Another European agency shifts off US Tech as digital sovereignty gains steam

Literally no other country or market with the perhaps exception of China has anything close to its own tech stack. Europe literally had Linus Torvalds and couldn't keep him. He now lives in Portland, 3 hours from where windows is made and 10 hours away from OS X. Literally the entire tech industry is the west coast of the United States.

The disparity in capability is orders of magnitude. Europe is basically hopeless at this point

> The disparity in capability is orders of magnitude.

But then again it's increasingly being made by Indian migrants, right?

How far away the critical state is, who knows. Could it be in this presidential term? Would it happen within ten years of the coming imperial takeover of the presidency? Perhaps.

But when the valley loses its dominance it will likely happen pretty quickly: huge numbers of the people who make it happen will go home, go back to their home states, or just go to live somewhere cheaper. The US is not educating people fast enough or deeply enough to replace them, and there's no sign that AI really can replace the ones that matter.

Just because nobody can see exactly when this will happen doesn't mean you don't start planning for it to happen. Because it will happen, and when it happens it will happen fast.

The US tech industry is still built on the idea that the USA is a comfortable, friendly, open liberal democracy. And that is over. I mean, on a basic level any individual H1B placement in the future exists at the whim of the executive. Who do you have to donate to, to keep it? And any skilled migrant who might come over, work the hell out of a job that is beneath their level of education in the quick-e-mart and then start something of their own is not going to come.

Europe has its own problems with pasty-faced, bad-haired weaselly proto-fascists, but it's still fighting.

I won’t go that far…yes, the West Coast of the US is dominant, but it’s not “literally the entire tech industry” or even figuratively. We’d have a hard time buying new hardware without Chinese and Taiwanese companies. South Korea is a powerhouse in consumer tech; think Samsung and LG. Japan doesn’t have the dominance in tech it once did, but Japan is still a major player with many large tech companies like Fujitsu, Hitachi, Sony, NEC, and many more. Plus, if “tech” isn’t limited to software, then there are plenty of players worldwide in biotechnology and automobiles.

And let’s not count out Europe. I’m actually typing this in a BMW dealership’s waiting room in the Bay Area as I get my brake pads updated. BMW definitely qualifies as technology, even if it’s not a software company.

>Europe literally had Linus Torvalds and couldn't keep him

The great thing about Linux is we don't need to care where Linus lives. We obviously have — in principle — the tech, the workforce and the money to build an alternative tech stack. Most of it is open source at this point.

It's just political will. If we had the commitment and sense of urgency to unwind from America we could. Just like in military affairs we don't do it because we have a mental blockade to break with the existing global order.

No Korean government services rely on US hyperscalers (which is the subject of this post). I'm 99% sure the same goes for financial institutions. Those are the key infra and they're sovereign. A lot of big companies do have some things on US hyperscalers, but even that is a relatively small percentage. Overwhelmingly things are on prem.

And now someone will link "but there was just a fire that resulted in many online gov services being down for weeks!!!". Yes. And having that happen once in a decade, after which measures will be taken so that from now on it happens once in 3 decades, is absolutely 100x preferable to depending on US hyperscalers like EU governments do. As we just saw, it's not like AWS and Azure don't go down.

Sure, they don't have their own OS. But even much of China still runs on Windows. China might manage to get entirely rid of it at some point but not yet.

Doesn't Intel depend on ASML when their chip machines break? I don't think there exists a single country in the world that can currently produce a significant amount of full-stack, modern compute. If there is one, it's definitely China rather than the US.

There is no jurisdiction on the planet with as diverse and open an environment as America which is why many Indians come here to become citizens and contribute to the country, including my own parents.

Now, India actually does have a lot of potential, and could actually do something similar. Unfortunately it is currently undergoing fairly intense and violent nativist hindu extremist fascism.

Honestly, the Hindu rashtra nonsense would be fine on its own but given how undeveloped India is, it really has better things to focus on. I mean, but yeah if India ever manages to develop and revert back to a more pluralistic society then yes it would be a potential alternative market. Unlike Europe and China, India has a long history of accepting foreign peoples and incorporating them into its society, similar to America.

Unlike Europe, India pays for its own defences and is thus a real country. Europe is a vassal of the United States.

But like realistically, I see no possible path for India to overcome its issues at this point. There are few rational voices in its politics. The Indian left wing is honestly insane. And the right wing is equally unhinged. Speaking for myself as the child of Indian christians, I know a lot of Christians secretly vote for the BJP because the alternative is honestly insanity. There is no technocratic, pluralistic, and not self hating party that is actually in it for the country's success. Thus I don't see any path forward for it. I'm not saying this out of any sense of superiority. I think it would be awesome for India to be a liveable nation. It would be nice to be able to live there frankly. However, it's just not a realistic prospect in this century

India will be a perpetual off shoring center for the US. Ambitious Indians will leave to become Americans. Those who are unable to due to American policy will flounder in India and not achieve their potential. You can frame this as America's fault. But it is actually India's.

To conclude, there is no place as diverse and welcoming as America or any place that even seems on that path. The other possible place (south America) is in many ways even more backwards than India. China will always be a Han ethnostate. Europe is also an ethnostate and has no history of assimilating anyone (see Jews and gypsies)

> any individual H1B placement in the future exists at the whim of the executive

America attracted migrants before h1b and was basically closed off to much of the world before 1965 and is still the preferred destination of pretty much anyone.

> Literally no other country

Can you point the Europe country on a map?

But, notice how all of the core manufacturing capabilities you just mentioned weren't from European companies either.

It may not be accurate to say we have the entire global technology landscape, especially after the sellout of our manufacturing base in the 70s and 80s to Asia, but it's not exactly like Europe has it either.