EU seeks to supercharge computer chip production
bbc.com
bbc.com
Sounds like it'll be another half-assed EU project that won't amount to anything meaningful. They should be looking at home-growing talent (research labs, universities, programs) and rebuilding the European industry (joint partnerships, funding, subisidies, etc.), instead of relying on overseas companies for such a crucial and strategic issue.
Subsidizing and growing local production of computer chips would be quite similar, so I can see a parallel there.
GP really should have expounded on their view though, rather than leaving the burden to interpret their words on us, the readers.
EDIT: The derision you may feel might be because many shared the view that bringing back manufacturing was pointless and that bringing the capability back did not mean bringing back the jobs (automation). There was also the widespread conflation of Trump, his other policies, and the MAGA slogan... so the slogan is probably not as useful now.
So how do you even design a project that excludes them, includes the companies of the 27 EU countries, and doesn't fall foul of WTO rules and trade deal provisions? If you deal with a single country you can get quite creative, but as EU they have a hard time being exclusive while keeping the veneer of inclusivity as e.g. UK, China, etc like to do.
[1] This article talks about electronic components in general, not just chips, plus "work together to bolster Europe’s electronics and embedded systems value chain".
[2] is about quantum computing
Basically EU is boosting research with money set aside for this purpose, hopefully being spent on research labs, universities, programs.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/eu-tech-semiconductor-idUSKB...
[2] https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/nine-more...
It'll be interesting in the coming decades whether or not we can navigate this one peacefully or not. There is likely hope though as it's not really limited by natural resources or geography, at least right now, but rather on intellectual property which is inherently infinite except for the artificial constraints we've applied to it.
Anyone else worked through 5th generation, the Alvey report and the MITI catchup?
What does work is sustained organic investment in fundamental science and an environment which stimulates SME.
Its the transition to world scale which seems to defeat European initiated planning.
https://www.nap.edu/read/10677/chapter/9
The entire chapter is interesting, but it also mentions how TSMC came to be:
> The government came to realize that it did not yet have an industry—only one company. The private sector was still fearful of risk and could not raise enough money to start new firms. Once again the government put up money, this time to start TSMC. And this time it applied a condition: The government’s share would be less than 50 percent. Lacking enough funds from the private sector, the government made an offer to Philips, which put in almost 35 percent of the initial investment; this pushed the private sector’s share above 50 percent, and TSMC was born. Again, the technology and all the people came from ERSO, including about 130 engineers, the 2-micron CMOS developed at ERSO, and its latest 6-inch-wafer fab. TSMC had no product, only the fab technology, which matched well with the idea of a pure-play foundry.
I don't get why Europe is so bad at this kind of thing.
The EU is a conglomerate of 20+ hyperbureaucratic states where the incentive is to drag these initiatives for years and billions, get nowhere, and repeat. A lot of people will make a lot of money, regardless the outcome.
If you want to invest, you either back new starts which wind up being a race to host them, or you back collaborative projects which force Bull, Olivetti, ICL, to work together. Sorry, they just never really work. Too much competitive tension.
Taiwan, its kind-of a bit more apparent. The nasty neighbour is just across the straights. You better get your act together.
While other US states encourage their own tech centers' growth, Floridians and New Yorkers and Texans are all aware of, benefit from, and are proud of Silicon Valley being in the US.
The Transputer was less of a success, but left a legacy that I think can be traced through to Graphcore today.
I suppose if they tried to replicate that sort of pump priming failure they would be thought of wasting money.
That's the part Europe seems to miss: making endogenous industry in territory
At a certain scale, things don't come out of thin air.
There's almost no chance of something like this happening on it's own, although the initiative is probably doomed, it could feasibly work if done right.
I'm doubtful but there is a path that could work.
People forget how much modern tech comes from Eindhoven. It just wound up being made in Asia, it was invented in labs at Philips, in Eindhoven. Or, the amazing tech in the oil industry which stems in part, from the work done for Radar by GEC Plessy Marconi. Radar for bombs and missiles is in the end, easy to repurpose for Geo. And.. North sea oil happened.
Europe makes amazing hugh value widgets like the machines TSMC use to make the chips Europeans buy. The key point here is that Europe is pretty crap at buying and operating these machines themselves. At scale. TO make widgets people want to buy. OUTSOURCE! (and.. all the things which stem from it)
There's no reason to be in the EU as an engineer, unless you like making trade-offs that leave you in a net negative position (no, free healthcare is not worth >$100,000 less salary).
Don't think you would earn that much in Holland, Michigan but happy to be corrected :)
If anything, cheap engineers would make it easier to build the fabs and stay competitive internationally because that is how Taiwan is competing.
More generally, the current market is unhealthy. There are only two companies fabbing high end chips (not counting Intel, who generally only fab their own stuff), and even then only if you’re generous to Samsung. In the long run, that’s not good for anyone, and it’s an obvious analogy to Airbus.