this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
29 points (91.4% liked)

Europe

10534 readers
736 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
  10. Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.

(This list may get expanded as necessary.)

Posts that link to the following sources will be removed

Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com

(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)

Ban lengths, etc.

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Speaking to Bloomberg News at MWC Barcelona, Ekholm compared Europe’s sluggish move to 5G unfavourably to China

“China has already built out a 5G standalone network,” he said.

“Europe has elected to be a museum,” he added. “That’s a choice European citizens have to live with.”

top 19 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 21 points 1 day ago

Ericsson? Wasn't that the company that failed to offer a competitive alternative to the Huawei 5G equippment and then lobbied EU governments to ban that equippment? Sounds like they might be somewhat at fault themselves there no?

[–] BenchpressMuyDebil@szmer.info 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"Europe risks falling behind on AI development"

Being behind on high tech innovation is an European insecurity. Whenever a new American tech fad comes along - blockchain or AI - Europe seems to jump on it as an opportunity to catch up. Fundamentally though, to get on the fad train you'll need to buy USA hardware (nVidia, Intel, AMD etc.). It feels like this insecurity is being weaponized so that more US hardware gets sold.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

IIRC the lithography machines TSMC etc. use are made in Europe. One wonders why they don't build fabs locally instead of selling them all to Taiwan.

[–] eleijeep@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago

There's a lot more to semiconductor manufacturing than just the lithography, and there's a whole supply chain required to support it. To replicate the kind of process nodes that TSMC is manufacturing you would need a lot of institutional expertise in:

  • crystal growth (or sourcing)
  • wafer manufacture (or sourcing)
  • silicon doping
  • process design
  • mask design
  • mask manufacture
  • photoresist manufacture (or sourcing)
  • photoresist application
  • etching
  • sputtering
  • testing and validation
  • wire bonding
  • packaging

That's just off the top of my head as someone who is a spectator of the industry but not involved. There's probably a lot more you'd need to perfect in order to produce cutting edge silicon.

If this were done in the EU it would likely involve multiple companies specialising in one area each, as we don't have an Intel or AMD with the budget to pour into developing an in-house foundry. I can't imagine how much investment it would take though. China has been working on this for decades and is still at least a decade behind in their own silicon process.

[–] mr_anny@sopuli.xyz 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm glad to be in tech museum instead of that mass surveillance dystopia powered by AI.

[–] doben@lemmy.wtf 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How do you think the museum makes sure you don‘t touch or steal the exhibits, which you don‘t own and never will, but only are there to sell the tickets, clean the floor or walk around in nostalgia?

[–] mr_anny@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago

I don't know man. Never crossed my mind.

Might be because I live in that one museum built on trust and respect.

[–] redditmademedoit@piefed.zip 4 points 1 day ago

Man whose mega corportion donated to Trump's inauguration says [Trump talking point].

[–] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Instead of complaining why don’t you develop some useful technology that helps mankind, weather boy.

[–] RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

EU badly needs data sovereignty and need to focus on securing the open source eco-system. They also need to crack down on gathering and sharing personal data. End the surveilance economy. It would not hurt to make mobile phone and data contracts cheaper and easier for consumers.

[–] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Is there really a benefit to 5g for the average citizen? It seems to me that coverage is much more important and europe has that pretty well covered.

[–] remon@ani.social 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It seems to me that coverage is much more important and europe has that pretty well covered.

Yeah, Germany is almost done with having full EDGE coverage. Almost.

[–] Zahtu@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

yeah, i still remember the remarks "5G bis zur Milchkanne" several years ago by CDU. like who needs this? and who has to pay for it. obviously, with CDU its the citizens that have to pay for it, even though they reap the least benefits. And all that just because the actors pushing for stuff (agrar and tech lobby) don't want to pay and always go around the "gespenst" of Europe falling behind in tech. As if our agrar producers suddenly could not produce food without it.

[–] Captain_Baka@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

Well, yes. Now there's just around 1.5 kilometers of my 16.5 kilometers work commute left where I have absolutely no network on my phone. We are really almost there. Maybe in 10 years or so when there will be the next generation standard after 5G we will have full EDGE coverage.

Something something efficiency something technoligical progress. And "Technologieoffenheit" of course.

[–] Nickelalloy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Okay so what does this means for me as a consuner? In terms of mobile coverage and speed I am really satisfied since many years.

[–] uienia@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Nothing. The rich fat bastard just wants some of that "line going up" which his US oligarch colleagues sees.

[–] oeuf@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago

Funny for this to be happening at a time when it's becoming more and more important to spend time offline.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I realize that AI is a hot topic right now, but I feel like the links between cell network infrastructure and AI capability probably aren't quite as tight as is being presented.

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago

At least in telecommunications research at the moment everyone is trying to do stuff using AI/ML.