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Will Europe accept being a manufacturer only? Or will they finally pick up with a late comer advantage? We need to wait and see.
But luckily Germany saved the world by shutting down their power plants for good
Tinfoil hat, I know, but I'm convinced that Germany hating nuclear power was a Russian influence operation.
Maybe... but let's not forget the 1986 event.
And we mustn't compare it with the ecological impact of using gas in a democracy instead of nuclear under a communist regime
Sure, but it had a catastrophic impact on the german opinion.
The one where you couldn't safely eat anything from the Bavarian woods for a decade. And that was during years without major droughts. People are fast to forget. Nowadays loosing a harvest to a nuclear plume during a drought would be devastating.
Also, even the nuclear plants near the coast are often shut down during the summer. E.g. France's Gravelines was running only half it's generators due to jellyfish nearly shutting down the cooling system (at least) the second year in a row.
It was already decided in 1998 to phase out nuclear power under the SPD–Green coalition. They passed the Nuclear Exit Law in 2002.
It’s mostly the Green Party’s fault, as they have been vehemently anti-nuclear since their inception(1970s).
Ok. Soviet influence operation.
You know people love rUsSiA iS nOt ThE sAmE aS uSsR.
But having read "Stalin" by Stephen Kotkin I've concluded that the USSR was nothing more than a legal construction to increase Russian control over its neighbors.
Why do you think that in 1998 Russia was not influencing Germany to use its gas?
Moreover, Russia and its coopting of the German Left and Greens is well documented.
Gerhard Schröder, chancellor 1998-2005, is well known to be best buddies with Putin and later (three weeks after leaving office!) worked for Gazprom. He is nicknamed "Gas-Gerd".
Schröder also famously called Putin a "true democrat".
China's CAS institute charts DUV route to 3nm GAA without EUV - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49757999 - September 2026
what's wild about this(not coming at you :), just in general wanted to post ) .... folks pick various details but i think sometimes miss the big picture. If they can make current/next gen HBM with similarish PUE... idk that DUV vs EUV vs 5nm vs 3nm matters?
They should make another law and probably a few more commissions of auditors.
I get the sarcasm, but its not like e.g. TSMC popped up in a environment of pure libertarian free market capitalism. It was, from the beginning, a project of the Taiwanese state, and without significant public influence there is no way it would have become what it is. Are the EU laws what's needed? IDK. But without a proper public industrial policy besides "low taxes and few regulations" there is no way Europe will be able to get significant semiconductor-production up, the rich-get-richer phenomenon is just to strong.
I think the point is that laws alone mean nothing. As you note, Taiwan was more active than just having commissions and signing papers.
Airbus proves the EU can do this. It remains to be seen if they still have the ability to take constructive action, or if “add more bureaucracy” is the only tool remaining in the toolbox.
*could.
Airbus has been grandfathered into the current legal situation. Today a future Airbus would not be able to even start collecting data for its initial Environmental Impact Study.
And Boeing's rampant carelessness proves European laws can be beneficial. "Hurr durr, how about them European laws" is a low-effort comment that adds nothing to the discussions.
The argument that a slack regulatory environment is sufficient was disproven when the US government subsidized new fabs via the CHIPS Act (a new law!), and then went further and partially nationalized a failing Intel to prop it up.
I’ve seen someone explaining why it’s not as easy with semiconductors: Airbus can spread several different factories for different components around the EU. For semiconductors that’s not as feasible. Thus countries would fight which one would have the semiconductors factory. I think it was more or less this argument, which seems to make sense.
Nobody said that. That is a strawman
Another interesting fact is that Che-Chia Wei (the man who made TSMC what it is) received zero equity. Everything he has he bought himself at the market rate.
Don't you mean Morris Chang/張忠謀? He was the founder. Also, this near-meme level phrase "received zero equity" is meaningless when you are paying senior executives millions per year. They just buy shares with their earnings. He was one of the highest (if not highest) paid executive in Taiwan for more than a decade.
Untrue. TSMC is just building a state of the art chip factory in Dresden, and they are certainly using ASML.
That fab unfortunately seems to be quite far from state of the art at 12 nm feature size. Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Semiconductor_Manufac...
Uh, so they are lying to us constantly. First the said the new BOSCH fab in Dresden is for AI, with 28nm - ha!
Bosch never said that though, the "AI" stuff was about the production methods used in the fab (along with a couple other buzzwords), it was never claimed that the fab produces chips "for AI". Instead these are fairly simple controllers for the automotive industry.
Can you share any official communication where somebody claimed this fab was for AI?
It was pretty clear that this fab - much like the other Bosch facilities - is going to be for automotive and industry ICs, not for high end node sizes in CPUs or GPUs.
I think I've read "power management chips for AI" somewhere. Probably technically correct, but also a somewhat gratuitous reference to the current thing for silly PR reasons.
Not gratuitous, Infineon's stock price rose because of the AI datacenter demand.
I don't think this is merely a gratuitous reference given the fact that AI demand is probably - among EVs - a key driver for the sales of power related ICs.
Every local Dresden newspaper article and Bosch press release said so.
You probably mixed it up with the Infineon Smart Power Fab.
The Infineon Smart Power Fab was opened some months ago and builds power ICs for the energy market. Probably something like ACDC and DCAC converter ICs. This is also needed in AI data centers. https://www.infineon.com/de/regional/dresden/smart-power-fab
European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), the TSMC fab in Dresden is still under construction and will produce logic chips in 28nm or 16nm. Bosch, Infineon, and NXP each have 10% share in this fab. I assume that it will mostly produce products which will be sold by these 3 companies, probably just the next generations from what they already sell. This fab was 50% subsidized by the German government.
GlobalFoundries also has a big 20nm Fab in Dresden.
The most advanced logic fab in the EU is the Intel fab in Ireland.
The fab itself can still be "state of the art" even when the product isn't (Germany needs chips for its industry, not for gaming PCs or AI data centers).
We actually need both. Part of the industry certainly needs “PC chips”
There will be 2nm in Ireland
Are you talking about Intel? That's the 7nm class and I've never seen anything about plans for the 20A/2nm generation at that fab.
Intel has committed to bringing "Intel 3" to Leixlip https://www.idaireland.com/latest-news/press-release/intel-a... , so below 12nm or 7nm but still above 20A/2nm IIUC. It does also seem that Intel has already ordered ASML EUV machines for Leixlip, which arrived by 2023 https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/corporate/eu-chipmak... .
Current state of the art in feature sizes is 20 nm metal pitch / 45 nm gate pitch.
We both know that feature sizes became marketing names over a decade ago. The "12 nm" for that fab are of course the marketing name. In any case, it's a seriously old process at this point.
No, ASML is not lying about ASML's business developments.
That would make it the only company in the world not doing that
So you seem to know more about ASML's business than the ASML executive quoted in this article.
To be fair:
1. They provided evidence (construction of a fab in Dresden).
2. Executives lie all of the time.
Aside: after all of the denunciations of AI companies claims of danger, I expected comments here to be denouncing this as a “ASML shill article trying to get the government to buy more of their product”. Not that I believe, but the contrast is striking.
since when are executives statements meant to produce more investment into them trustable?
even more so it is reasonable to assume their (executive) statement was a simplification ignoring small for the overall statement irrelevant exceptions
like ignoring there being a factory build which is small and only meant for older nodes producing embedded chips and is for the car industry only
because honestly while the factory does matter for Bosh, it doesn't really make much difference for the larger picture of chip production in the EU
Yes, so TSMC is buying the machines, and they are based in Taiwan. This is not about the physical location of the machines.
Most of their fabs are also in Taiwan.
The claim in OP is that "ASML currently sells no chipmaking machines in Europe". A single chipmaking machine purchase into a fab in Europe would be enough to prove that claim wrong. The number of fabs in Taiwan is irrelevant to this claim.
Since you know the truth, and on what date was that order put in? Why did it have to be in 2026 and not during the planning process in previous years?
So currently europe is exposed to russia-ukraine, us-iran, and shortly china-taiwan. This is not a great place to be in.
Not really much of a consolation, but it's pretty obvious that the standing committee is perfectly happy to sit back and chuckle while watching the rest of the world burn from that nice safe distance. So at least there won't be any china-taiwan issues.
But that's little consolation I understand. I get that when there are two elephants sitting on you, someone telling you how fortunate you are to not have a third one on top of you as well, is a little annoying.
The brainless policies continue as we speak: traditional parties keep you exposed to financial masters because money talks, and extremists keep you exposed to their masters because, again, money talks. So: money talks and Europe is still a good milking cow.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
No, but it is in times like this that one needs to look forward and invest in the future.
It more due to the fact that the politicians are on a moral kow-it-all high horse than being pragmatic and putting national interest first. As an example all EU leaders absolutely refused to talk with Russia/Putin on putting an end to the war and they were hell bent on militarily defeating Russia. I remember the previous German Chancellor had a phone call with Putin to discuss it and everyone was shitting on him for doing that.
But now Trump is inviting Putin to G20 and I'm sure sure all those EU politician would be all smily and act like no war is going on and gladly talk with Putin. If you think about it the war could have ended years ago and all the Ukranian/Russian lives lost could have been avoided if EU leaders were not so arrogant.
That's a weird stance to take. If someone invaded a other territory next to yours and some of your unions members fear they're next, business as usual is the wrong strategy, imo
That's why diplomacy is important. There is no scenario that Europe, let alone Ukraine can militarily defeat Russia (a country with nuclear weapons). I understand defending the territory. But what is the end game? fight forever? or mutual destruction?
Kick them out so they gain nothing and have a credible enough deterrent they don't try again. This is also well below the stated threshold for Russia escalating to nukes but well above the threshold of military defeat.
what if they cannot be kicked out? fight forever till Ukraine runs out of men to send to war?
Then that is a loss, yes. It is an attritional war: whoever runs out of resources or will first loses. I don't think most of Europe has internalised how big of a loss that would be.
Sorry this is a crazy interpretation of events.
Europe has 15x the GDP of Russia. If they were "hell bent" on militarily defeating Russia, they could have made even tiny sacrifices to the social welfare system, diverted industrial production to military aid, and drowned Ukraine in help. That was a very achievable goal, and they didn't do it.
Instead, the vacillated on importing US natural gas, continued shutting down nuclear power plants, and paid Russia MORE CASH FOR OIL than they ended up giving Ukraine in military aid! They did not in fact, dedicate themselves to this war in any way shape or form.
We already did that. Welfare and funding to social services, elderly care, etc is significantly reduced and with higher bar to get than before 2022 where I live. Plus we're also paying the price in higher housing costs thanks to housing millions of Ukrainians.
It's easy to want a higher reduction on welfare services when you're not the one needing them. It's easy to write cheques that other people have to cash.
Same here! I'd actually say it's basically shut down to new people.
I have spoken to 5 different health/government departments just trying to get some care for my elderly family member who lives alone and has badly hurt both legs, but I have been denied, denied and denied and lied to at every single stage. "We have no money", "Go private", "We are at capacity", "There is a 16 week wait for an assessment", "You can only access us via your GP" [lie]
All because they aren't retirement age yet - then they get more red carpet treatment.
The Government is also busy trying to figure out how to cut welfare for those who don't vote in sufficient numbers to matter
Have you told them to jump on a small inflatable boat, throw away their passports and enter the EU via the Mediterranean? They'll get first class treatment for all their needs on the taxpayers' dime. Because if they don't get it, there's a dozen NGOs paid from your taxes that will sue their government for breaking their human rights for not providing them with the housing and care they need.
Mhmm it's hard not to feel aggrieved with people who get certain basic care no-questions-asked when there are so many reports of questionable claims of what they're fleeing from/age/origin etc and given the numbers (~220k asylum seekers in the system as of 2024, and conveniently a 'transition to a new caseworking system' has prevented any newer figures being published)
But I think we have bigger taxation/spending and economic issues in the UK. Nobody really cares about asylum seekers/immigrants when the economy is booming, jobs are plentiful and inflation is low.
We do seem have a defective system in which people who suddenly need help after having a job and paying lots of tax are more-or-less ignored, but life-long welfare claimants are already so entrenched in the system, it's just a continuation.
Job Seeker's benefit is £408/mo for a maximum of 6 months and only if you had paid sufficient tax in the 2 years prior – basically just a small tax refund but only if you follow the rules imposed upon you by your 'job coach'. And that benefit doesn't then entitle you to any other discount/benefits unlike certain other benefits. It's designed to make you to take any job that turns up – indeed your work 'coach' will likely force you to do that.
Rant over lol
Are you for real? Look into France's pension situation. The median pensioner has HIGHER INCOME than the median working adult. And retirement was at 62!
No, there have been absolutely no real cuts to elderly care, the UK's triple lock ensures that the situation gets monotonically worse until the system collapses.
YES.
I don't live in France or the UK.
Yeah they have. My city is short 30 million Euros on disability care this year despite increases in taxes. I (non retiree) now need to wait 6+ months for a surgery when it used to be 2, and pay from my taxes for money and weapons to Ukraine and housing to Ukrainian refugees in my city while they have nicer cars than me and don't pay the back breaking car taxes because they leave them on UA plates. I don't necessarily mind that per se, but I do mind being berated as if I'm not sacrificing enough. Please set an example and sacrifice yourself and your family for Ukraine before lecturing us.
which EU country permits non-EU plates (and insurance?) indefinitely?
That was always going to happen. The war just makes that worse. The demographics and lack of economic growth were always going to break those welfare systems. How much they break and who loses out were the only real questions.
Why do you think an entire continent with multiple and (sometimes even conflicting with each other) culture, priorities, national interest would do that? EU is an economic union. Not a federation like US
Because NATO article 5 demands it.
European support started out slow, but has ramped up as the US has backed away.
Germany will spend 20% of it's federal budget on military in 2027, planning to increase that to 30% by 2030. "We cannot defend ourselves against Putin with a balanced budget".
What does NATO article 5 have to do with Ukraine?
The parent was talking about the disunity of Europe in standing up to Putin.
What would come next after Ukraine may be the Baltic states or Poland.
According to your YouTube sources? NATO has nothing to do with Ukraine. NATO countries can defend themselves if one of those countries actually are being attacked. That happened in 9/11 and NATO countries supporting militarily the US wars that preceded.
They have no such obligation towards Ukraine.
Ukraine is not a NATO member
Europe has been stepping up a lot recently, given Trump's reluctance to push back against Putin - looks at UK/France supply of missile and anti-missile systems and IP to Ukraine, stepped up air defense based out of Lithuania (anticipating Kaliningrad as the first front of the war), etc.
No, they have not been "stepping up" relative to the existential threat at their door. They are still doing 10% of the minimum you'd expect from someone whose literal lives and civilization are at risk from a barbarian threat literally murdering their neighbors (and playing games with their own sovereignty more recently, with drone incursions).
The only way to stop Putin is with military force.
Europe is of course well aware that war with Russia seems increasingly inevitable, and have been preparing for it.
What is the source for this? I have seen some news articles with this narrative, it was more on the line of fear-mongering rather than providing evidence.
Ukraine is only Putin's first step, and Europe is well aware of that, so look at all the advanced weapons systems Europe is now giving to Ukraine (Storm Shadow, SCALP, SAMP/T etc), as well as the statements they are making. They are well aware this has made them a target for Putin, with UK missiles having been used against Black Sea targets etc, but are doing it all the same.
Europe is not tolerating Russian drone incursions, and has been shooting them down, have been on air combat footing patrolling the finish border and Kalinograd region (operating out of Lithuania), boosting defense of the Suwałki Gap, etc.
YouTube is perhaps one of the best sources of information, since US MSM is not interested.
You lost me at this. If your official source of information is YouTube, then good luck.
Try googling for information and use whichever news sources you prefer - just don't expect to find Fox News talking about it.
How do you think the war could have ended? With Ukraine’s surrender?
Not such an easy thing to say if you’re the one facing that threat. Nobody wants their own country to be invaded and conquered.
And Russia would take that as a green light to keep on conquering other former Soviet states. Where do you draw the line?
How exactly is Europe to blame for Russia continuing its war in Ukraine? Russia has clearly demonstrated a lack of interest in peace on any terms that could be acceptable to Ukraine.
Putin is deathly afraid of being assassinated and is avoiding air travel in favor of trains, and has identical offices to film in at multiple locations to hide his location. There is no chance he is getting on a plane to Florida.
How so? By Europe rolling over and not supporting Ukraine?
Our car industry (among others) showed we're quite capable of shooting ourselves in the foot. No need for external "big events".
It's all because of protectionism. Business got lazy.
Get out of Belgium, then - if it was you and your people.
There are clear ideological, decadent faults in the eu administration. They are responsible for the destruction of one of the main continental industries, transferring (even reduced) pollution to Africa, where decent old cars go (with again no effect on global warming), and transferring the enterprise to China.
"The swan's shriek".
Don't forget the airlines taking the longer more expensive route!
European defense industry seems pretty strong
Compared to who? The US?
Ah yes, the only country that matters /s
Yes. The US defense industry depends on European one. Take a look at F35 and where the components are made.
Where are they made?
If it comes down to European vs Russian manufacturing capacity for missiles and hi-tech weaponry, etc, I'd put my money on Europe. Europe also has the advantage of seeing 5 years of Russia throwing their best at Ukraine, having their air defenses repeatedly breached by Ukraine, even deep into Russia using slow low-tech drones - they know many of Russia's weaknesses.
Well duh, EU GDP is like 3000x Russian one, Italy alone is richer than Russia, so ofc EU military combined is greater than Russia.
Russia is broke gas station with nukes, not really a benchmark for military supremacy.
Sure are holding their own against the supposedly much richer Europe at this moment.
The US GBP is 100x large than Iranian one and yet the US cannot open the Strait of Hormuz and even defend own bases in the region from cheap drones (52 aircraft lost, most on the ground). GDP is not the only factor when it comes to military capabilities.
The US regime has no support from its voters and taxpayers to get deeper into the IRan war because the US is the one who started it, it's not an existential threat for Americans in the US to spend more of their money or die intervening in the middle east.
But for EU what happens in Ukraine is an existential threat and they also didn't provoke the war there, so Europeans are more motivated to support the war against Russia than AMericans are to support military intervention in Iran.
Yeah, weakness and appeasement gets that.
What would you do differently? Having to own the consequences, too, remember.
Tell me a better place to be in ? Please don't tell me the US.
US. Or China if you are Chinese
Both in longer term ofc
China perhaps... but US? really? personally I can't think of any single person who grew up (like me) in Europe and would choose US as a destination.
From my point of view is as awful as it can get: stark inequality, literally hundreds of thousands of homeless people roaming, no basic health care, but to be honest just the number of guns pro capita is enough to keep me and most of other Europeans away for good, it's just insane for what we're accustomed to. And I'm not even referring to the dystopian situation worsened daily by the current administration.
Unless you're the kind of person who confuses absolute numbers (e.g. money you can spend per month) for actual wealth / quality of life / freedoms / rights protection / etc. Then perhaps USA is the right place, I guess?
Homeless:
FWIW, FEANTSA estimated over 1.2MM homeless in Europe in their most recent report[1]. That's over a population of 515MM so ~23 per 10k population. Us 746k homeless is roughly 22 per 10k population. I suspect that differences in methodology will overwhelm that 1/10k difference, but the order of magnitude seems similar.
1/3 of the US homeless are unsheltered ("Living Rough" in the FEANTSA terminology). A quick skim of the FEANTSA report did not show any countries breaking out their rough-sleepers from the rest of the data. I do suspect that this number is higher than in the EU.
1: https://www.feantsa.org/files/Themes/Overview/2024/Rapport_-...
Perhaps in USA is very much unevenly distributed? I visted a couple of big cities in California and the situation is abysmal, I don't know of any place in Europe even close to that, still have to see campings in the middle of a big city. I could't see the same in other cities I visited, e.g. Las Vegas and Miami.
The numbers seem to say it's the same in theory, in practice my experience is that it very much doesn't _feel_ the same.
Europe has no money.
And yet, more USians move to my "poor" country than the other way around. Make of that what you will.
That well-paid Americans like to WFH on Malaga beaches is not a testament to the Spanish economy, but to its weather and (more importantly) low cost of living.
In any case, don't be too sure about your claim. According to <https://ourworldindata.org/where-do-migrants-live-and-where-...>, 170K Spanish-born live in the US. By contrast, 69K US-born live in Spain <https://ourworldindata.org/where-do-migrants-live-and-where-...>. Given that the US (341 million) has 7.25 times Spain's population (47 million), this means that a Spaniard is 17-18 times more likely to move to the US, than an American is to move to Spain.
Absolutely also a testament to escaping Trump too. I have met many all over Europe, all ages – UK, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Ireland etc who mentioned it. Including many previously living in California, Florida, Colorado etc with a decent climate, who were earning very good money.
Definitely a testament to each country too - presumably they have a fairly wide choice. They wouldn't go somewhere they disliked the culture that much. We know how discerning US folk are.
And healthcare, better food, better public transport, security, human relations, lifespan... and above all, happiness.
The american dream is dead, US is a country for working, not for living.
This is… a mathematically correct but practically useless way to compare migration flows. Using this approach, Singaporeans are more likely to move to China than Chinese to move to Singapore. Mathematically true, and tells us much about the relative sizes of these two countries, but very, very little about relative attractiveness as a place of living.
Using the Our World in Data figures, a Singapore-born person is about four times more likely to move to China than a China-born person is to move to Singapore.
That does not seem like an unreasonable ratio, given that a) Chinese are not nearly as free, whether economically or politically, to emigrate, b) those Chinese who have the money and connections to leave are likely going to be in the large cities that offer good living standards, and c) China is going to have, from sheer size, aspects that will appeal to Singaporeans regardless of per-capita economic disparity. Put another way, if Chinese were as free to move around the world as Singaporeans, there would surely be many more China-born people in Singapore ... perhaps four times as the current 530K.
By contrast, the US and Spain are fairly comparable in terms of their citizens' freedom to move about, so that factor can be eliminated from the comparison.
If we were to take all preceding arguments seriously, couldn't that be explained by americans going to live in a low-cost-of-living country once they've earned their living?
(Don't know your country to know if that's true or not, but it's a possibility)
Are you looking for money or are you looking for a good life?
My country offers them both, people from lots of countries como here looking for money and also for a better way of living.
The lesson explains itself.
Retirees and people who already made money to outbid the locals on housing and purchasing power.
Why would they move to a more expensive country where they'd feel poor?
Emigrating is not an easy task (even with money), think why they do it and why the don't want to live on the country they were born.
Think about it... a hint, it's not about money.
Emigrating is super easy when you have a lot of money and a strong passport. Money solves most problems that are not related to the soul.
By comparison, try emigrating as a poor person from a poor country with a weak passport. Americans are playing life on easy mode but they complain the most.
The demonym is American, not whatever you wrote. Unless your poor country is New Zealand, that's not the case.
Being pedantic America is the continent. So a chilean should be as "American" as Donald Trump.
No, it isn't. Everyone knows exactly what "American" means and it's never a Chilean.
You know English is defined by its usage right? If people start using a new term such as USAian, or American to refer to everyone from the continent...that's what will be. There is no central authority to tell us how to use English correctly.
Anyway. New world order. USA hegemony is going way.
I guess USAians are beginning to find out how we in the UK felt about the loss of our empire.
It’s all invested in American companies
It's actually the other way around. All we have is money that we stole from the colonies.
If the car companies actually go down the drain I have no clue what products of note we would still be producing that would continue to bring money in. So, I think our goose is cooked here in Europe.
I mean this is just such FUD.
In Ireland alone we manufacture:
* Cardiovascular Stents (80% of Global Supply)
* Orthopaedic Knee Implants (75% of Global Supply)
* Acute Hospital Ventilators (50% of Global Supply)
* Contact Lenses (World Leader)
19 of the world's top 20 pharmaceutical companies operate manufacturing, R&D, or biopharma facilities in Ireland; this compromises over 50% of all physical goods exported from Ireland, totaling well over €100 billion annually. Needless to say it's also the pivotal manufacturing hub for high-demand GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes treatments (like Mounjaro).
Ireland is among the top global exporters of antisera, blood fractions, and complex cell cultures, making it indispensable to global healthcare infrastructure.
Ireland is the absolute world leader in dairy science per capita, and produces roughly 10% to 15% of the entire world's infant milk formula, with estimates indicating that roughly one in ten to one in seven babies globally consume formula manufactured in the country.
That's an Island of less than 5 million people, 1/8th the size of Texas, that was basically bypassed by the Industrial Revolution and had no colonial benefit. Now extrapolate for a second and imagine what Germany is manufacturing.
The Republic of Ireland has more than 5 million people. The Island has well over 7 million.
https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2026/0824/1588997-cso-popul...
The average salary (not including RSUs/Bonus) in Dublin's Silcon Docklands is north of €130k+, with sick pay, 23 days leave, and the sort of employee protections which would be an utter fantasy in the US (defined redundancy payments, mandated collective bargaining, governance processes around mass redundancy handling at state level).
This was hugely evident during the recent spate of tech layoffs - employers planning collective dismissals are obliged to hold a mandatory 30-day consultation with employee representatives and notify the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment beforehand. Issuing premature "done deal" announcements before meaningful consultation breaches Irish law.
Even at the micro level, non-collective or individual restructuring must still rely on objective selection criteria and fair procedures. Failing to do so exposes employers to Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) claims for unfair or constructive dismissal.
There's also very very strict regulations around work/life issues. A famous case this year in 2023 where a Customer Care Team Lead at the Dublin office of Israeli software company Wix was dismissed after posting comments on LinkedIn. In her posts, she described Israel as a "terrorist state" and referred to Zionism as "the root of violence" while expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people. In July 2024, the WRC ordered Wix to pay Carey €35,000 in compensation after Wix acknowledged that the dismissal was "procedurally unfair" under Irish employment law.
In short, we're not that poor and have significant societal safety-nets that make up the delta in direct wages.
This can be compared to protectionist policies such as tariffs.
If employees are hard to fire, then companies hesitate to hire them.
If employees on-shore are protected, then un-protected employees overseas are more competitive, eventually gutting local industries.
Etc.
This came up in Australia recently where a liberal government proposed loosening some employee protection laws with the idea that it would encourage hiring.
It did. It worked.
Then the policy was swiftly reversed by a more left-wing party, and a lot of those newly employed people lost their jobs because they turned from an asset to a liability.
Protectionism is a double-edged sword.
That's quite a bit short to buy an EUV machine.
But of course, the parent commenter was not talking about salaries, because ASMLs products are not B2C.
They don't call us Europoors for nothing
So true it hurt mate...
What is perhaps more important from ASML's standpoint is that none of the ongoing fab projects in Europe are leading-edge fabs set to use EUV and eventually High-NA EUV lithography scanners. The tools that European fabs use today and that new facilities are set to use in the future are mature tools that cost considerably less than advanced EUV or immersion DUV scanners. This is perhaps a concern for ASML, as the company is naturally interested in selling its more sophisticated and expensive equipment.
Missing from article is where they are selling which I assume is mostly Taiwan and America.
Bloomberg[1] has a breakdown based on ASML filings. For Q2, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan made up 77% of ASML's orders, with China representing another 14%. Given China is on the list, I imagine this includes non-EUV tech as well given the sanctions.
The fact that Europe has incredibly limited frontier chip making capability is the issue, though. Even if they can produce other chips, its position is not at all resilient.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-22/asml-exec...
The US isn't in a whole lot better position. We've got Intel and Micron, but otherwise dependent on TSMC (and ASML).
I guess the US chip designers could switch to Intel as a fab if they had to, but there are not even any US-made DUV machines, so far from self-sufficient.
US is only 10-15% of ASML's sales
Europe is mostly interested in supporting its car industry. But soon they won't have to worry about that either.
There are no companies in Europe designing high-end semiconductors because the wages are much lower than in the U.S. The best European talent is moving Stateside and raking in ten times what they can get at home without having to build up seniority first.
I can't imagine it is cheap to get EUV machines these days. Maybe they don't want to get into a bidding war with America and Taiwan and are waiting for things to cool down?
I'm european and I would buy an ASML t-shirt, will this move the needle enough?
Best I can do is half a pair of ASML socks.
Very Red Hot chili peppers of you
I would wait for its regulation before the buy :D
I would buy that Lego set.
Oh man… a whole fan would be good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bReWaZz5Grg but the actual did it already :-)
I bought an ASML t-shirt but the logo was so incredibly tiny that nobody could even tell I was wearing designer clothing.
Amusement Park continent. And yes, I'm European and know what I'm talking about.
You must be living in one of those nicer parts where tourism is present.
High tourism doesn't make a place more livable for teh locals.
Sounds interesting. Now go make me a cappuccino before my next ride.
Semiconductor fabs involve a lot of hazardous chemicals, process changes and high energy consumption. Exactly the kind of thing European regulations tend to deter or slow down. Which is somewhat fine if there is nowhere else to build it, but if other places are easier, well...
Everyone loves a good race to the bottom with the environment
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the US all share comparable living standards to Western European states yet are able to maintain and expand semiconductor manufacturing.
The issue is with policymaking - coordination between the EU, national, and local governments is weak so high capex projects become risky.
Edit: can't reply
Their hours worked are comparable to most Western European states as well now [0]. Germany is unique in Europe based on hours worked, and is why German industry is pushing to bring back the 40 hour work week.
[0] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/hours-worked.html
So vague as to be utterly meaningless.
And slow moving regulation literally incentivises high capex long-horizon investment.
HDI is a good metric for gauging living standards [0]
And slow moving execution and creation of relevant legislation is a hindrance for capex in high risk projects like those in the semiconductor segment.
The Draghi report was published 2 years ago, and remains largely unimplemented.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...
What?
No one wants to invest a lot of money into something that might be illegal tomorrow. (Do you?)
I don't think it's that vague. I've lived in both Europe and the US, in several places, and both have a wide range. What I will say is that I don't think Europe is better off for the times that it has thrown up roadblocks.
Also, slow moving, stable regulation can be better than arbitrary flippancy, but that doesn't mean it directly incentivizes investment, it just means the investment already incentivized by demand can proceed with more confidence that it won't have the rug pulled out from under it, assuming the regulations didn't discourage a tentative proposal in the first place.
So now we're suddenly talking about living standards and not environmental regulation?
Your first 3 countries are also incredibly poor comparisons for living standards as they have horrendous work/life balance.
I mean Ireland has some of the most strenuous regulations in this regard, with dozens of data centres blocked over planning and environmental impact assessments. Despite this Intel still put €30 billion in turning a 360-acre former stud farm in Kildare into a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility, powered entirely by green energy, and acting a key location for production of Intel’s 14nm process technology. They currently pull 1,677,197 MWh/year from our grid.
More to the point, from 2019 they built €17 billion new fab development which doubled the manufacturing capacity available in Ireland and enabled the production of Intel 4, the company’s most advanced process technology.
For better or worse, Ireland’s extremely lax tax rules resulted in a ton of multinational corporate cash ‘stuck’ there with companies having the option of spending there roughly tax free or repatriating back to the US at some rate higher than that. It also really helps sell the ‘of course an Irish subsidiary owns all of our IP’ tax claims if there is actual spending there, hence you got all the pharma investment and the capital projects from others like Intel and Apple.
"Trapped capital" is not why Intel has doubled down on Ireland.
It's because whenever Intel asks for anything, the Taoiseach, IDA, and Invest Ireland will move mountains to do it.
Ireland is extremely business friendly because their leadership actually listens to industry.
While I agree completely with you regarding how we handle FDI, the role of Enterprise Ireland, and that our ability to act as an educated, stable and culturally compatible western european base for US industry is not to be understated, the Intel situation in particular has its own special nuance.
This is where the 'Inside Tennis' knowledge of the Irish Tech industry from someone working within it comes in handy. Enter the 21st Century Luddite, Thomas Reid, from stage left.
Thomas is an eccentric, independent bachelor farmer whose family has owned a 72-acre farm next to Intel's Leixlip manufacturing campus for generations.
Ireland’s State Industrial Development Agency (IDA) attempted to use a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) to buy Reid's land so that Intel could proceed with a multi-billion euro expansion of its microchip production plant. The land was valued at €5 million. During the negotiations that followed, the farmer was reportedly offered in the region of €10 million. He turned it down. Reid had no interest in being a millionaire. Instead, he continued to live on-site without a telephone or modern amenities while taking on Intel and the state alone.
The battle culminated in a landmark legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Ireland, where Reid ultimately won a historic victory against corporate overreach and protected his property rights
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonely_Battle_of_Thomas_Re...
https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/3s4bg1/how_a_farme...
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/commercial-property/inte...
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2020/1102/1003311-the-lonely-batt...
They certainly tried!
Overreach? Annoying one guy and making him rich in exchange for such a huge buildout isn't overreach in my book. When I think of the overreach of eminent domain the examples have a lot more people and a lot less free millions of dollars.
Rather the US lax rules regarding their own enforcement.
The Double Irish (& Dutch Sandwich) where Companies routed profits through two Irish-registered subsidiaries, attributing intellectual property royalties to a management seat in a tax haven like Bermuda, is closed since 2015.
Subsequent sequential mismatch structures (the "Single Malt" tool) that replaced the Double Irish for certain firms using non-EU residency loops were also banned. Finally there's a 12.5% charge on unrealized capital gains when a company moves its assets or tax residency out of Ireland.
The headline tax rate and the effective tax rate are also very different things. France's effective corporate tax rate was actually lower than Irelands - but France is an absolutely brutal place to do business in for employers and they've comparatively no english-language tech FDI to speak of.
France corporate taxes are not that bad, but the corporate paid social charges are massive (40-45% of employees gross salary)
I pay similar in the USA and get literally nothing in “social” or otherwise return. I’d trade with french anytime
Just to be clear, the employer first pays ~40-45% of the original salary, then the employee pays ~32-38% of the original salary.
i.e. a 100,000 EUR annual salary, the employer pays ~40,000 EUR to the government, then the employee gets their wage slips with additional deductions of ~38,000 EUR.
= total of ~78,000 EUR tax on a 100,000 EUR salary.
I don't think anything like that level of taxation exists in the US?
I understand your frustration, but it's not literally nothing - just less than it should be. The US still has Medicaid/Medicare, public schools, welfare services, emergency services, etc (even if you don't use them yourself you benefit from a reduction in the number of desparate people around you if they were cut back even further than they already have).
If you are completely broke and go/are brought to a hospital in the US with an immediate life threatening medical issue, they will still try to save your life.
Which jurisdiction? I highly doubt your effective tax rate is anywhere close to that. Especially considering the myriad deductions and exemptions one should be able to take with a high income (401k, Roth IRA, HSA, 529, etc).
I think what the OP wanted to highlight is right here: in China or Taiwan etc. this would not have taken 7 years.
I mixed up a tense or two there. It was done in 4 years, even accounting for Covid. The timeline looks like this
2019: Kick-off
2020: Construction in Ireland basically halted due to Lockdown for 18 months
Q3'2023: Fab 34 begins running a ‘First Full Loop’ of silicon
Q4'2023: Fab 34 completed. Doubles the manufacturing capacity available in Ireland, enabling the production of Intel 4 and Intel 3, some of the company’s most advanced process technologies, and the first to incorporate EUV lithography
2024: Intel sold 49% stake to Apollo GM for $11.2bn
2026: Intel buys back stake for $14.2bn
Q2'2026: Intel announce a further $5.7bn investment to upgrade existing capacity for server chips, slated for completion by late 2027
Just to address this separately: there is effectively energy rationing in several European countries, where the government intervenes to prioritize who should receive energy first (e.g., the Netherlands and Denmark).
Most fabs build their own separate power grid.
And Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are also energy poor states that have been able to maintain capacity.
The energy excuse is true for some manufacturing processes like automotive in CEE which were pants that were built in the 1990s to 2000s and leveraged Russian ONG, but is a red herring for a lot of other manufacturing processes in Europe.
European states have a coordination problem as Draghi pointed out 2 years ago.
TSMC alone uses 1/8th of Taiwan's electricity (and rising). They make it work.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/taiwan-semiconductor
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/tsmc-could-accoun...
A consequence of a totally self-imposed handicap.
I get the feeling you're suggesting it's due to government regulation or 'socialist' policies.
But no, this failure is due a mixture or privatisation and politicians looking no further than the next election, leading to structural underinvestment.
Oh, and the energy transition going faster than even the most forward looking scenarios anticipated.
AFAIK the problem in NL is due to chronic underinvestment in the grid infrastructure since the big privatisation wave. Combined with the heavy subsidy of industry causing the issues.
Solvable but we need to be much smarter and redirect the fossil subsidies to reducing risk for grid-scale batteries and adding more grid capacity.
I wonder. Had any privatisation in NL any net benefits for the population? Not talking shareholder revenues.
Of course not. The whole concept just doesn't make sense.
This is some ridiculous speculation, we do plenty of such critical manufacturing in EU. Regulations is not why we don't make highly-integrated chips here.
Why then?
A probably non negligible weight is that decadence is bearish.
Those alive invest in long term planning, those with a dead drive get conservative in their action.
Lately specifically because of Intel having financial issues, they already started building their fabs in Dresden and Wrocław when they cancelled last minute.
This was strategically planned with EU as part of bringing back production locally, similar to CHIPS Act in the US.
What is so energy consuming around fabs? The light source? I always thought of these as high-precision, not-too-high-volume processes and would have expected energy requirements to be lower than e.g. a car factory (or similar to e.g. a mall) and completely negligible on a national grid scale or compared to something like a smelter or lignite mine.
Edit: AI claims HVAC and air filtering/handling can be 40-50% of energy usage. Plus a megawatt per EUV scanner (ok, the latter matches what I would have guessed, but compared to the 16 MW of a single large bucket wheel excavator or estimates I've seen for large shopping malls, that's not that insane either).
Check out asianometry on YouTube for deep dives into many parts of semiconductor manufacturing, including the lithography processes ASML uses.
TSMC's Arizona fab needs 200MW of electricity.
But even more importantly, they need 2 separate completely independent substation feeds, since a 15 second interruption can cause 0.1B Euro of losses.
Finally, and here is where Europe really really suffers, generally you need these things to be planned, approved and built within a year.
Why would the turnaround time need to be so small?
I think that is not even possible in China, let alone in the USA.
And what's so special about 200 MW? Many factories in Europe use these amounts and they run their own power plants. The only edge here is that the US has cheaper fossil fuels, which it amounts to.
Like the offshore wind farms in the US? I think Europe and China are building these things much faster. ;)
They have hundreds of machines that use microwaves, turbo molecular pumps like cvd, ion implantation, plasma etching, idk what else? I'd say it's just the sheer density of equipment within. An average fab has 2000 tools aka machines for wafers alone
Large shopping malls would fail the air purity requirements for semiconductor manufacturing.
EUV lithography and etching rooms require ISO class 1 clean rooms. Those can have a maximum of 10 particles of size 0.1 microns per cubic meter.
While a shopping mall can get away with 2 - 4 air changes per hour, an ISO class 1 clean room requires 400-600 an hour, or about 10 a minute. Airflow needs to also be controlled: vertical and laminar. Every human entering the cleanroom needs to undergo an air shower with speeds of 60-90 mph to shear off loose skin flakes, hair and lint. This area needs to maintain constant positive air pressure to repel outside dust as humans move in and out.
In the EUV lithography systems, temperature control is measured in milliKelvins (0.001 C). If a wafer stage has a temperature variation of 0.05 C, the silicon expands by a few nanometers and the multimillion dollar batch is toast. Meanwhile in the same room, the EUV machine is generating extreme ultraviolet light using a plasma light source that gets to above 200,000 C. That's 40x hotter than the surface of the sun.
EUV rooms are churning out about 150 wafers an hour, 24/7. That sounds like not too high of a volume, but each wafer is about 500 cpus. So 75,000 cpus an hour.
I doubt I could even work in a fab having psoriasis.
If something needs to be done, then these rules are a bit pointless if corporation can just do it in another country. It means the EU simply assists in poisoning poorer countries. If they were serious, then they would have banned chips made using those processes altogether. If they cannot do that, then that regulation is pointless virtue signalling.
Life cycle of the fab is 3-5 years, an opimistic estimate of slow down in europe due to all the paper work is 2-3 years, so then you would rather not build the plant.
How? I thought there was still tons of demand for every node that has launched in the last 15+ years.
Yes, and many applications don't need / work on the latest node.
There is a whole niche in semiconductor called abatement which usually involves burning fluorine based gases used for etching, in order to make them less hazardous before releasing them into the environment. They use natural gas for combustion. The chemicals are not liquids anymore just gases because they are easier to control and manipulate with plasma via e.g. dry etching, CVD, ion implant
This is just such a dire situation to be in. Even USA has seen the writing on the wall regarding China-Taiwan which is why it has been strategically re-homing all the most advanced chip fab technology to Arizona [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC_Arizona
This was a major flaw that I and others brought up a couple years ago when the EU was consulting industry about making its own CHIPS Act.
While bleeding edge backend processes got the bulk of reporting, the major push for the American CHIPS Act was the rebuild packaging capacity in the US (Samsung is working on this in Texas).
This was also the same approach Taiwan, Malaysia, and China used to climb up the semiconductor value chain.
The EU also failed to tie design capacity together as well, as semiconductor design capacity is almost nonexistent in Europe.
Semiconductor design capacity is a massive issue almost always overlooked in these conversations. Spot on.
There's certainly semiconductor design capacity in Europe, but it's mostly geared towards low-end semiconductors, like the ones used in automotive and industrial. NXP and ST are designing ICs in Europe but relatively commodity stuff like low-end MCUs and motor controllers.
Is EU chips act 2.0 any good?
They can create demand for "Made in Europe" semiconductors that aren't packaged there, and then they can create demand for "Made in Europe" semiconductors that are packaged there and try to get a packaging plant to open up.
If you have a two step problem, the strategy of "I can't do two things at the same time so I'll just give up", is not a good one.
Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49804613
It seems to be "dump on Europe" day which I'm sure is popular but lets just stop for a second and ask what the sales of ASML machinery to the US would be without the CHIPS act .... a massive subsidy. Aren't subsidies supposed to be a bad European thing??? I'm confused. Are we free market proponents or planned economy proponents?
I don't think this is the main point (subsidies). ASML sold nothing in Europe because Europe is not a factor in semi manufacturing, primarily due to regulations and bureaucracy.
Or, more likely, due to energy prices.
The energy prices in Europe are also up due to regulations and bureaucracy, without which the continent would be full of nuclear plants.
The US has had tariffs and government subsidies for literally its entire existence.
Europe is continually complaining about its dependency on Chinese steel, cars, electronics and semiconductors yet their carmakers are buying cheap Chinese steel instead of European steel and European semiconductor manufacturers are preferring cheap Chinese semiconductor equipment over ASML gear.
The European Commission wanted to put hefty tariffs on dumped Chinese steel but the carmakers sought an exemption. They don't care about European sovereignty, only about their profits. Penny wise and pound foolish. I doubt there will still be a European car industry in two decades or so.
Europe is a lost continent.
You clearly have no idea about the value creation chain. Steel is a commodity, why shoot yourself into the foot by buying expensive one. And semiconductors are not commodities.
But I guess this logic only makes sense to a country that insists on using its own overpriced steel to save a couple jobs.
How are you gonna fight a war when you can't make the steel for your bullets and artillery grenades? Yes, that's the scary logic we need to take into account these days.
Steel is not a commodity, it's a basic ingredient in any industrial base.
The Netherlands has always put its economic chips on America and Asia.
Europe is just a geographic accident as far as the Dutch are concerned.
China is where the demand is. Sell to China and stop being an ass and US's puppet.
With all the regulations nobody in their right mind would build a fab in Europe.
Europe is increasingly relying on the rest of the world to supply it with critical things. It’s FAFOed with regulations that have driven these things elsewhere and now is heading into a “FO” world of hurt as the tables are turned and they desperately need things and have to pay the price. This will likely define the next 20 years in Europe.
"During a gold rush, sell shovels."
when China finally cracks EUV we might be able to afford PC parts again?
oddly cheering for this but I doubt it will end well
* https://www.reuters.com/world/china/how-china-built-its-manh...
They are not cracking EUV, they are finding ways that actually scale. Chips can be much cheaper than they are currently. I mean yes, obviously we cannot be confident ntil it happens, but they are already making 5nm with DUV.
When China leads chip making the rest of the world is just vasal states.
Going to higher densities with DUV needs high multi patterning which is very inefficient and ends up costing more than if they could do EUV with fewer patterns.
It's well known tech that is used globally, just not to that degree as yield and throughput goes way down
Yes it will not end well because Amurica will put a crater in the middle of the fab if it ever becomes viable.
America will 100% not do that, unless they want matching craters in all of their fabs, or worse, in Taiwan’s.
Of course Amurica will not do it themselves, Amurica will outsource the job to someone else.
lol China wouldn't bother bombing anyone
they'd just tell all their export ships to turn around and stop all exports
US would collapse in 30 days
it would be like the blockade US is doing to Cuba except 90% of every product we use and they wouldn't have to fire a single shot
they could also sell off the billions in US bonds and other assets
US economy would be utterly destroyed, we'd never recover because even the middle-class would be living out of their cars (now dead because all the parts for them are made in China)
Happy to hear India got mentioned by the same executive during that conversation. We are just started buying from them. I went to Semicon India 2026, held in delhi last week. The energy was amazing. Really pleasant. all big names including ASML.
It's is heartening looking at a country like India and thinking that it only seems to be a little behind China on the same trajectory. The little flashes of news as they start settling in to more interesting and high tech industries. Whatever good or evil comes out of their growing geopolitical power at least that is another billion people with a clear enough path to wealth and prosperity.
I'm hoping for India development but that is quite far from the truth yet.
Depends on what you mean by "a little behind". Reading Patrick McGee's "Apple in China" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_in_China) made me think otherwise.
In my opinion, India is around 30 years behind China. This is unlikely to change for several reasons. However, the primary reason is that no Indian government ever had a manufacturing policy that comes close to China's. The service economy is strong but employs a tiny percentage of the population.
Most of Indian government spending is on welfare followed by endemic corruption. It leaves very little money for nation building.
Thirty? Try more like 10, and that’s only for the advanced nodes. Everything else, we will have capacity coming online soon enough.
Design, the gap is nonexistent in terms of talent deployed (though we have some way to go to have homegrown product companies). Which puts us roughly where Europe is.
Also consider, a tiny percentage of the Indian population is a ridiculous number of people. Dwarfing pretty much any other country except China.
Your last point on welfare and corruption is also false; 35% of government spend is on interest payments (which is kind of normal for most countries?) and 30% is on infrastructure and other capex. Defence is 8% and central welfare schemes plus co-sponsored schemes with the states are only 26%. The point being, while corruption is definitely a problem, it doesn’t significantly come out of the central budget. And welfare is smaller than infrastructure spending even if it’s quite significant (and it better be, in a country like this).
The infrastructure spending is where and how the corruption happen. The cases of bridge collapses in bihar gujarat, the mp 90 degree bridge etc should be obvious cases of corruption.
it's not like bridges don't collapse in china. There were two major ones last year.
The point is to learn good practices from China.
If India is 10 years behind China, that would mean in 2036 India will be where China is today. What's the chance of that happening?
Only an estimated 6 million Indians work in IT and tech services where the money is. India's working age population is approximately 950 million. India had the golden opportunity to bring manufacturing to India when Western companies wanted to reduce their dependence on China. But it wasted it.
I don't know where you are getting that 30% spending on infrastructue.
Indeed look at manufacturing and realize that it takes more than 10 years to change a culture.
The 30% spending is from government numbers in the last budget, so let’s get that out of the way.
How many people do you think could conceivably work in manufacturing? And who buys all those manufactured goods? The social problem isn’t solved by quotas.
For whatever reason, India had quite a lead on pharma manufacturing and still runs carries its own pretty well
Indian GDP per capita is predicted to reach $13k (China's current level) around 2050, so closer to 20 years behind.
The opposite, all historical clear paths i.e. manufacturing/export led model is closed/closing (geopolitics + being automated away). Less clear service export also closing. The growth path that employs 100s of millions and 10s of millions are not available to Indian.
Reality is even PRC with most favorable conditions still left behind ~400m people because there's only so many opportunities. It's one thing to have ~1B who made it supporting ~400m who didn't vs India trending towards 1.7 B... and if they end up with 500m that makes it, and 1.2B that doesn't, then things may get very ugly in terms of governance. Now that 500m middle/upper class is large enough that India will in aggregate "make it" as geopolitical power, as in climb the tech tree, but due to sheer population and opportunities that looks now foreclosed, most of Indian's statistically, simply, won't. And when numerator/denominator of haves/have not too skewed, there's nothing haves can do (redistribute) even if they wanted to, which lbh, they won't. IMO this pretty much baked in dynamic for India for next few generations, unless we discover abundance.
with generations of parents forcing thier children to either be doctors or engineers, I would have expected India to lead the world in both of those categories.
India is more than a little behind China. Which is depressing, considering that the two countries were equal in GDP per capita as recently as 1990: https://m.thewire.in/article/economy/from-1960-to-1990-india...
They kinda did that to themselves, but it's slowly changing. My partner's iPhone 16 is made in India. They really do lack waste management infrastructure though, and it's pretty crucial for this type of manufacturing. They should also borrow the regional concentration of industries that China has done, it really does make things more efficient.
You can't just "borrow" some of the things from China without China politics. Regional concentration there is directly tied with their hukou system. No democratic government is able to implement that system without collapsing.
Most of China development is sui generis and not replicable elsewhere.
That is actually something of a natural phenomenon (see [0] it is a large topic). Historically when a centre of excellence forms it tends to be a tight geographical region learning how to do work well.
Government policy should be cluster-friendly but as long as policy doesn't get in the way it happens naturally. The incentives on businesses are to form a cluster independently because the cluster in-group outcompetes businesses outside the cluster.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_geography
This happens ‘naturally’ but in China’s case I would say the majority is planned, see Shenzhen were 90%(?) of the worlds electronics are coming from. The basically send the engineering corps there, flattened the land with explosives and build a special economic zone.
The phones are not made in india. Their final assembly step is in India while the grand majority is in China.
Hope they can solve the whole littering problem somehow.
TBH India going to sanctioned if they ever make meaningful inroad. Outsourcing some IV design to Bengaluru, Hyderabad, prune is not the same as if India wants to start stepping on leading edge fabrication money printing toes. But short/medium term, western semi projected to have 100,000s talent shortage so India probably best hope for western semi to stay staffed. VS PRC who is brrrting out enough talent for entire indigenous vertical semis supply chain.
The European Commission strikes again!
Misleading article, they are selling to corporations already who in turn have plans to create a few fabs in Europe. So it is maybe more about European companies who are not buying, but that rests on difficult capital availability and fragmented nature of the continent. Europe is not one country after all, someone wants a fab in Germany, but the why is it not in France or Sweeden.
The EU needs to stop acting as if all is fine. The EU commission is totally useless, from A to Z. There is zero strategy in play here. They need to take a much more pro-active stance - fining US companies that work against europeans is fine, but you also need to have viable alternatives. And that simply is not happening right now.
The Dutch govt is slowly nationalising the chip industry, by making taxes so high no company can survive international competition, and then using this tax money to buy stock in all deep tech companies calling it investing.
The automotive industry or, should I say, Volkswagen isn't interested in state-of-the-art chips, so the fabs won't be built - simple.
Europe will keep making manufacturing equipment, but leave the actual production to those who have the grid capacity and capital.
It’s ok we will get cheap chips from Taiwan without having to invest a single dime once the bubble bursts.
We will keep working on philosophy, theory and arts. Let the rest of the world get their hands dirty building things.
Philosophy, theory, and arts are so intertwined with technology that a nation which does not build cannot be expected to remain at the forefront of those three.
In thermodynamics, through cycles of expansion and compression, useful work can be extracted. Similarly through economic cycles, America is able to extract wealth from rest of globe.
I'm fed up with the regular euro bashing. People are underestimating what EU countries can do. The whole history was similar. France, for example, was neither the first to build high-end luxury products nor was it the first to embrace the Industrial Revolution. It managed to catch up in any case.
EU countries went from killing each other in two of the most deadly wars to having a union in 30 years.
I wish that the EU did the same as China did years ago, and that is to block any non-EU tech company from entering the market. We could have had the Google/Meta equivalent years ago.
Agreed. Someone has to actually do it though. Talk is cheap.
Living in France, trying to do my part here. I love the US as well and their spirit of freedom and innovation should be an example to follow
Cool. What's your semiconductor project? Have you put something in Tiny Tapeout, or made a garage transistor?
[flagged]
Least racist European
This is not remotely racist. It's simply a fact, and the result of a lack of nationalist ideology.
Turns out if it's more economically efficient to simply import skilled workers, or outsource, then that's what will happen. Breeding and educating your own citizens in a first world country is very expensive. So you don't do it.
The only reason not to do this is national preference. Economically it makes sense, on a national level it makes sense, individually it's genocide.
Individually, you have to accept migrants if your personal demographic is below the replacement rate. Otherwise you will never retire, and your kids (if any) will work in a nursing economy at minimum wage.
It's petty and anti-nationalist to demand that your nation destroy it's own economy to fit your arbitrary political mold.
This is an absurd set of assumptions that have forced you into a nonsensical position.
No, you don't need to accept migrants. You need money. You can get money in many many ways.
The best way for this to happen for the general prosperity of citizens is for the state to enrich themselves from the work of others, non citizens, and give that money to citizens. This is what Norway has done through its sovereign wealth fund.
It's absolutely not an absurd set of assumptions. The majority of the demographics you're worried about are beneath the replacement rate. They are going to necessarily reach a point where the youth workforce cannot sustain the outsized elderly population or protect them in a war scenario.
If you do not want to defend Europe's front lines with teenage conscripts and geriatric riflemen, you need a way to bring warm bodies into the fold. Refusing lawful immigration will undermine domestic security, doom the elderly and ruin pension funds for future retirees. No sovereign wealth fund is worth losing your sovereignty over.
Yes, they are an absurd set of assumptions.
I told you what the requirement was. Money. You have simply arbitrarily decided instead it's just people for no reason at all. As though magically people will spawn resources from their finger tips. According to you the richest countries in the world must be the most populous.
Obviously this is idiotic to even a cursory examination.
The next assumption you've made is that birth rate is completely random, a roll of the dice, an unchangeable fact of the universe. The reality is of course it's a result of policy and economics. This can be solved extremely easily.
No, you don't have to.
Yes, you do. The frontlines of Ukraine are being prepared for literal demographic replacement as we speak. Kidnapped Ukrainian children are attending Russian schools, fortifications and bases are being dug out for them to fight against their own kin.
Are you enlisted? Do you want to be? Europe needed to figure out it's defense plan yesterday, not in 20 years. If Europe won't ally with migrants, then maintaining European sovereignty is nearly impossible.
We've now learned that this isn't true for all migrant groups, and it has been an extremely costly mistake to make. Demographic replacement can't work positively if the productivity of migrants is below of the original demographic, and actually makes the situation worse. Europe might have learned this too late, but at least now EU and most European countries are changing course.
The migrants Europe is taking in now are literally negative drains on society rn - I believe their children too. You are making the problems worse
I don't want the problems those kind of companies bring. The world would be better without Facebook and Instagram in particular.
But Europeans still just use Facebook and Instagram...
You remind me of a new research article on how dumb the new social media make us
Maybe, but it's also better to have our own alternatives for those than to rely in so many cases on US tech only
Was that the halcyon period where they were too broken to fight back and got the continent split between the Americans and the Communists? Or the modern period where it turns out the security situation in Europe was so totally mishandled that we ended up with the Ukraine war?
The spectre of nukes getting used isn't dropping over time and this sort of grinding destructive war is probably raising the risk of a big conflagration. Everyone seems to be rearming.
What do you mean by this? Ukraine is not part of the EU.
I mean the EU got its diplomacy so badly wrong that it sparked one of the deadliest wars this century in Europe and the EU countries appear to be rearming in preparation for the state of war spreading. The EU seem to be in the process of destabilising the state that controls the largest cache of nuclear weapons in existence.
The project has not scored well on matters of war and peace. And there is still a far too likely possibility here that after re-arming and in an era of war the Europeans fall back to their old tricks and descend into a state of war against each other again, given that the adults keeping them peaceful seem to have left the building.
You're going to have to really spell it out for us how Russia invading Ukraine is the EU's fault.
China still does not have many companies on the level of American technology firms. Just restricting foreign competition in the domestic market is not enough for most places to compete; their domestic markets and investment levels are too underdeveloped to produce globally competitive companies.
The thing that produces competitive industries is requiring them to compete globally. That's how Chinese cars got good (Tesla joint venture -> independent Chinese Tesla -> competitive domestic companies).
There are two main reasons why the EU struggles to produce strong text companies are, IMO:
1. EU laws and regulations are very burdensome and cover everything from employees to packaging waste.
2. There is not enough capital that gets invested in EU tech companies to pay high tech salaries, again largely driven by more restrictive financial rules.
The result of these two is that European engineers tend to leave for the US, and European companies struggle to grow to American size.
Around 70% of American billionaires made their money themselves, while in the EU a similar share inherited it. Despite all the talk about social mobility in Europe being better than in the US, the truth is that the ultrawealthy in Europe have created a regulatory environment which makes it nearly impossible for real competition to exist.
Interesting! I would split regulation in two different types though. The fist one is merely the output of bureaucracy and good intentions and a second that is targeting US tech companies as EU can't compete.
The top 100 wealthiest Austrian families own two thirds of the country's wealth <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36755835>, and none of the wealth came from tech companies. The same is likely true of Germany with one exception: SAP.
Put another way, the two wealthiest German-born tech people (except the founders of SAP) are Peter Thiel and Andy Bechtolsheim, both of whom earned their billions in the US.
Yes, It is not sufficient but I would argue it was necessary. In case of China it allowed them to have a set of domestic copycat companies like Baid, Alibaba and Tencent, that enabled high demand for local engineers to serve their needs and that allowed to have a large pool of competent domestic engineers which now can benefit other emerging sectors too. It keeps surprising how many top contributors to large OSS projects are from China.
Maybe in terms of valuation. In terms of tech itself, I would say they are pretty close, few years behind maybe with gap closing
Which wouldn't do Europe a lot of good at this point. EU needs a TSMC and an Anthropic/OpenAI.
Yes definitely, this is why I see the shift with AI as an opportunity to push forward new companies. EU needs to put the focus on hardware where it did have a competitive advantage few years ago (still have on B2B hardware)
You can do it even today. But you can't bring back manufacturing from China. You gave them your techology and the market.
I guess you mean EEC in 1958, because EU was officially formed in 1993. And normally people would count the period of the two World War and starting to count by the end of it. Either way it is a lot more than 30 years.
Yes indeed ! What is important is that the same people/generation who witnessed the atrocities of war and resented each other decided to create a union
times change. past greatness is not a reliable predictor for the future. Mongolia is rather unlikely to be the largest empire ever again, don't you think?
Europe is still great.
its political stability and relative prosperity makes it an important consumer market, sure, but it's increasingly clear that Europe is no longer "great" great. its wealth was a product of being ahead of the rest of the world for a long time technologically and militarily, but the colonial era is over, so many others had caught up and are now eating their lunch. even the big three -- Germany, France, and Britain -- are in cultural, economic, and demographic decline. the alliance that binds them is loose and incoherent, promoting stagnation rather than innovation. the US brain drains its brightest while Europe itself frantically replaces its aging natives with whoever is willing to cross its undefended borders.
if the US or China had disappeared tomorrow, it would affect the rest of the world. what does an average person outside of Europe own that was made in Europe or couldn't be made in China instead? even ASML, its crown jewel, is built upon American tech and would be rebuilt in the US within a decade if there was necessity to do so.
The euro bashing will stop when the pointing noses down at USA for being uncultured or unrefined or whatever stops.
Totally aligned ! As a European, I was never into this US bashing. I looked up to the Americans in the same way the french did back in the 19th century when they gifted them statue of liberty
I'm from the EU and glad to be a part of it. I just wish it was easier to do multi-national projects (I think anything aerospace or military related shows how little the countries want to collaborate) or even just tackle large projects and undertakings better.
Hell, in regards to chips I'd be happy with at least 2020 level performance chips for servers, desktops and laptops, even ARM ones. Okay maybe that is aiming too high cause my current Ryzen 7 5800X is from 2020 and so is my M1 MacBook Air and I don't see the need to upgrade, even 2016 would be good enough. Just more domestic production, CPUs, GPUs, memory, storage, everything else.
export of the best machines should be banned before europe builds its own chip manufacturing and supply chain
How well have you thought this through? I have a lot of questions if they went this route.
Why are there no buyers as it is? Doing this would force lower margins for ASML, effectively knee-capping a Crown Jewel of European technology and business. Do you think the EU should subsidize those losses?
Could help put a stop to the AI nonsense for a while, at least.
Previous discussions:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49844663
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49823628
(we eventually merged them hither)
I hope my company (if I have one) can also blame a continent for not buying my product instead of trying to sell better :D
( /s)
Just for context, because I was curious: the when they say no orders, that's following 2 known orders in 2024 and 3 in 2025.
Out of around 70 EUV machines a year.
What do Europeans think of the European economy? From my American perspective it looks like they are trying to lose, trying to fall backwards, trying to become a less prosperous society. No one seems to be building anything, and the governments seem to be preventing anyone who tries to advance from doing so. What am I missing?
They think the same of you…
https://statisticstimes.com/economy/united-states-vs-eu-econ...
If you focus only on tech the discrepancy is larger than if you include the wider economy. Even though USA is ahead economically, the EU is still the second largest player globally and the gap is probably not as wide the HN bubble makes it seem.
This ignores the population differences between the two. When you look at GDP per capita, things are quite stark.
The EU is not a single country. It feels like a lot of Americans at the moment think of the EU as a single homogeneous entity that they often also just confusingly refer to as “Europe”.
Even the EU is a lot of different countries. Some of them quite poor, and some of them wealthier also with high GDP per capita.
GDP per capita does also not give you the whole picture. It is a number. Other numbers are median life expectancy, shootings per capita, PPI, median income, average vacation days, average distance to nearest high-speed rail station, physicians per capita, average number of pupils in a school class. Unemployment rate. Air quality.
GDP per capita is one indicator among many that says something about the country’s or region’s inhabitants, but in itself it is just a measure of how much money is being moved around annually. And it is potentially quite misleading. You could have a high GDP per capita and a poor population, if all the money went to large cooperations and billionaires.
I am not saying that everything is rosy in the EU, but just that there are also other important indicators and that it is a lot more complicated than just looking at GDP per capita across the entire EU.
All poorer than Mississippi per-capita
And yet I expect the QOL for the median French person to be higher than the median Mississipian.
Nonsense.
Mississippi: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPCPI
Belgium: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...
And that is not counting the substantial safety net that your average European has. I would MUCH rather live in Belgium than Mississippi, and I say this as an American.
Have you lived in Mississippi? How about Belgium?
Or are you basing that on what you see on social media?
Not GP, but: Belgium and Louisiana. And I’d pick Belgium again in a heartbeat, even if you removed all of the non-political (e.g. climate) differences.
Source?
Yet there are many places in Europe I would rather live in than Mississippi. That’s America in hard mode.
The best thing about living in Mississippi is that you have absolute freedom to move to another State where the benefits of living in the US are much easier to realize.
An economy is there for the people. The people in Europe seem to have a higher quality of life than those on the other side of the Atlantic, don't you think?
Is that why they're electing far-right parties at an unprecedented rate?
According to a recent Guardian article, the reasons are immigration and the far-right's ability to masterfully tell a story how things were better in the idealized past.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/24/nearly-quar...
Perception is reality in people's minds and therefor shapes reality, but it isn't necessarily true.
Yes, it has nothing to do with how the current left-leaning government has been ruling. Couldn’t be that at all.
You have transmogrified the conversation from one of comparing the US and Europe (where we started) to Left/Right in Europe.
I don't get it.
Most likely that is more caused by fear of mass immigration (which is valid) and propaganda on social media.
I wouldn’t say the quality of life is higher. Incomes are lower, taxes higher and we know disposable income is linked to quality of life to a degree.
Also, GDP per capita is what pays taxes. Taxes pay for social programs and infrastructure.
The EU is going to have a lot of trouble paying for social programs if its economy is in the dumps.
How do we measure quality of life?
Life expectancy? Infant mortality? Paid parental leave? Gun deaths? Incarceration rate? Income equality? Voter participation? Child poverty?
By any of these measures US falls far behind Europe
Absolutely not, most places in Europe outside of a few rich countries like Switzerland and Liechtenstein and maybe a few flagship cities seem very low-QoL compared to similarly sized population centers in the US.
Outside a handful of places, the standard of living is unambiguously higher in the US. Average Americans have insane incomes (~45% of US households earn >$100,000) and can afford many things the average European cannot. Many types of lifestyle spending Americans think of as “normal” is definitely not normal in Europe.
Quality of life has few objective measures beyond standard of living. One man’s “quality of life” is another man’s oppressive conformity and risk averseness. American culture places an enormous value on self-actualization and trades comfort and certainty to get it. Average Europeans demonstrably would not make this trade in many cases. Neither is objectively correct.
I think Europe may have had a comparable or better quality of life at one time allowing for the cultural differences. As someone who has spent a lot of time on both sides of the Atlantic, I don’t think that has been true for well over a decade. The slow impoverishment of Europe has become noticeable to American eyes in a way it wasn’t before.
Yeah compare the GDP per capita of Mississippi to Germany and then tell me which has a better quality of life.
Germany, not even comparable lol. Affordable healthcare, clean living spaces, decent wages for the majority of people. Also, Mississippi has the highest gun death rate in the US.. Not sure how much feeling safe should factor into QoL for you but that's a pretty significant one in my book
Clean living spaces? Have you lived in Germany? How about petty crime? Government bureaucracy? Employment opportunities? Cost of housing?
Have you been to Mississippi? Have you seen the middle class suburbs?
Most gun crime is limited to a small geographic area either the rest have no having low gun crime.
I'll have what he's having.
Let's disregard all negatives and compare to some made up boogeyman of Germany.
Tell me you’ve never lived in Germany without telling me you’ve never lived in Germany.
I’m not saying it’s terrible but to pretend it doesn’t have problems is pure fantasy
lose what?
Most people in my circle in EU seems to see it in similar way. Not much we can do about it though :(
The article is literally about ASML, the company that builds the most complex machine ever built by humans.
I can pick a couple of other companies across a wide variety of industries if you'd like.
Fair point, ASML is a linchpin in the global economy, and very much a European company. But Europe has a population larger than USA, shouldn't they at least be close to us in leading edge companies? They invented the Industrial Revolution.
An economy is there for the people. If that larger number of people have a higher quality of life than in the US, aren't they wealthier?
And if they do it for less money, aren't they wiser?
And a lot more, my friend! You're welcome.
It's a little unclear how it shakes out there.
I've met a number of young western Europeans while traveling there who are jealous of the ability of Americans to afford cross-ocean/different-continent multi-week trips to tier-1-hotel-cost cities, while feeling like it's more out of reach to them to find a job that would let them. (Phrasing edited here because, as a reply pointed out, "international" travel in Europe is easy and common due to proximity.)
On the flip side, those people also enjoy having much more time off. But hey, at least American isn't as 996'd as China yet?
There's no single linear "better" scale.
(There are, of course, many Americans without the means to travel to Europe or Asia themselves, who could give two shits about an "innovative" company being based in the US vs anywhere else since it doesn't seem to be helping them personally, but the overall mobility is still higher for now. But that's more due to the age of the country than anything else. History suggests that as low-hanging-fruit continues to close the US will also get more and more of that social stagnation too. It's easier to become upper class when you go to a place without an upper class yet.)
The statistics tell a story different from those anecdotes: young Europeans are considerably more internationally traveled than young Americans, probably by something approaching a factor of ~2 in the likelihood of crossing national borders in a given year. But they're not necessarily twice as geographically well-traveled. Much of the difference is due to Europe's small countries, open borders, dense transportation network, and cheap short-haul international travel.
Look up what percentage of Americans between 25 - 34 have never traveled outside their own country, vs. Europeans in western or Northern European countries.
etc.
Means and using those means for any given particular end are entirely different things. It's hardly surprising that Americans are generally insular and uninterested in non-American things. (This is not a good thing IMO. But it's a thing.)
But more importantly, like you say, "interntional travel" in Europe includes, say, "going to the UK from France" vs the overseas 5-to-10hr+ flights that are required to cross the Atlantic to have these conversations in my anecdotes.
That's my bad for saying "international" instead of "cross-ocean" or such. So let me clarify that the jealousy here is being able to pay for flights and hotels to spend 2+ weeks across an ocean in cities with $100-or-equiv-per-night-to-$300+-per-night hotel costs. They didn't think they'd ever be able to afford a similar trip to SF or NY.
---
The non-anecodotal version of this story would likely be the rise in social-acceptance and popularity of the more right-wing parties in Europe. A lot of people, younger especially, feel like they're getting left behind and aren't interested in mostly-older or born-into-more-money people's generic remarks about how it's still great overall for them.
K-shaped economies + "stay in your lane" are how you get Trumps :(
We're on the same page. Yes, young Americans are more likely than young Europeans to have traveled intercontinentally / across the ocean.
I had this exact conversation with a barber on the UPC campus in Barcelona in 2005 (if my memory is right). My reply to his assertion was to ask if he ever considered how large US states are compared to EU countries. People do travel within the USA alone and with their families all the time. Just this week mine crossed three states for a beach vacation and the returned home. International travel is not unheard of but not the same distance scale. If I recall he said something like he had not thought of it that way. I do not recall if we were talking in Spanish or English anymore after 21 years.
I must be well traveled since I travel internationally multiple times a week! I even do intercontinental weekend getaways.
Not that hard as a European.
Anecdotally, I think it’s out of reach for many young Americans in my cohort (26) but we’re insulated from that in tech
Americans have money for traveling but not the time off.
Europeans have time for traveling but not money. A third of Europeans can’t even afford a one week holiday.
Well, those Europeans are only encountering the Americans who can afford to travel. There are millions of Americans who have never even left their own state. Tens of millions more who have never left the US.
It's true that most of us in Europe get more time off but we don't really get more to spend on expensive holidays. We don't have the culture of spending thousands upon thousands on holidays. Most of us think it's crazy to spend that much on travel and do it much more frugally which means we get more but at a lower level of luxury.
You sound like someone who is enjoying the retirement benefits and full social safety net. One which does not have the funding to continue on for the youth of today. You have a certain smugness about your current situation but maybe you should look at how things are actually coming along today for young people staring down the barrel of higher inflation and lower wages.
Missing out on every Revolution after the Industrial Revolution isn't a recipe for long-term success. I think you might be missing the point of the article.
Europe manages to give a measurably better lifestyle for more people for less money than the US. Europe’s a success.
yeah, but what are they doing for the poor billionaires who depend on infinite growth, uh?
France has a PPP-adjusted GDP per capita that’s much closer to Russia than it is to the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
What does this mean in practice?
tanks getting closer.
I’m increasingly convinced this is a myth Europe has told itself to get comfortable with American subjugation.
I'm not trying to be inflammatory but just thought it was kind of funny that one could say the same about your own comment but just swap the placement of the words Europe and American. I think unless someone pulls up actual stats on quality of life and all that just saying what people feel is kind of meaningless.
Maybe. I have citizenship in Switzerland and America. I aim politically active in both. That doesn’t give me authority—but it does afford me perspective.
And no. Europe is poorer than America. Comparable measures show the effect one would expect.
These exist. Individual numbers slope as one would expect.
If you’re poor, Europe is better. If you’re middle class, it’s debatably, but probably Europe. If you’re rich, by which I mean you make a few hundred thousand a year or more, America. Obviously.
Europe knows how to burn furniture to stay warm...
How do you measure that "better lifestyle?" Quality of life in the USA outside of crowded/expensive cities is exceptionally high.
It appears to me that in most of Europe there is an unspoken bargain: society provides you with a reasonably comfortable and secure life where your basic needs are guaranteed at least to some level, and in exchange you are supposed to stay in your lane, make sure your ambitions match and follow one of the approved tracks, and leave things like starting businesses to a hidden aristocracy with family money, who for their part generally accept higher demands on their contributions and avoid "vulgar" displays of their wealth in exchange.
Eh, better than the capitalist dystopia that is the US in the 21st century.
The American intelligence community choose to jumpstart the Surveillance Industrial Revolution which is what has enabled companies like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook to dominate.
Europe didn't choose to do that.
ASML is not the norm in Europe. It is the exception.
The top ten companies by revenue, worldwide, features zero European companies.
We in Europe cheer our meddling technocratic leadership while sneering at American risk taking and innovation. We have a fundamental cultural malaise, and those of my friends who feel the same as me have simply left Europe for a better life in the US or other dynamic economies.
At this point I feel like a stick in the mud for staying here, and quite honestly, I worry for my children's future here.
Your children need the number go up?
Yes. Any other questions?
Why?
edit: In all seriousness, some numbers I'm concerned about for children are the
- % of carbon in the atmosphere
- the number of militaristic demagogues in positions of power
- the number of hours the average person spends reading propaganda on social media
- the parts per million of microplastics in drinking water
- the democracy index
The sum of dollars consumed, dollars invested, dollars spent by governments, and net exports is a weird proxy signal to obsess over
Because eventually there will be an asteroid or nearby supernova that will destroy civilization unless humanity’s total wealth and technology have improved vastly between now and then. Stasis is death.
I don't find it likely that my kids or grandkids will have better odds of avoiding asteroid or supernova death by working to death to try to become interplanetary ASAP.
I think doing so would introduce far more risks to them. Space ain't friendly.
Beyond that I find it hard to care to drive anyone to work their ass off today for whatever humans are around 100+ years in the future. And, of course, more technological development brings more chance of mass self-inflicted die-off of humanity anyway. In 1900 it would've been much harder to kill 10%, 20%, 50%, 90% of the global population than it is today.
Everything is death eventually. And predicting the future is hard.
I find it more likely we nuke ourselves with this ratrace to the bottom, than having to worry about supernovas. And what's more I don't buy into this kind of megalomaniac self-serving narrative, that smells of an easy way of enforcing one's broken ideals over others. Happening with AI a lot lately.
Unemployment rate doesn't make the top 5?
Over the course of decades unemployment is generally just fine, so other than "what if AI breaks the economy" there's very little reason for it to be in the top worries. It's a priority but not a worry.
It would be very hard for a country to force it's most ambitious to not leave if there are other places eagerly recruiting them.
But when such a pull exists, it's very hard to counter that. Consider the number of non-SV places in the US that have tried to replicate that environment and basically failed. Even the famously "business friendly" places like Texas or Georgia that are success stories for poaching tech companies or film production largely work by having companies move there once they've left the high-growth phase and are no longer chasing strictly the most ambitious would-be-best-and-brightest talent.
The success stories there (that aren't just resource-extraction) have come from significant protectionism, essentially forcing a country to build its own version of the mega-companies even if it's a money-loser with copycats building shoddy copies for decades at first.
There's no easy way for Europe to magically change that with "culture." There's too many already-established mega-talent-bases in other places to think you can have people just pass up on that in a fully-global-market situation.
I would ask instead: why let those foreign mega-corps be so integral to so many basic services of modern life?
Perhaps not just Europe, but the entire world, would be better off if we had fewer monoliths and more variations, with more flexibility for local markets to develop different solutions or in different directions.
This completely ignores Mittelstand in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. And for the record, Japan has zero corporations by revenue in the top ten, but has top five largest GDP globally. So, a failure? Or a poor metric?
And ASML wouldn't be possible without US taxpayer funded research. ASML's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology utilized foundational research from the U.S. Department of Energy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML
That's just globalisation. Wouldn't europeans be fools if they never used american research??? And vice versa?
ed: and also to the above point, those optics companies look frightfully european...
The heart of the machine, the light source, is from San Diego.
Yet Europe is stagnant.
Why deflecting from the implicit question? Why is european ASML incapable of finding fellow european buyers - among 27 strong nations and 500M people?
To state the obvious: Because Europe isn't adding any new fab capacity. That is crazy in the 21st century. They should be helping TSMC and Samsung build new fabs in Europe. What happened to the plan by Intel to build a modern fab in Europe?
All big European companies are over 30 years old. Their startup scene is relatively minuscule compared to the US, borderline nonexistant.
I think it's great. I think whatever you are doing in the US under Trump we do best doing the opposite.
I am so glad that I don't have to live in the US right now. If this is loosing we should do even more of it.
I disagree with the downvotes. As an American I ALSO think that we should be doing the opposite.
Holy Kool-Aid.
I mean, Europe built ASML, for one.
Europe did not build ASML.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUV_lithography
You can read the history and learn that the technology was developed almost entirely by the US government Department of Energy, Intel, IBM, and several Japanese companies.
ASML is an important company but it is largely just an integrator of tech and process IP licensed from several different countries.
I'm not a particularly big believer in infinite growth, so I'm not really concerned. But, I have noticed that many people both complain that nothing is being built, but also NIMBY. Could be the goomba fallacy...
Goomba fallacy: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Goomba_fallacy
I think this is part of it. Growth is treated with skepticism in Europe.
Growth isn't "jobs, high salaries, innovation, cheap good/utilities, well funded military" there it's "pollution, inequality, big corporations".
It's no surprise that they aren't growing as fast as other regions: it's not their priority.
As the saying goes, if you aren't growing...
Hype. And I don’t mean this pejoratively although it has negative consequences — the US does hype better than anyone. The challenge for the US is that people can exploit hype to the point that its effect gets diminished (eg Tesla) which might have long term consequences for the sustainability of the hype machine
Reading between the lines, I blame essentially the opposite thing: too much neoliberalism, preventing governments from enacting effective industrial policy (for ideological reasons, not as a choice for a plausible pathway to the desired outcomes). There is some but too little and too indirect. The focus is more on doing as little as possible than on really doing things, on giving permission and as-small-as-possible incentives for things to be done rather than causing them to be done (let alone straight up doing them - neolibs recoil in horror).
That's how I see it anyway, almost everyone else wants to double down on neoliberalism ie the negation of industrial policy. Except perhaps Frank Heemskerk from the article, who mentions wanting governments to create demand for made-in-europe chips so that fabs get built to supply that demand.
I do not live in Europe, but I have a lot of friends living there, mostly in Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. We recently met in Croatia, and after a few beers this topic came up. We came to the conclusion that the following crises caused Europe to start lagging behind the rest of the world:
- 2008 financial crisis. Somehow, the U.S. was able to spend its way out of the crisis, while Europe's strict austerity measures made things quite bad. That was followed by the 2010-2012 debt crisis, the 2013 Cyprus banking crisis, and another Greek debt and banking crisis in 2015.
- COVID: Most European countries, at least those with strong economies, had very strict restrictions and closures. The restrictions were as strict as they were in California. They did not really have any Texas or Florida style "rebellion" states. Sweden was the main exception. But borders and travel restrictions still existed.
- Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Europe was much more economically integrated with and dependent on Russia (especially for energy), than the U.S. or many other parts of the world.
So basically, the world has gone through three major crises in the last 15-20 years, and in each case the U.S. was either less directly affected or somehow managed the economic consequences better than Europe.
Have you ever been to Europe?? Things they are building: proper trains; proper roads; proper particle accelerators; proper airliners; proper bread; proper cars; the AI that the USA thinks is so amazing; ARM CPUs; ...
And speaking of "a less prosperous society" -- have you been to most of the USA recently? Doesn't look very prosperous to me vs most of Europe.
I think it is alright. I actually had the choice to move to the US and I picked Europe instead.
If the measure of "winning" is chasing any current hype so that line goes up no matter the cost, I would rather not be in such a place.
Where in US and where in Europe?
I think that that Berlin is 100x better than Atlanta. But on the other hand, San Francisco is a million times better than Milan.
That totally depends. If you're focused on tech, then that's one thing. But if you want overall quality of life, I can't imagine this is true. Work/life balance seems way more balanced in pretty much any part of Europe. It also probably depends on one's age.
Have you been to San Francisco lately? Huge swathes of the city look like scenes from Resident evil
US Based big tech is skewing your perception. real world economies dont revolve around social media entertainment and ad serving mechanisms.
Take those out of what US "builds" and Us doesnt look very exceptional
You’re mistaking the SP500 with the whole US economy.
Big tech isn’t that big. Silicon Valley is $840B, while the US is $32T, so about 3%.
The US could lose all of Silicon Valley and still be much more productive than the EU.
no way silicon valley is only 840B
Classic SV is about that. Bay Area is 1.5T
The EU has only one company among the world's top 50 companies: ASML, ranked 21st.
In the top 100, there are only 8: ASML, Siemens, SAP, L'Oréal, LVMH, TotalEnergies, Santander, and Seagate Technology.
In 2005, the EU (excluding the UK) had 19 companies in the top 100.
So something is going on.
If you take out the exceptional parts then the US doesn’t look exceptional? Forgive me if I’m not convinced by this argument.
You’re also generalizing too deeply. The top companies in the US cover a lot more than ads and social media.
There is definitely much more happening than what american media tells us. When I visit family in Germany they are all doing pretty well. There are problems with expensive housing but that seems to be a worldwide problem.
But there definitely seems to be a lack of ambition in business and technology. For example, the car companies seem to be more coasting on past successes vs pushing things forward. Europe is also not trying much to compete in AI.
When I visit Germany everything strikes me as meager. Like everything is rationed.
Out of curiosity, how so?
I was there a couple months ago and all the cities I visited felt very poor. The buildings were depressing and drab, the trains were frequently delayed, the food was probably the worst I had anywhere in Europe.
Weird: Any medium-to-large city will have great Turkish food. Do you not like Turkish food?
When I visit the US everything strikes me as overbuilt to the point of being dull or in the case of vehicles, downright dangerous. The dullness part, especially, is a real pain. Cheap concrete sidewalks. Cheap looking infrastructure everywhere, etc.
There are few places I've seen that seemed as dull or boring when walking through them as the LA metro area, for example. Yes, there are also awesome looking neighborhoods, but damn, I didn't actually realize those concrete brick 1 floor no sloped roof buildings were truly universal as were those very ugly vacant lots with wire fences.
I imagine most LA residents are just used to them plus they only drive by them.
Europe should have had their own SV starting back in the 90's...
Instead the wall fell and Europe decided to go on vacation for 35 years
They had two world wars and devastated cities to rebuild. They also had the very real threat of further escalation with the raging Cold War. Meanwhile, the US had no real threat of further violence. Most of those with the adventurous spirit found their way to the US to continue the westward expansion and seems to be Europe's biggest export.
The rebuilding phase was over by 1990. And so was the cold war, more or less, and that strongly involved the US too.
Did you misread the time period they suggested?
Krugman recently wrote about this and argued this perception is heavily biased by poor comparative measurements: https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/europe-v-america-whos-rea...
Krugman, really? The guy who's been wrong about every single prediction he's tried to make and got fired by the NYT?
Meh, judge the ideas, not just who they came from. He has cited some articles if you’d like to read them and evaluate the info yourself.
I don't know economics well enough to judge his ideas, but I know his track record well enough to be suspecious of his judgement in his arguments about the economy.
How many Nobels do you have to win to post a credible opinion on the Internet, in your mind?
Nobel winners can be wrong about a lot or even cranks. Don't pretend winners are superhuman.
They build the fundamental building blocks of your (American) tech industry so you can scroll Reels at a higher speed.
I would characterize it a bit differently. It seems like there’s a combination of not understanding what drives prosperity, and consciously rejecting the tradeoffs of prospering. Namely, insisting on lots of government regulation and social programs.
Which country? It's a pretty mixed bag across the continent (though you could say the same about US states). From my POV it's fine, preferable to the US even (much as I would likely make more there). Most of the supposed problems are heavily exaggerated, especially with regard to the EU's rules and regulations.
In america nothing is getting built except data centers. Without the drug-addled AI push, we'd be in same spot as Europe, maybe worse.
More Europe bashing here lately. Are you a bot?
How're the tarrifs going?
As if we don’t have tariffs. My AliExpress packages are taxed over 100%
Is it contradicting - does it mean the tariff is "over 100%"?
English is not my first language.
A five euro package has:
€1.05 VAT
€3 duty per product category
€0.36 VAT on duty
€2 EU per package fee (per 1 November)
That is €6.41 in tax/duty/fees/tariffs whatever you may call it over a €5 value.
The difference is almost no American in HN will defend the crazy tariffs. But Europeans I have seen will go to the mat every single time explaining why Germany's economy growing a total of 7% for the 10 years between 2015-2025 isn't a problem actually. US grew almost 27% in the same time period.
This is only what I have noticed as someone from a continent that is not North American or Europe. The Europeans don't seem to see a problem with their stagnation.
I am European, and I feel the same way.
Europe has been anti-innovation for a long time, completely missing the tech wave in the 2000s. I was hopeful that Europe would learn from its past mistakes, but now it is also completely missing the AI wave and falling behind.
The politics are bad, way too user-centric (see Arthur Mensch complaining about AI regulation), and the European mentality does not help. The social safety net is strong, which is good, but perhaps too generous given the state of the economy. Without sufficient economic growth, it becomes unsustainable, leading to a lower and lower quality of social benefits.
People complain, rightly so, that things were better before, but nobody does anything or even seems to understand that innovation and economic growth are what fuel everything.
I am very bearish on the state of Europe, which, as a European, makes me sad.
Disclaimer: I have immigrated to the US.
It's just the takeover of the continent by an ossified bureaucratic class. Their opinions and actions do not represent the European people's but quite the opposite of it.
I wish the US built more stuff domestically. Too many regions seems to just be a circular service economy with little else going for them…
I knew two engineers, one in the US, one in europe.
The one in the US worked at a chip company and they had gotten a chip back and it worked without any respin.
The one in europe was working with GPS stuff and with a european chip that was on spin 400+. (it's been a while so I don't have more info, but I think maybe it was government subsidized?)
I couldn't help but think something was seriously wrong with european engineering.
The first rule of government spending, why build one when you can build two at twice the price? Sounds like the project's goal wasn't to build a successful thing, but to bilk the government for as much funding for as long as possible.
Yeah but the quantum computing "industry" in the US is exactly the same thing.
The US goverment continues puking out cash to prop up this clusterfuck. The EU governments stopped puking cash for it, which is why all the EU quantum companies moved to the US.
Quantum computing has basically zero credible commercial demand.
Timelines for anything useful are perpetually 15 years out. Even the QC boosters refuse to commit to a timeline for Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computing. But they sure love scaring everybody with it as a boogeyman.
Putting aside the n=1, Chip != Chip.
Norwegian here.
I’ll assume your question is genuine and benevolent and not like my social media feed full of Europe vs USA ragebait.
I believe these economies and cultures are optimized for different things. And also I’d be precise about the country as well, since UK, Norway and Italy are also optimized for different targets. More accidentally then a cunning plan around it to be honest.
Americans as a culture are more risk takers. This is normally a good thing for entrepreneurship. They are also rather tax friendly. Which is great for capital intensive businesses like the unicorns you are asking why we see less of this in Europe. Take Norway, come here with a ton of cash and make a anthropic competitor, and you are probably a fool. Taxes alone will punish such huge capital. Less so in UK though.
But what you hear less about is the huge amount of medium companies around Europe. They have their small niche in pharma, manufacturing etc. They are often highly trusted. Often highly profitable. Often keep their people longer with lower tendencies of burnout.
But would often be seen as a failure by US vcs, as they perhaps lack a giant market to grow further into. This can lead to a lower stock price then price per earning would suggest.
Nor to say that those companies don’t exist in the US. I’m just saying the entire economy is not just lifted by companies like alibaba and google.
I’m also curious sometimes how Americans kept their risk appetite so high through nearly a century. Japan went a similar lane until the 90s crash, where after they became a lot more risk averse.
Part of my speculation here is that the US could borrow their way out of the crisis in their own currencies.
Right and there are also quite a few industries where Europe is way ahead of the US, to name a few:
- Railways and signalling equipment
- Container shipping
- Reinsurance
- Industrial machinery
- Wind turbine technology
- Luxury goods, luxury fashion and fast fashion
- Tourism
A big difference is that in Europe most companies are not big conglomerates. Yes everyone has heard of Siemens. But then you have tonnes of companies like WALDNER, based in a small German town with revenues of €350m, they make packaging equipment that can fill 100,000 yogurt pots per hour. Oh and they are a private company.
https://www.waldner.de/en/about-us/company/
What a weird one to pick. Do you think the US doesn't have massive ports like Europe?
General Electric is competitive with the best in Europe.
That's quite the statement, considering there's still more than a quarter left in 2026.
Not really, they know their customers and the roadmaps. Nobody puts in a surprise order.
this doesn't really make sense to me. fundamentally, if naively, price is a function of supply and demand. if there is no demand in Europe - then there is a price problem. but i don't like the expectation that governments should subsidize mega corporations profits. the article doesn't really convince me the investment is beneficial to europeans.
A price problem in terms of it not being worth the cost... sure.. but that's because there are little/no fabs in Europe. Lowering the price, even by magic, doesnt really seem like it would matter.
To be clear they are asking the EU to kickstart chip fabrication. Which is a chicken-and-egg problem. A fab can't tool up without orders. Orders wont come without tooling. It's in the EU's interest to fabricate chips locally.
Is it though? I'd put forward that it's in the EU's interest to foster good international relationships. Countries can get away without domestic strategic industries if they can play nice with others.
Good relationships won't do much when China puts the squeeze on Taiwan. Obviously there are other fabs in other countries, but the EU won't be the only market looking for alternatives.
Absolutely not. A quick Google search can provide a long list of fabs in Europe. There are many, many fabs in Europe. However, they are not expanding, so ASML has nothing to sell them.
ASML selling zero in Europe by 2026 is a pretty wild forecast. Really shows how fast supply chains and geopolitical strategy can pivot.
Sounds like the export controls are really starting to bite, or ASML's just flexing their geopolitical muscle. Tough times ahead for EU fabs.
Guess the EU's self-sufficiency push for chips is running into ASML's global market realities. Or they just found another big customer.
ASML reporting zero sales for 2026 already? Either their crystal ball is broken or Europe's fab plans are seriously wobbly.
Lots of mentions of "EU regulations" in this discussion, but not a single concrete case of a regulation that would be to blame.
The combination of Trump's Iranian shitshow and Putin's Ukranian madness, means energy prices in Europe are currently insane and predicted to keep rising. Uncertainty due to the possibility of war is not exactly conducive to investing in fabs either.
Europe has been deindustrializing for decades, and IMO that's had more to do with profitability than anything else. That hasn't changed.
Why is this a surprise?
No other country outside the US and China really even matter when it comes to AI. Cohere and Mistral are important labs, but in no way do they make Canada or France significant in any way shape or form.
In 2026, Europe is great for a holiday. That's about it.
AI labs buy a lot of photolithography machines?
Europe is also great place to live, which is much more important than being leaders in AI race to generate more wealth for your mega corporations.
I’m european, and I don’t buy into the idea that profit over everything is good.
I really like living in Europe (Sweden right now, but I lived in Czech, Estonia and I’m from the UK)…
But, I think unless we do some wealth generating activities, we won’t be such a nice place to live in future.
Our power on the world stage will decrease, our infrastructure will start to be neglected due to lack of investment, quality will diminish in most areas…
I say this because that’s how the UK feels in most areas (outside of London), a bunch of “new flashy stuff” to prove that “we still got it” but it’s incredibly low quality while the actual infrastructure crumbles to bits.
It makes sense since the AI in Europe is being regulated to the neck and investments in data centers, chip factories are much more expensive and difficult to operate.
There's a lot more market opportunities in China and USA...