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Some people in the US deride it's close allies as "freeloaders" because they choose to use and buy US tech, reinforcing the US's position as a global powerhouse
by flumpcakes 10mo ago
Some people in the US deride it's close allies as "freeloaders" because they choose to use and buy US tech, reinforcing the US's position as a global powerhouse. (Meanwhile US tech is built on the shoulders of their allies.) Now we see these same allies are starting to look inward and invest in technology they own completely because the US is acting decisively not like an ally. Something unthinkable since WW2.
I don't see this news as anything but a good thing. For every technology out there, the EU needs a native alternative. It's clear the current US administration wants to make the EU worse based on a politics of grievance.
- jimnotgym 10mo agoI agree, this is a good thing. Long term stable large contracts are great simulation for a market. Airbus obviously has a large amount of military work, and its data needs to stay in Europe. What we also need is a faster acceleration of military spending so this can happen with more companies.
- ExoticPearTree 10mo ago> thing. Long term stable large contracts are great simulation for a market. They are not. It can hurt Airbus very much if a provider says they can provide a certain level of hardware/software for 10 years and in three years the RAM or storage goes through the roof and the provider is not big enough to absorb all the losses. People don’t choose the hyperscalers because they are based in the US, they choose them because they are too big to fail and have pretty much unlimited resources and have multiplr streams of revenue.
- jimnotgym 10mo agoI would expect a contract review for millions in hosting to review how the company will mitigate those costs. Normally you would expect them to contract away the risk themselves. In fact the current rise in RAM costs is due to exactly this, big hosters contracting for long term RAM certainty.
- everfrustrated 10mo agoThere's a futures market for RAM prices if you want to hedge that risk. No different than corn.
- filoleg 10mo ago> There's a futures market for RAM prices if you want to hedge that risk. No different than corn. Yeah, and that's a fine vehicle for insuring against this risk for a finance company or for an individual. I am prepared to be wrong on the following take (as it is based on nothing more than just "it came to me in a dream"), but my hunch is that neither Airbus nor the EU state governments are currently even attempting to hedge the RAM price risk by accumulating a RAM futures stash on the market.
- rswail 10mo agoAirbus is ~30% government owned by France/Germany/Spain and others. It is funded both as a private business and as a European "champion" to compete with Boeing. It is also likely to get the majority of the European civil, commercial, and military orders now. There is no reason why Europe can't build a hyperscalar cloud service. The skills and the software and hardware are all transferrable technology. European defence budgets are being ramped up, spending some billions on data centres and comms is a no-brainer as part of that. European governments contracting to a European cloud provider would be more than enough to fund the provisioning.
- hulitu 10mo ago[flagged]
- rurban 10mo agoAlmost all computer equipment is from China.
- mschuster91 10mo agoProduction yes, but design is firmly in American hands - for now.
- rurban 10mo agoWell, the currently best OS widely deployed is Chinese only. HarmonyOS, a microkernel OS replacing Android on Chinese phones. About 10x faster development than in the US. And secure, unlike Linux. Fuchsia never made it widescale. They started a couple of years before the Chinese and then got stuck
- DaSHacka 10mo ago"Best OS" as determined by who? Even just checking the Wikipedia page for HarmonyOS is sure to give a chuckle: > supporting both tablet mode and full desktop counterpart in line with Huawei MateBook I'm sorry, "MateBook"? Lol, I wonder where they possibly got the idea for that name from.
- nosianu 10mo ago> Almost all computer equipment companies are from US. Made in a few Asian countries. I think it's kind of funny reading the contents of your post and how it ignores Asia, that's actually behind most of it. How much of a Dell PC is US-American?
- Lapel2742 10mo ago> > Almost all computer equipment companies are from US. > Made in a few Asian countries. Using European technology (ASML).
- unmole 10mo ago> Some people in the US deride it's close allies as "freeloaders" because they choose to use and buy US tech This is a disingenuous straw man. The allies are derided for literally freeloading on US military protection while underinvesting in their own defense.
- oliwarner 10mo agoHow's that? How many Middle Eastern refugees are America sheltering from the fallout of American aggression and the regimes it props up? The US isn't anywhere close to paying its way.
- jimnotgym 10mo agoFreeloading? My country spends less on defence as a percentage of GDP than the US. But it spends much of that with US companies. This is not Freeloading. It was a deal. Cancel TSR-2, and buy American and we will lend you some money. Cancel your nuclear program and buy US submarine launched missiles and we will help you look after yourself. Now let Visa and Mastercard skim off all your transactions and we will keep you secure to keep the money flowing. Sweetheart tax deals for US companies to operate, and we will keep you safe to keep the money flowing. It is not Freeloading, it is colonialism
- tonyedgecombe 10mo agoLet's not pretend this was something the US didn't want for most of the last seventy years.
- 10mo ago
- bambax 10mo agoOf course it's a good thing. It's an excellent thing. Is there any European company or individual arguing otherwise?