Europe: the land that tech forgot
ChatGPT gets regulated, not invented. That’s something to regret. As unhinged as the initial results of the artificial intelligence arms race may be, they’re also another reminder of how far theHow did the land that birthed Nokia and Ericsson become the land that tech forgot? Some blame the acronyms synonymous with Brussels red tape — GDPR, DMA, DSA — even though the Googles of this world look far more spooked by ChatGPT than any EU fine.
But maybe Breton’s old company, Atos, is a better example of the deeper malaise plaguing European tech. Aerospace champion Airbus has proposed an investment in Evidian, the big data and cybersecurity unit that Atos plans to spin off this year. The potential deal has been presented as a boost to European tech “sovereignty” through growth in cloud and advanced computing.One look at Atos’s share price will reveal that the company is a symptom of, not a remedy for, Europe’s tech decline.
The R&D gap between US and Europe looks relevant here. Alphabet and Microsoft were among the world’s three biggest corporate spenders in research in 2021, at around US$30-billion and $23 billion respectively, according to European Commission data. The only EU company in the top 10 was Volkswagen, which spent €15.6-billion. Airbus was far behind at €2.9-billion, as was Atos, at €57-million.
Policymakers might assume that all it takes to close the gap is to cobble together ever-bigger domestic or regional champions. But aspirations for a “European cloud” have accomplished little.Former Atos executive Olivier Coste, in a new book about Europe’s tech lag, sees the real issue as being more about the high cost of failure in the EU — in the form of corporate restructuring.
Coste’s prescription is to reduce the cost of failure. He recommends a “flexicurity” approach, Denmark-style, to tech jobs. That would mean more flexibility to hire and fire, offset with the safety net of enough income to protect people who do lose their job. His is far from a consensus view; others suggest more disruptive innovation, like the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa. Another idea would be to pay European researchers better.
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