Five Things Tech: Europe, Google, Regulators, Randomness, Tech Sucks
This is everything you should read about Tech right now.
Howdy and welcome back to Five Things Tech!
Europe cannot outspend Silicon Valley and Big Tech has to learn to talk to regulators like everyone else. Google is winning on efficiency while Mistral is winning on principles. Quantum computers are now generating randomness so pure it could secure your secrets. And somewhere between the infrastructure battles and the geopolitical posturing, a tech worker is writing the most honest job description in the industry. Five things this week that range from genuinely important to genuinely cathartic.
Grab a coffee and read this now!
France’s Answer to OpenAI Warns of Dangers of U.S. Tech Dominance
Mistral Chief Executive Arthur Mensch said his company’s—and Europe’s—biggest obstacle to tech independence was the scale of investment that is necessary. The company lines up debt to pay for data centers based on revenue it expects from signed contracts.
“We can’t put 50 billion [dollars] on the table to build a gigawatt ahead of demand,” Mensch said. “That’s potentially our biggest bottleneck.”
For a long time I was not that worried about US tech dominance, but that changed rapidly during the first Trump administration. And Mensch really stresses the biggest issue here: Europe has different spending habits and going all in on tech is not really what we are known for. This truly is a gigantic obstacle right now.
Your AI bill is out of control. Google has been waiting for this moment.
The timing of Google’s new model is no coincidence. As companies embrace token-hungry AI agents they’re also paying closer attention to their bills. Meanwhile, smaller AI companies under pressure to generate revenue are cranking up the cost of their products, pushing customers to reconsider their AI spend.
That presents an opportunity to win on value rather than raw capability. It’s also where Google has an edge that will be hard for rivals to replicate — one it’s been working on for a quarter-century.
Google has played catch-up for the last two years and it starts to pay off. But we shouldn’t forget that Google was totally taken by surprise when the launch of ChatGOT 3.5 had such a huge impact. As a response, Google has totally revamped its core products, even search.
AI companies want power fast. The electric grid’s gatekeeper wants them to learn the rules.
“The hyperscalers, when they do come speak to us, they don’t speak FERC,” Swett said. “Their complaints about the utilities, quite frankly, to me show a lack of understanding of how the utilities normally function and how the grid functions.”
Since that March gathering, those AI developers have been learning the language, according to multiple people in the tech industry. Swett’s remarks set off a two-month sprint to further engage with FERC in face-to-face meetings as the commission approaches a June release for its proposal that aims to bring data centers onto the big regional electric grids — at a faster pace than the likely five- to-10-year timeline that frontier AI companies say is too slow for the fast-moving technology.
Oh no, Big Tech has to talk to regulators, just like other business have done for decades. Cry me a river.
A quantum computing system’s perfect randomness could keep your secrets safe
The scientists entangled two qubits kept at temperatures near absolute zero at the opposing ends of a 30-meter-long tube. When the two qubits were entangled, they shared the same positioning—in other words, if you measured both, you’d get the same output. The long tube was necessary to ensure enough physical separation so that no outside variables could bias the results, Renner says.
“To really be sure that it’s not predictable, I need to have a process where I’m really sure that this process is not described by classical physics,” Renner says.
That’s probably exactly how I would have done it. How random!
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Tech sucks
I’ve worked at three tech startups so far. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, “tech startup,” has Latin roots which means, “to make no money.” Basically, a bunch of investors (people who seem to make all their decisions via putting up pictures and throwing them at dart boards) are going to keep beating a dead horse a little longer until it delivers on the proof of concept. Or, maybe it’ll all go bankrupt and somehow they’ll still retain some of that investment, possibly through taxes. I don’t know, I don’t claim to understand it.
What this means for the day-to-day of a tech worker, is you’re under pressure to perform, to do really, really good. To make long complicated lists about your goals and hopes and dreams and how they tie into the grand vision of the company. If you work really really hard, and show up for your company and treat your coworkers you won’t get a sizable raise. Image and ego stroking are the only things that matter.
What a glorious rant! And full of truth.
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That’s all for now! Thanks for reading! If you missed last week’s Five Things Tech, you can find it here:
🤖
— Nico