Europe needs hyperscalers (lots of them)

Posted Feb 12, 2026 15:39 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Europe needs hyperscalers (lots of them) by kleptog
Parent article: FOSS in times of war, scarcity, and AI

It's really funny how you may say two sentences that directly contradict each other in one, single, paragraph.

> That's not a problem.

Interesting… and why is that?

> We spend ~375 billion on energy imports, while exporting ~4 trillion in goods & services, so a bit less than 10%.

So that's not a problem because currently Europe does have things to sell… okay.

> The problem is not being able to import energy at any price.

IOW: it's is a problem. And a pretty big one.

We are entering times where money are almost entirely detached from the actual things that are needed: there are mountains of money that are exchanged in the virtual world of “services” and there are real things that one couldn't buy at any price except if you have the right connections.

Things like “rare earth”. There was lot of hoopla about these in the press, lately… what is the total market of these? Go google that and compare to market capitalization of AI companies (which are using these same rare earths)… you would be surprised.

And, again, Europe either have to ensure that Europe does have “good and services” to sell — or it would find a way to live without things Europe needs.

Chances are extremely high that “XXI century technologies”, in Europe, would be identical to XVIII century technology and not anything new and exciting.