this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2026
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As an European I'm ashamed that we have 0 presence in this market
Not true. The Netherlands has ASML, sort of a monopoly on the manufacturing of semiconductor machines.
Yeah but no actual semiconductors made here.
Well yeah because that is a near monopoly in Taiwan with TSMC. It is a supply chain and every part in that chain is just as valuable. There is a serious presence of Europe/The Netherlands in the form of ASML in the chip market. It is one of the bargaining chips of the Dutch government when it deals with the United States.
Isn't that just cope, to an extent? Yes, ASML is key to advanced semiconductors, but in a conflict or crisis that disrupts supply chains, who is going to run dry quicker - the ones able to build the thing that's needed for building fabs, or the ones who actually operate working fabs? My money is on the latter :/
Also, just because ASML is currently the only one capable of building EUV systems, does not mean it's guaranteed to stay that way forever. The Chinese sure are trying to follow suit…
These are valid worries, never claimed those weren't the case. However, saying Europe has "no presence in that market" is also not true, the presence is significant.
Strategically it would be smart to have working fabs in Europe too, it would just take a lot of time and investment. America already started working on it (if I remember correctly) and China is already closing in…
Fair, the world is rather nuanced after all. And you're right, there is indeed some presence there. I'm not convinced every part of the supply chain holds equal value, but that's subjective, I suppose.
Yeah, I wish. Our (=German) previous minister of economic affairs tried doing that, but a combination of Intel (maybe not the best choice in hindsight, but I don't blame him for that) and the government getting replaced by the current one lead by our beloved Friedrich Merz (yay Neoliberalism) put a stop to that for the foreseeable future. At least we still have some semiconductor manufacturing in Europe, that should make any potential catching up much easier than it otherwise would be.
In the case of a war, it would take just one drone to stop production for a very long time in one factory. Factories are big fat juicy targets that can't move.
a) I seriously doubt it would be that simple, factories typically don't stop production like that after a single hit (Perun talked about it recently). And even if a semiconductor fab was that brittle in and of itself, sophisticated air defense and a location deep inside, say, European or Chinese mainland might disagree with this notion. And if one really wanted to, it would be possible to move production underground.
b) 'Conflict' is what I wrote, not (hot) war. Owning and running semiconductor fabs domestically might well be indispensable in a cold/trade war.
There ain't no difference between the smell of dead bodies in the sun in a "conflict" or a "war".
And yes infrastructure IS that brittle. Just ask the Russians about Ukrainian drone attacks. And there is NO place on this earth that a missile can't reach.
You're right, how could I forget all those who gave their lives in the Chinese-American trade war? Or those who instantly dropped dead when Trump put tariffs on whatever country, followed by even more dead bodies when the retaliatory tariffs hit? Oh how the world mourned these tragic deaths!
Do me a favor and troll elsewhere
It's okay. Your continent's specialty is cheesemaking. And bread. You guys make good bread.
Good bread can be had anywhere. Even in your own kitchen. The best bread I ever had was baked under the crudest of conditions with the barest of utensils and then baked on a hot rock heated in a fire.
Now cheese on the other hand.......
At least cheese and bread isn't even on the same playing field in terms of evil.
I don't know. Have you ever eaten Wonder Bread or the bread they use for subway sandwiches? If that ain't evil and vile, I don't know what is.
At least Arm is British. Their instruction sets keep getting more popular.
Though I admit, it's a little hard for me to estimate how much of a contribution the Arm intellectual property makes to something like an Apple M5 CPU, or Nvidia Grace CPU.
For x86? I mean, you'd have to suck intels dick for a license. Why not just get NXP to produce desktop ARM chips.
Yeah that's the point, why is nothing of this happening
I own Irish stock! JamesHardie. I used to have more exposure to a few other european companies but that was a few years ago and cant think of what they were off hand.