Outright bans would destroy European companies that rely on American companies. First they need to build their own infrastructure (which China has done).
Legislation for a ban will take years anyway, and will have sunrise/sundown provisions. This will provide ample time to build the infrastructure. But infra won't happen without mandating the transition, since market incentives will always pull against it.
Right, that’s another choice though. Everything points towards Europe embracing US tech intentionally while sidelining their own homegrown companies. And of course while making noise about it the whole time. Why?
I agree. Beyond scale and inertia against moving (and frontier AI models) it’s not obvious to me what would be hard to replicate in Europe given regulation that mandated non-US hosting.
Most companies using hyper scalers are doing weird superstitious things at the behest of overpaid consultants. And the huge margins they take make it easier to adapt to things like higher electricity costs.
It’s technically possible, but would face
too much resistance. People don’t want to leave familiar and cheaper services, and care less about the non-immediate issue of European sovereignty.
China was really only able to build out their own infrastructure because of blocking American companies starting early on, though. Europe may just be fucked...
The time to start this process is now.