation, and other components, creates both the incentive and opportunity to accelerate manufacturing independence from China for the entire west.
The 400v and 800v standards being adopted by Google and Nvidia for their next generations of chips have knock-on effects for things like the EV supply chain as well! But the window of time in which we can actually pull this off is relatively short because margins will eventually compress. The time is now!
Thanks for this, Dean.
From what I can see, Europeans are bent on recovering their digital sovereignty. First - the cloud. An entire lobby has formed around this issue. Banks are reconsidering their commitments to American providers. And everyone knows how important a theme digital sovereignty is in Brussels, despite all the fiascos and farcical efforts.
So on one hand, it seems like a long shot to assume they’ll choose to tie themselves even more closely to U.S. companies, especially if one considers, with pragmatic optimism, that AI will become the new layer or interface of the internet and of everything digital.
On the other hand, the optimistic case for an AI stack export regime is, in fact, a pessimistic case for Europe. The Old Continent will accept this new dependency only when backed up against the wall (through an inability to build sovereign capabilities) or while sleepwalking - which has basically been the story of the last twenty years in the EU.
Looking forward to reading your next pieces.
They absolutely will choose to tie themselves to US firms, with random cosmetic tweaks to make themselves feel better (see recent deals eg sap-openai-germany). They don’t really have a choice. I hope they can do what they need to do to feel good about their precarious situation, but their situation is precarious indeed.
I think the main problem with the AI export strategy is that the current AI administration has made it clear that being an US allied, or a liberal democracy, is not sufficient to be treated respectfully or as a partner. If that is the case, how can allies trust that the US will not just sell them when convenient?
Is the AI stack resistant to nationalization? What would stop foreign countries from letting America do the hard work of (and pay for) building out their datacenters, then turning to China and letting China run them (presumably with many fewer rules and regulations on how they're used) instead?
I am not a US citizen.
The US simply does not realize the scale and scope the geopolitics change this year.
Internationalizing the infrastructure buildout will also likely require the further development of national electric grids and energy resources. This should create many more opportunities for partnership, and by creating demand for power electronics, transmission, generation, and other components, creates both the incentive and opportunity to accelerate manufacturing independence from China for the entire west.
The 400v and 800v standards being adopted by Google and Nvidia for their next generations of chips have knock-on effects for things like the EV supply chain as well! But the window of time in which we can actually pull this off is relatively short because margins will eventually compress. The time is now!
This is a really valuable clarification, thank you.