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Europe won't be a leader in AI unless they get huge capital investment and datacenter build up. Sadly the regulatory environment of Europe combined with brain d

Europe won't be a leader in AI unless they get huge capital investment and datacenter build up. Sadly the regulatory environment of Europe combined with brain drain to America means it won't happen

mejutoco 5mo ago
Europe is slowly moving to put part of pensions in the stock market (like USA does). Right now people put it in sp500 so that sweet pension money in eu markets might be interesting to see.
- NookDavoos 5mo ago
  I can't imagine being an American approaching retirement with 45-50% of my pension portfolio in AI-related stocks (that's the current weight of AI companies on the SP500). Besides, when SpaceX/Openai/Anthropic go public, they'll get another hefty chunk.
- u8080 5mo ago
  Isn't sp500 mainly US companies with <10% EU ones?
joelthelion 5mo ago
I see it the other way around. In a few years, algorithmic and hardware improvements will likely make these huge datacenters mostly obsolete. Americans will get to enjoy their rusty infrastructure and polluted air, and Europe will have lean and clean infra to support just what's needed.
- Aldipower 5mo ago
  Meanwhile American AI is trained continuously on European data folks willingly gift to the big three AI companies.
- drstewart 5mo ago
  Exactly. The same way the US is winning the EV / solar race - let China build obsolete factories that require way more investments that will be obsolete soon because of automation, then swoop in to build just what's needed and dominate. China will be left with scarred ugly landscapes while the US wins, as you'll no doubt agree
  - joelthelion 5mo ago
    AI isn't a necessity in the same way that EV / solar is, we can afford to take it slow and see what sticks. Also, EV/Solar are a much more mature technology than AI, so huge technological leaps are less likely.
- u8080 5mo ago
  Yeah, right, like they've already done that with social networks and chipmaking.
- atleastoptimal 5mo ago
  That's like saying that improved gas mileage and energy efficiency will make oil obsolete. In certain domains there are no ceilings to return on compute. For example, offensive/defensive cybersecurity, it will be an arms race of who has more compute to patch up against more sophisticated attacks, and who runs more sophisticated attacks >Americans will get to enjoy their rusty infrastructure and polluted air, America has very high air quality and fairly good infrastructure given their population density.
  - joelthelion 5mo ago
    ICE Cars have been around for 100+ years. We have a good understanding of their achievable efficiency, including theoretical guarantees. LLMs on the other hand have only been around for a few years. Large technological breakthroughs are much more likely. In addition, I don't think the future is billions of people chatting with ChatGPT all day. LLMs can write deterministic code for many things, and in the end, we only need their "intelligence" and brittleness in relatively few scenarios. So, with good optimization, we shouldn't need so many huge data centers. On the topic of clean air, the US is relatively spared at the moment because past governments were more reasonable. But just wait a couple of years under the current leadership and you'll see. Just from this morning, look at the top comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214017
Propelloni 5mo ago
Since 2024 the USA is draining brains into Europe in science in general but esp. in climate research, health research, and "tech" research. I can't find good numbers on IT specifically (except that the UK seems to be draining towards EU). Commercialisation of research is still hard in comparison to the USA, though.
- atleastoptimal 5mo ago
  I know that but it's about AI. AI progress = research x compute, without compute then you don't get progress or leverage.
impossiblefork 5mo ago
Yes, and this isn't possible in a sustainable without a hardware-software carousel, which means that we must get EU AI hardware firms, including training accelerators. The present situation must be seen as a sort of "keep alive" state, where we do something unsustainable until we can achieve takeoff, but we can only actually start up for real once we start making the machines we need. If NVIDIA's margins were 20% or something, this wouldn't be the case, but they aren't.

Europe won't be a leader in AI unless they get huge capital investment and datacenter build up. Sadly the regulatory environment of Europe combined with brain drain to America means it won't happen

mejutoco 5mo ago

Europe is slowly moving to put part of pensions in the stock market (like USA does). Right now people put it in sp500 so that sweet pension money in eu markets might be interesting to see.

NookDavoos 5mo ago
I can't imagine being an American approaching retirement with 45-50% of my pension portfolio in AI-related stocks (that's the current weight of AI companies on the SP500). Besides, when SpaceX/Openai/Anthropic go public, they'll get another hefty chunk.
u8080 5mo ago
Isn't sp500 mainly US companies with <10% EU ones?

joelthelion 5mo ago

I see it the other way around. In a few years, algorithmic and hardware improvements will likely make these huge datacenters mostly obsolete. Americans will get to enjoy their rusty infrastructure and polluted air, and Europe will have lean and clean infra to support just what's needed.

Aldipower 5mo ago
Meanwhile American AI is trained continuously on European data folks willingly gift to the big three AI companies.
drstewart 5mo ago
Exactly. The same way the US is winning the EV / solar race - let China build obsolete factories that require way more investments that will be obsolete soon because of automation, then swoop in to build just what's needed and dominate. China will be left with scarred ugly landscapes while the US wins, as you'll no doubt agree
- joelthelion 5mo ago
  AI isn't a necessity in the same way that EV / solar is, we can afford to take it slow and see what sticks. Also, EV/Solar are a much more mature technology than AI, so huge technological leaps are less likely.
u8080 5mo ago
Yeah, right, like they've already done that with social networks and chipmaking.
atleastoptimal 5mo ago
That's like saying that improved gas mileage and energy efficiency will make oil obsolete. In certain domains there are no ceilings to return on compute. For example, offensive/defensive cybersecurity, it will be an arms race of who has more compute to patch up against more sophisticated attacks, and who runs more sophisticated attacks >Americans will get to enjoy their rusty infrastructure and polluted air, America has very high air quality and fairly good infrastructure given their population density.
- joelthelion 5mo ago
  ICE Cars have been around for 100+ years. We have a good understanding of their achievable efficiency, including theoretical guarantees. LLMs on the other hand have only been around for a few years. Large technological breakthroughs are much more likely. In addition, I don't think the future is billions of people chatting with ChatGPT all day. LLMs can write deterministic code for many things, and in the end, we only need their "intelligence" and brittleness in relatively few scenarios. So, with good optimization, we shouldn't need so many huge data centers. On the topic of clean air, the US is relatively spared at the moment because past governments were more reasonable. But just wait a couple of years under the current leadership and you'll see. Just from this morning, look at the top comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214017

Propelloni 5mo ago

Since 2024 the USA is draining brains into Europe in science in general but esp. in climate research, health research, and "tech" research. I can't find good numbers on IT specifically (except that the UK seems to be draining towards EU). Commercialisation of research is still hard in comparison to the USA, though.

atleastoptimal 5mo ago
I know that but it's about AI. AI progress = research x compute, without compute then you don't get progress or leverage.

impossiblefork 5mo ago

Yes, and this isn't possible in a sustainable without a hardware-software carousel, which means that we must get EU AI hardware firms, including training accelerators. The present situation must be seen as a sort of "keep alive" state, where we do something unsustainable until we can achieve takeoff, but we can only actually start up for real once we start making the machines we need. If NVIDIA's margins were 20% or something, this wouldn't be the case, but they aren't.