Comment by ForHackernews
5 days ago
Strongly disagree that centralized data centres are the foundation of technological sovereignty. Europe could, if it chose, strike a different course: inexpensive, locally-hosted systems. They could embrace personal computing and individual sovereignty instead of the American model of cloud-hosted surveillance tech that lives in giant data centres.
This is getting priced out of the market for the foreseeable future: thick clients are getting squeezed out of the hardware market because rhe componemt prices are surging - the datacenter builders are trying to gobble it all up.
Meaningful local computer power could only survive realistically if exceptionally high demand (multiples of that of AI data centers) could be generated within weeks/months to get the semiconductor companies to pivot and sell the components mainly though other channels.
64GB laptops are no longer in stores. 32 GB is probably going to get squeezed out soon. For prebuilt desktops it's the same. That's no basis for meaningful local, decentralized compute.
My vision includes native software that replaces Electron blobs using 32GB of RAM to display a text editor or a chat window. With the right motivation and moderate funding, it's possible to imagine a software ecosystem that is radically better than the current hyperscaling slopscape.
Collaborative native software that works peer-to-peer without servers, no large-scale data breaches because there are no giant databases of PII, for things that really do benefit from being hosted (e.g. photo sharing or community notice boards) they could be run by municipalities or local community groups.
Yeah if software was even moderstely efficient you wouldnt 32gb of ram on a personal machine.
This analagous to distributed cloud infrastructure that for 99.9% of companies could be replaced with a few servers and a 2-3 node postgres system.
Electron is atrocious, if you asked me. Modern computers are wasting staggering amounts of CPU cycles and memory on inefficient, bloated software stacks. But the realistic response to the RAM shortage will be to tell users to run their stuff in their normal browser instead because that gets rid of the extra browser runtime.
How could a disparate network of personal computers ever hope to compete with the centralized data centres? you’re just asking to lose the race.
~IBM, 1977
I'm afraid that technological sovereignty is secondary to military superiority when the governments in question value might over justice. It seems that you can apply financial leverage to avoid violence but I think everyone has to play ball.
They _could_ but is there any reason to suggest Europe is any more likely to embrace this approach than the US or China?
European countries have been embracing and funding free software at all levels of government and business at an accelerating rate, and doing so with the same ethos of personal freedom and autonomy. It would make sense to continue to that trajectory in other technological areas.