As European nations and leaders wake up to their dependence on American corporations in cloud computing and other digital infrastructure, efforts are being made to foster the development of a European tech industry to ensure their digital sovereignty be protected. However such initiatives face the need for both a great deal of investment both public and private and a need for human capital which can only be gained and fostered by pursuing initiatives to attract talent to Europe from around the world. The EU is endeavouring towards both these ends but it will continue to be an uphill battle, especially as many do not see as pressing a need for digital sovereignty as EU leaders claim it to be. In addition the short term impacts of protectionist policies aimed at building up a domestic tech industry will see costs fall primarily upon European businesses especially as European tech firms cannot yet reasonably offer the scale or the pricing of their American counterparts, which could make any proposed legislation a bitter pill to swallow.
Personally while I recognise the rationale and validity of arguments in favour of action to promote the European tech industry, I do still believe what are being discussed are ultimately protectionist measures which come with their natural downsides. The bigger stumbling block to be tackled in my view is the attraction and fostering of new talent without which any initiatives are inevitably doomed to fail.
moldyman_99 on
>France’s Mistral AI is an example of Europe’s wider struggles to capitalise on promising starts in next-generation technology.
I find this to be a really annoying talking point. Mistral, the company that just released new state of the art models, and is incredibly successful in the B2B sector is struggling? Really? They haven’t even gone public yet, and they’re already looking at billions in potential funding. Some of their models are on par with the best ones on the market and they built them cheaply.
Seriously. Why can’t we talk about Europe’s issues without being dishonest? I don’t want to be contrarian every time an article like this comes out, but every single time, there’s some dumb shit like this.
3 Comments
No thanks, gimme another 20 trillion stifling regulations!
[Archive link](https://archive.is/20250721053242/https://www.ft.com/content/5e25c397-61d1-4b48-b5c5-65561a4c9df2)
As European nations and leaders wake up to their dependence on American corporations in cloud computing and other digital infrastructure, efforts are being made to foster the development of a European tech industry to ensure their digital sovereignty be protected. However such initiatives face the need for both a great deal of investment both public and private and a need for human capital which can only be gained and fostered by pursuing initiatives to attract talent to Europe from around the world. The EU is endeavouring towards both these ends but it will continue to be an uphill battle, especially as many do not see as pressing a need for digital sovereignty as EU leaders claim it to be. In addition the short term impacts of protectionist policies aimed at building up a domestic tech industry will see costs fall primarily upon European businesses especially as European tech firms cannot yet reasonably offer the scale or the pricing of their American counterparts, which could make any proposed legislation a bitter pill to swallow.
Personally while I recognise the rationale and validity of arguments in favour of action to promote the European tech industry, I do still believe what are being discussed are ultimately protectionist measures which come with their natural downsides. The bigger stumbling block to be tackled in my view is the attraction and fostering of new talent without which any initiatives are inevitably doomed to fail.
>France’s Mistral AI is an example of Europe’s wider struggles to capitalise on promising starts in next-generation technology.
I find this to be a really annoying talking point. Mistral, the company that just released new state of the art models, and is incredibly successful in the B2B sector is struggling? Really? They haven’t even gone public yet, and they’re already looking at billions in potential funding. Some of their models are on par with the best ones on the market and they built them cheaply.
Seriously. Why can’t we talk about Europe’s issues without being dishonest? I don’t want to be contrarian every time an article like this comes out, but every single time, there’s some dumb shit like this.