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Europe won't have lots of cutting edge technology for a long long time. Sometimes I feel European policymakers think they have to make policies for a prosperous society where the prosperity is taken for granted. But if Europe keeps lagging technologically, the living standards will drop. Europe needs to strike a balance.

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This is such a weird take. The global high tech economy is tightly intertwined. The EU is an integral part of that, and in many areas is doing perfectly fine. Further European policymakers have for the last two decades done an overal excellent job integrating eastern Europe into the Western economic model. Of course first credit belongs to the states themselves, but the border between Germany and Poland used to be one of the largest GDP per Capita drops in the world. Now the difference is marginal. This has happened inside one generation. To accuse them of legislating only for already prosperous societies bears no resemblance to reality.

The Internet and digitalization revolution enabled a few US companies to capture vast amounts of value worldwide simply by being first by having access to the first emerging market for the new tech (and being ruthlessly business savvy). The US being rich and an optimistic consumption culture made that happen. Some of that windfall has been redirected to fun things like boosting Rocket tech, or useful things like boosting EV tech.

Speaking of the latter, I remember a few years ago a lot of people on here were claiming that the US and specifically Tesla had an unassailable lead in Battery Tech. That didn't exactly last long, did it?

But the idea that the US is uniquely poised to dominate the tech landscape for the next decades is silly, doubly so based on some relatively niche tech like rockets. As a European I am worried about the strategic tech competition with China, not the US. And I am worried that the EU is not doing enough to tax the profits being generated here, (cough, Ireland, Luxembourg...).

... and btw, it's all built on Linux, which was given away for free by some European guy.

You're acting like Europe is living in the dark ages. Don't forget Europe also has companies like Arm and ASML, without which neither Apple nor Intel would be able to make processors.

ASML is where it is because Apple and Intel dumped a ton of money into it. Intel especially back when they were doing fine, before the current rockier years. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-asml/intel-funds-ne...

Still an incredible company. Absolutely. But worth pointing out how strongly they were driven to sucess by external factors.

>ASML is where it is because Apple and Intel dumped a ton of money into it.

And also because the US gave them the EUV tech on a silver platter to disrupt the Japanese competition and prop-up a company with domestic presence on US soil.[1]

So, as much as it hurts EU fanboys and chip hipsters to hear this, ASML isn't the result of some magic tech formula developed on EU soil, but the result of a perfect storm of strategic acquisitions on exclusivity to the right tech and the right suppliers at the right time.

[1] https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319

Care to elaborate? Do you have a source for that? As far as I know the EUV lenses part was done by Zeiss and the EUV sources part by Trumpf.

>As far as I know

Then you don't know the full story.

Important is who has the IP and license for the EUV technology that has proven to produce the highest yields. The only reason ASML won EUV lithography and its competitors Canon and Nikon lost, is that US decided to license its domestic EUV tech developed by Sandia Labs to ASML, and denied it to Canon and Nikon, purely because ASML acquired Silicon Valley Group Inc, US's leading lithography supplier at the time, giving ASML a strategic US presence on US soil, versus their Japanese competitors.[1] Also, light sources are made by CYMER[2], another US supplier that ASML bought.

Nikon and Canon could also contrat Zeiss and Trumpf for the same parts that ASML gets but they don't have access to Sandia's and CYMER's EUV tech which is better than the EUV tech they developed in house.

So you see, ASML is not some European wonder as the chip hipsters would want to believe, since it wouldn't own the EUV market today if it weren't for strategic acquisitions on US soil that gave them the EUV monopoly they enjoy today.

[1] https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319

[2] https://www.cymer.com/light-source-technology/

That's a bit like saying that Google would not exist without the contributions by Leo Katz. Or that Sandia's EUV tech would not exist without Ernst Abbés contributions. Everything's build on top of something.

But for some reasons all your posts seem to be intended to downplay anything coming from Europe. Which is fine, everyone needs a resident contrarian.

I'm not downplaying anything, I'm being a realist among the hype that EU is some tech powerhouse when it's objectively much weaker than the EU fanboys would like to believe.

The US could have sold the EUV tech to Canon or Nikon and the Japanese would have owned the EUV industry, but the Dutch ASML played the political game better and won the deal but selling US tech doesn't make it an EU innovation.

And you can't compare licensed or bought tech to individual contributions from indvidual persons.

The US still owns the EUV tech ASML is using and has veto rights on what it can do with it and who it can sell it too. ASML would love to sell EUV steppers to China and make bank since China is desperate to ramp up its domestic fab industry, but US says "NO" and it must comply. The NL or the EU didn't veto the sale, the US did, and ASML complied because the US Gov have ASML by the balls since it's now also partly a US company monetizing US tech.

Why would the USA "sell the EUV tech" to a European company if any American company could do it? It makes no fucking sense. The only thing that makes sense is that there was no American company to "sell the tech" to. You're living in cloud cuckoo fantasy land if you think the US simply had EUV fully developed and just happily donated it to a Europany company out of the goodness of their hearts.

If the tech was so easy and America held all the cards, the machines would be made in America, end of story.

This video covers EUV development in Japan and US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_OOta7Y6Ik

Yes it was developed by the US.

No it wasn't, much work was done in the Netherlands by researchers there and the original prototypes were made in the Netherlands and shipped as demos to the US! The idea that it was solely developed in the US is a MAGA fever-dream of American exceptionalism. The US only did very early research but never actually built anything based on the research, the Netherlands and ASML built on the early research, did more research on top of it, and then actually made it work.

ASML also created the deals with Zeiss and other European companies which were critical in getting all the necessary components created to make EUV happen. None of this would have happened with Jos Benschop and Fred Bijkerk (in the Netherlands).

I agree that some research was done in Japan, Russia, and the US, but this is the case for basically every technology, it's never the case that only one country is responsible solely for something. I'm pointing out (correctly), that ASML kicked ass with EUV tech in a way that no other company did, including Intel, which shows they have something that no other company has. Again, if it was so easy, why isn't an American company making those machines which are critical for the entire worlds security and productivity?

I mean, all they have to do is read ASML's own writeup of this [1]. It's basically US-developed tech, US-funded and political-tactical partnerships. I just don't understand the confusion.

[1] https://www.asml.com/en/news/stories/2022/making-euv-lab-to-...

Cymer (an American company that ASML bought out) makes the EUV source. Trumpf makes the CO2 laser that feeds the EUV source.

"U.S. gives ok to ASML on EUV effort"

https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-effort/

> And also because the US gave them the EUV tech on a silver platter

Things Americans tell themselves ...

1. I'm European

2. That's the truth. If you can't accept it and wish to stay ignorant, then I can't help you.

2. I can't help it that you don't show any proof and clearly were not involved.

>I can't help it that you don't show any proof

I posted the source here 3 times. Not my fault you don't read it.

>and clearly were not involved.

Did nearly a decade in the semi industry in Europe with stints in Israel, Singapore and the US.

But you keep taking the blue pill and believe whatever you want to believe, I don't have time to convince random nay-sayers online and I'm not doxing myself to win an argument with a troll.

> I don't have time to convince random nay-sayers online

You seem to go out of your way to do so anyway. Doesn't fit with the picture of the seasoned expert you're trying to paint of yourself.

"The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced an agreement with ASM Lithography (Einhoven, Netherlands) that would allow the company to participate in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography development effort now underway in Livermore, Calif."

https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-effort/

It doesn't say anything about tech sharing, it in fact states that ASML has an existing EUV business. It also contains at least one error: Canon and ASML are not of similar size.

If it was just based on money, why wouldn't Intel do it themselves, or anyone else for that matter? ASML is basically a monopoly, there is clearly big money to be made if someone else could make those machines.

I think you're doing disservice to the engineers and researchers at ASML suggesting they are only there because the US sent them money.

Because the only way to make it profitable for anyone is to get the economies of scale of everyone behind the same development. Intel, Samsung and TSMC all invested a lot of money in ASML to get EUV over the finish line.

The IPhone would never be possible without China. Or each model would cost $10,000.

Don't forget precision machinery of all kinds: from industrial CNCs, medical instrumentation or electron microscopes.

The EU bureaucracy is a catastrophy for European innovation. The more EU there has been, the crappiest the ability to create wealth/innovate has become. Europhiles like to boast about Airbus or Ariane as "European projects" but they are not, they are inter-states collaboration, and were create when EU commission didn't exist with its vast bureaucracy and it's never ending forms to fill. Can you name one Brussels backed project that went somewhere?

Speaking as one of those Europhiles, EU grants are on average a pretty great thing, you can see the effect first hand just walking around any random town with EU project plaques everywhere. If anything, the EU itself is doing the most to fund practical projects and the excessive bureaucracy does serve as somewhat of a safeguard against the rampant embezzling that is otherwise the norm.

The problem with innovation here is extensive, both legal and cultural. Some countries are downright hostile to startups. In the US it takes what, $200 to open an LLC? In Germany you better have 25000€ ready for an equivalent entity. The amount of regulations one has to adhere to is far more extensive, taxes are borderline absurd, there's basically no venture capital to speak of, so any actually successful company is immediately absorbed by some American megacorp with fat stacks laying around (e.g. Wolt Delivery bought by DoorDash).

Most of the people who lived under socialist systems also grew up in a culture where entrepreneurship was the pinnacle of egoistic greed which probably doesn't really help.

ESA -and Europe in general, sure, but particularly ESA- also has a massive bureaucratic problem.

Not saying you are wrong, US is lagging behind as well on many other sectors as well compared to the rest of the world; manufacturing, transportation, green tech, participative democracy, integrated administrations to quote a few. Reusable rockets make launching stuff cheaper, but integrated Administrations save you millions of admin jobs that could be redeployed to more game changing missions. Imagine not having to declare your tax, or have bookkeeping, or file mountains of documents to renew a visa.

> Imagine not having to declare your tax, or have bookkeeping, or file mountains of documents to renew a visa.

I think you live in some parallel universe EU

The only one of these that might have a point is the tax one. And possibly simpler health insurance systems.

(Schengen provides visa-free travel and living intra-EU, but if you're from outwith the EU prepare for a mountain of paperwork)

I work a regular full time job in Germany. Plus do some investing and gigs. Declaring taxes every year. It's not fun at all, basically you have to prepare for it the whole year(keep track of your transactions, expenses). So i don't see the point about "not declare your taxes". I guess, it's valid only for the most unproductive people in society. Generally, i have an impression that Germany benefits the most unproductive(i.e. edge case poor and super-rich). While putting all the pressure on the middle class.

> benefits the most unproductive(i.e. edge case poor and super-rich). While putting all the pressure on the middle class.

People say this about every country. I think it's just that countries benefit the poor more than they "contribute" b/c they have the least ability to do so and people want their governments to be progressive. On the flipside, everything is always easy for the super-rich, because they have tons of resources to employ armies of people that enable them to benefit from every loophole possible.

Europe needs more babies more than anything. Economically it has many great companies, maybe not so high tech.

Even worse they preach developing world not to fund space/advanced industries

It can drop for a while before reaching the US one

Compare European and US salaries sometime, you have no idea how lucky you are.

There's a reason tens of thousands of European engineers, doctors, lawyers, developers, etc. are desperate to move to the US.

It’s not luck, it’s the result of long term policy.

I rather get a little less money and not live in a car depended sprawl with cities full of homeless and no public transport.

Until you get fired, or a cancer, or kids, or you're not lucky to be in the 10% money makers, &c.

I've lived in both systems, if you're not working for FAANG you're better off in Europe, and if you're working for FAANG in Europe you're probably even better off tbh

Personally no ammount of money will buy my peace of mind, I wouldn't even take 3x my current salary to go to the US

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