Being dependent on US tech feels the same as when we were dependent on Russian energy: strategically unwise and avoidable. We have alternatives, they just need work.
This is so utterly urgent. The US is an increasingly-deranged, hostile actor, which is able to cripple our tech at will.
I think we've been far too complacent about the direction of travel across the Atlantic. Trump and his crew are the new normal, and the key players in Silicon Valley are on board.
Any European government not currently working towards independence from US tech is being almost criminally neglectful.
Steps are being taken. This week two big announcements in The Netherlands as well, one for a replacement to AWS and one for taking US tech out of state secrets, which weirdly enough wasn’t already a thing.
Which are the US made computers? Start by excluding all the ones with Korean LCD panels, and Taiwanese motherboards, and Chinese parts.
If you mean assembled then there are lots of very small European companies that make custom build PCs.
Economies of scale in the US, a single language, and cheap transport, mean that the US companies grow very big internally, very easily. And then go international without much effort. The same is not true in Europe, so there's not a huge Dell, HP, or IBM equivalent.
In 2026, the only country on the entire planet that can likely make their own computer with 100% their parts and labour, and is actively trying, is China.
The same is not true in Europe, so there's not a huge Dell, HP, or IBM equivalent.
In the 90s and up until the early 00s we used to have quite a few pretty serious contenders, but they are all dead now: ICL, Siemens-Nixdorf, Tulip, Bull, Olivetti, etc.
No European made computers today doesn't preclude the possibility that there will be one tomorrow. RISC-V is the way out, and there are a number of European initiatives (though nothing serious just yet, I admit)
As a European dev, because I like RISC-V and because of the geopolitical situation I wouldn't bet on x86 in the long term.
It’s all about risk management. No solution is ever perfect, and that works for the US as well.
Also, some partners are more reliable than others. If China becomes as volatile as the US, it would change the risk assessment and stimulate other parts of the industry.
Achieving redundancy from China is likely not possible in the near future. Meanwhile, the risk emanating from a rugpull or from deliberate sabotage by the USA is very concrete.
Interestingly, there are zero non-US powerful laptops.
The closest option is the Moore Threads MTT AI Book (12-core 2.65Ghz, 32GB DDR5, 1TB SSD, 14 inch). It cannot reach a modern Ryzen in performance though.
It's fascinating that only the US can make good computers. I'm not from/in the US so I'm not saying that from a patriotic point of view. How hard can it be to pop a good ARM chip in a laptop and compete with HP, Apple and the likes?
> It's fascinating that only the US can make good computers.
Seemingly, the US might be able to design good computers, but it cannot make them themselves. This should make it easier for others to do the same, design the computer in country X but actually make it somewhere else, just like the US. Yet we're not seeing this at all.
Which powerful computers are made in the USA? Design and assembly don't count, as these are the least robust to replication attempts. Apart from that, the manufacturing is all in East Asia; Intel is the exception, not the normal!
I haven't mentioned America or any other continent. It is the Europeans who are shouting about sovereignty right now.
Well, no one has mentioned computer hardware until you did.
Surely you understand how "all the motherboards are made in Taiwan" is less of an immediate risk to sovereignty than "all of our business and personal data is stored on American servers and subject to US law"
It would be nice if Europe could produce its own computers, but right now no one can except China, so what is your point? That limited sovereignty efforts undertaken in the realm of reality are futile and that enables you to get some cheap shots in for whatever reason?
Computing is the software and the hardware. So you're right, I feel that it is futile.
Well, you can use the old hardware which you've already got if you get cut off from foreign suppliers. But the same is true for software. It's even more true for software.
If the French government and other Europeans were serious about reducing or eliminating dependency on American cloud services, they should switch to older versions of MS Office and MS Windows be done with it. No need to retrain your workers, and a realistic and speedy way to implement it.
There is one very serious issue with software: it needs updates for security issues that are uncovered. And it might be built requiring access to MS cloud services to work. To get rid of these problems is basically equivalent to adopting open source products.
