Spot on, Nathan. The tenant mindset is exactly what is holding European startups back right now. I review countless pitch decks where the entire moat is just a US based API key. Building thin wrappers is no longer just a fragile business strategy. It is a massive geopolitical vulnerability. If you do not own the metal, you do not own the product. Stellar piece.
This is a very difficult problem. You can't you just throw money at it - you need an ecosystem of startups and VCs, and you need to make sure that the companies and talents you develop don't simply get sucked up by US companies.
The "tenant mindset" framing is right. A tenant can be evicted. What gets underweighted: it's not just being switched off that's the risk, it's building core workflows around models you can't inspect, audit, or run when API terms change. Credible domestic capability doesn't have to be frontier. It has to be uncuttable.
You have a point that power demands of AI are going to be a big problem, but I would not describe net zero as insanity. It does need to be implemented carefully and flexibly. Europe does need to step up in a big way regarding power generation, not just for AI but for increased AC and to lower the price, which is ridiculous. The other big issue is water for cooling.
Spot on, Nathan. The tenant mindset is exactly what is holding European startups back right now. I review countless pitch decks where the entire moat is just a US based API key. Building thin wrappers is no longer just a fragile business strategy. It is a massive geopolitical vulnerability. If you do not own the metal, you do not own the product. Stellar piece.
This is a very difficult problem. You can't you just throw money at it - you need an ecosystem of startups and VCs, and you need to make sure that the companies and talents you develop don't simply get sucked up by US companies.
The "tenant mindset" framing is right. A tenant can be evicted. What gets underweighted: it's not just being switched off that's the risk, it's building core workflows around models you can't inspect, audit, or run when API terms change. Credible domestic capability doesn't have to be frontier. It has to be uncuttable.
There is zero chance that the EU can create frontier models and the infrastructure to serve them. Net zero insanity *alone* makes that impossible.
You have a point that power demands of AI are going to be a big problem, but I would not describe net zero as insanity. It does need to be implemented carefully and flexibly. Europe does need to step up in a big way regarding power generation, not just for AI but for increased AC and to lower the price, which is ridiculous. The other big issue is water for cooling.