> nothing much ever came out of Sematech. It was a lot of hype, but not much result It may be that nothing much will come out of this initiative, but what choi

> nothing much ever came out of Sematech. It was a lot of hype, but not much result It may be that nothing much will come out of this initiative, but what choice does Europe have? Europe simply has to have control over its computing/communications infrastructure, if it wants to be truly independent. As Macron recently said ( https://geopolitique.eu/en/macron-grand-continent/ https://geopolitique.eu/en/macron-grand-continent/ ): > In concrete terms, this means that when it comes to technology, Europe needs to build its own solutions in order not to depend on American or Chinese technologies. If we are dependent on them, for example in telecommunications, we cannot guarantee European citizens the secrecy of information and the security of their private data, because we do not have this technology. [...] > The same goes for the extraterritoriality of the dollar, which is a fact and not a new one. Less than ten years ago, several French companies were penalised to the tune of billions of euros because they had operated in countries that were banned under American law. In concrete terms, this means that our companies can be condemned by foreign powers when they operate in a third country : that is a deprivation of sovereignty, of the possibility of deciding for ourselves, it weakens our position immensely. > Unfortunately, we grasped the full implications of this when it came to the discussion on Iran. We Europeans wanted to remain within the framework of what we call the JCPOA. With America’s withdrawal, no European company was able to continue doing business with Iran for fear of sanctions from the United States. Hence, when I talk about sovereignty or strategic autonomy, I am bringing together all these issues, which at first glance seem very different.