Europe built sovereign clouds to escape US control. Forgot about the processors

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

ARM, CPUs, and Cloud Market Share

  • Debate over whether it’s fair to say Europe “forgot processors,” given ARM’s role.
  • Clarifications: ARM historically licensed IP, now pivoting to designing its own CPUs but still fabless and owned by a Japanese parent.
  • Server-side ARM adoption seen as significant: AWS Graviton and similar chips reportedly power a large share of hyperscaler capacity; some claims of ~50% hyperscaler / ~25% general server share, though others view ARM share as still modest and migration as non‑trivial.
  • Performance per watt comparisons are nuanced: ARM favored for low/average utilization; x86 claimed better at fully optimized, high‑throughput workloads.

Data vs Hardware Sovereignty

  • Distinction emphasized between:
    • Data sovereignty: keeping data under EU legal/jurisdictional control.
    • Hardware sovereignty: controlling CPU/GPU design and fabrication.
  • Thread consensus: data sovereignty is the current focus and easier; hardware sovereignty is much harder, slower, and vastly more expensive.
  • Some argue all three dimensions matter: services, data, and hardware.

Backdoors, Management Engines, and Risk

  • Concern over Intel ME, AMD PSP, and ARM TrustZone as opaque, unauditable subsystems with potential for abuse or state backdoors.
  • Others note no public evidence of deliberate CPU backdoors, and argue legal/jurisdictional risks from US clouds are more immediate.
  • Question raised whether encryption neutralizes low‑level backdoors; no clear consensus given.

European Chip and Fab Capabilities

  • Europe has strengths in tools (e.g., EUV machines) and several fabs and research lines (imec, CEA-Leti, Dresden, etc.), but often not at cutting‑edge nodes.
  • EU still relies on foreign components (e.g., US-made EUV light sources, TSMC for advanced nodes).
  • Examples of regional efforts: RISC‑V research and servers, plus references to Chinese Loongson as a “whole stack” sovereignty model.

Geopolitics, Sanctions, and Power Asymmetry

  • Strong concern about US legal reach (CLOUD Act, sanctions) over “EU” regions of US clouds; many see true sovereignty as requiring EU‑owned operators with no US ties.
  • Disagreement on how much leverage the EU really has to countersanction the US; some say economies are “on par,” others argue the US is significantly stronger and Europe would “fold” quickly under tech/financial pressure.
  • Several comments tie digital sovereignty to broader issues: energy dependence, military dependence (NATO kit), and tourism flows.

Critique of EU Sovereign Cloud Initiatives

  • Skepticism that EU-funded “sovereign clouds” are partly political money grabs, citing past projects that ended up dependent on non‑EU vendors.
  • Others defend them as meaningful first steps; sovereignty seen as incremental, not all‑or‑nothing.
  • Disagreement on strategy:
    • One camp: start with data/hosting (fast wins), then move down the stack.
    • Another: starting at the bottom (fabs, chips) is essential because it has huge lead times; politicians may stop once the “easy bit” is done.

Open Source, Software Stack, and Control

  • Suggestions: use free/open-source software and decentralized/federated services to reduce dependency and concentration.
  • Counterpoint: even open source is often de facto controlled by US corporations that dominate contributions and governance, so “code also has nationality.”