WingNews logo WingNews
top | item 47161494

(no title)

throw_m239339 | 5 days ago

> I think Europe should invest into manufacturing RAM. RAM isn't going anywhere, all of modern compute uses it. This would be an opportunity to create domestic supply of it.

It's easy to build factories, much more difficult to train the engineers required to run them... and let's not even talk about all the crazy regulations & environmental rules at the EU level that make that task even more difficult, because yes, chip factories do pollute... a lot.

Countries like South Korea or Taiwan have adapted all their legislations and tax, environmental regulations to allow such factories to operate easily. The EU and EU countries will never do that... better outsource pollution and claim they care about the planet...

discuss

order

SolubleSnake|5 days ago

I am a CAD engineer and software developer who has worked in manufacturing a lot in the UK in various industries - products as big as superyachts and as small as peristaltic pumps. I think if the UK and EU are to try and defend their weakening and shrinking manufacturing sectors (these industries have been disappearing for my entire adult life) then it is possible but difficult...In 10 to 20 years it will be impossible.

The reason is as you have described. We are getting close to where the numbers of people with practical experience working in, managing, and designing things like the work processes and factory layouts in industries that build physical products are disappearing. We're losing a lot of capable practical engineers with hands on experience. We can keep the universities going teaching the physical subjects but those lecturers wouldn't know even where to begin on designing and building efficient factories unfortunately.

We'd probably end up having to get Chinese and Taiwanese businesses to outsource their 'experts' back to us in order to actually do this and pay them a fortune - basically the reverse of what was happening in the manufacturing sector in the 80s and 90s!

throwaway_20357|5 days ago

This is going on for decades and I wonder what the actual business model for the EU economy is in the future. With all factories soon gone, will Europe rely on agriculture, tourism and some services only? Back to a "developing country" economy?

trollbridge|5 days ago

Doesn’t the EU have an excellent education system?

nine_k|5 days ago

Even the most excellent education system takes several yeas to educate a high-schooler to a level of a junior engineer. Then several more years are needed for the best of them to become senior engineers, with the knowledge and experience that a university alone cannot provide.

So, we're looking at a decade-long project at least, even if everything goes as planned, and crazy fast, in the technical and administrative departments.

TacticalCoder|5 days ago

> Doesn’t the EU have an excellent education system?

Excellent universities, overall. But results from primary and secondary schools are nose diving at a more than alarming rate in several EU countries. Literacy rates are falling, math grades are falling. There's IMO only so much time before universities begin to be affected as well.

Ray20|5 days ago

[deleted]

throw_m239339|5 days ago

> Doesn’t the EU have an excellent education system?

Well, the EU has not manufactured a whole lot of chips in the last 30 years, where do you get the people with the professional experience to teach new engineers... Oh you mean you have to import the teachers from South Asia too? /s and it takes what, 5 years at the minimum to train an engineer? France and UK used to produce entire home computers... in the 80's...