> Only one company in the world knows how to manufacture them right now.

And that company is in Europe, isn't it? The EU has a great opportunity to enter the market: it's a high-tech manufacturing job, not something that requires lots of cheap labor.

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deepsun 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, but it's not that important. Any complex high-tech product requires suppliers from all over the world. For example, I bet the EU company depends on a lot of China companies critically. Just like any airliner is produced by pretty much the whole world.

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joe_mamba 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The EU has a great opportunity to enter the market:

You can't just get into RAM manufacturing overnight whenever you feel like it, like you're building washing machines. You need a lot more than just ASML machines, you need the supply chain, the IP, the experienced professionals with know-how, the education system, the energy, the right regulations, etc.

The EU exited the RAM manufacturing business a long time ago when RAM prices sunk, see Qimonda, meaning it would be a long, expensive uphill battle to get back in, and currently EU has no major semiconductor manufacturing ambitions, or ambitions in commodity hardware manufacturing of any kind, so that's not gonna happen.

Of course, RAM is no longer a commodity right now, but nobody can guarantee it won't be again when the AI bubble burst and RAM prices crash, so spinning up the know-how, manufacturing facilities and supply chains from the ground up just for RAM is insanely expensive and risky and might leave you holding the bag.

> it's a high-tech manufacturing job, not something that requires lots of cheap labor.

Except semiconductor manufacturing DOES require cheap labor relative to the high degrees of skills and specialization needed at that cutting edge. Unlike in Taiwan, skilled STEM grads in the EU (and even more in the US) who invest that time and effort in education and specialization, will go to better paying careers with better WLB like software or pharma, than in hardware and semi manufacturing that pays peanuts by comparison and works you to death in deadlines.

Also, profitable semi manufacturing requires cheap energy and lax environmental regulations, which EU lacks. So even more compounding reasons why you won't see too many new semi fabs opening here.

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lucianbr 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> nobody can guarantee it won't be again

I hope we (Europe) can try some things even when they are not guaranteed to succeed and generate huge profits. Otherwise we are toast, though it might take some time to realise it.

The concept of trying not-guaranteed things should not be so alien here on news.ycombinator.com I would think.

	▲	joe_mamba an hour ago \| parent [-]
		>I hope we (Europe) can try some things even when they are not guaranteed to succeed and generate huge profits. If EU hopes were cookies, I would have died of obesity 100 times over. EU is bad at learning from its own mistakes and being proactive on rapid changes on the world stage. It's always reactive and then only when it's too late and its actions are always limp-dicked. See Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine, rise of Chinese EVs, etc >Otherwise we are toast, though it might take some time to realise it. We already are toast for the long term, we just ignore it via printing more money and going into more debt, while kicking the can down the road for future generations to deal with the fallout. EU's biggest economies are working around the clock on how to fund the ever growing pension and welfare deficits, how to beat Russia, and how to stop people from voting right wing, not on how to claw back and on-shore cutting edge semiconductor manufacturing. >The concept of trying not-guaranteed things should not be so alien here on news.ycombinator.com I would think. Yeah but someone still needs to pay for that and take a risk. And EU investors don't like risking billions of their money to try out new things that are in competition with Asia on manufacturing because we cannot compete there. Labor costs too high, regulations too high, energy costs too high, environmentalism too high, we miss critical know-how. That's why nobody is investing in EU fabs and instead in other things that guarantee higher returns like services, pharma and weapons.