Plans for the Cloud.

I read about national (and European) plans for the cloud, or for AI, or any other really cool technology, and I honestly remain very cold. I say this because it seems that governments are not getting the point of innovation. And since I work ONLY in the emerging technologies sector, I would like to say a few words.

Let's take an example: electric cars.

Suppose we invested large amounts of money in electric cars, say in 1995. Let's be clear, electric vehicles have been around for a long time, so 1995 wasn't that “behind”. Only one detail was missing, in 1995.

The proper batteries were missing.

In 1995, you could invest as much as you wanted in electric cars, but with the budget of a government, and also of Europe, you could not solve the problem.

So how did the batteries of today's electric cars come about?

They came when the cell phone industry invested "gozzillions" of money, for twenty years straight, to have better batteries. And let's be clear: this is the amount of money that neither Italy, nor Germany nor the EU could reach. It was a long investment, protracted over time and subject to both competition and progressive investments.

So let's face it: if you wanted to invest in electric cars in 1995, you ALSO had to invest in cell phones. Which unfortunately, at the time it was a bit, as if to say "lacking". This is the point.

Simple and dry: the main technology for the electric car comes from the world of telephony, and not from the automotive sector. And this is nothing strange. The "cloud" comes, in large part, from the software industry. And so on.

I was in a bio company a few days ago. We have to do a job for them. Apart from seeing very cool things like "RNA printers", which are really literally RNA printers , the thing that struck me at a "professional" look was that an "RNA printer", on the hardware level, is not much more 'of a thermomix (in Italy: the Thermomix). It is the software that makes the difference.

So today, if we want to invest, let's say, in * bio, we have to invest primarily in software. Everything was "software" in there. One could not handle data blocks such as those of the ANN in mind. Computers are needed. But especially: you need software.

So, let's ask ourselves: what is the sense of an investment to further develop bio *, if we are not developing an industry capable of competing on software? If the software is made in the US, the US will always be the most important supplier for the industry that uses it.

And then it occurs to me that "the national cloud" is being built. National? You're using Intel processors, (maybe AMD), hypervisors that are made in the USA, chips made in China … why do you call it "national cloud"?

What addiction should it free you from, exactly?

The problem with innovation is that it is not made from the final product, but from the so-called “building blocks”. The battery that lasts a long time is a building block, which helps both to make cell phones, cars, and maybe who knows, earphones have improved in the biomedical sector. And who knows how many other things in other sectors.

Innovation is not monolithic, it is made up of "building blocks". And the ONLY way to stay innovative, for an area of ​​the planet, is to have as many building blocks as possible, or at least a large number. If the thing below is missing ONLY ONE building block, it doesn't work (whatever it does) and you have created an addiction.

Innovation is not a vertical phenomenon. It is given by the possibility of freely combining different "building blocks", which must be available, cheap and especially known to innovators.

Making a cloud using US made CPUs, US made servers with Chinese components, and software developed elsewhere can give you many things but not a "national" cloud.

Investing in bio technologies * when all the software that allows them to exist is written in the USA, or almost, will NEVER give you any industrial autonomy.

Sensible investment in the world of innovation is that which increases the number of powerful "building blocks" in a given country (or area). The more there are, the more innovation increases.

Now you will say: yes, but how can you invest effectively in the direction of "increasing the number of building blocks?".

There are two ways:

• schooling. ALL students, of any address, course or specialization, must be able to write code. Of any kind, any language is fine, but thinking that computer science in schools is the use of Office and little else is a worrying message.
• prioritization. For example, software is everywhere. And it is the “building block” that is missing in Europe. When I hear about the "gay project", I wonder "and who will do it to you, SAP?". (In fact, they chose nextcloud, developed in PHP with Zend Technologies, based in Minnesota. WOW! What autonomy.) Another point, silicon. Car factories are down because there are no chips. Third point, electronics. It makes me laugh when I think that there are "computer scientists" who are missing three layers above the physical level.

Here, for this reason I am VERY skeptical about the investment work done in vertical sectors. You would not have had the electric car without the batteries developed with huge investments from the world of mobile phones, you would not have had artificial intelligence without the GPUs born for the world of video games, you would not have had the vaccine without the cloud, and so on: vertical investments, in a single sector that seems strategic, are the losing strategy. What matters are the "building blocks".

I am very perplexed by the "vertical" plans that I see: lobbyists will LOVE them VERY, but I wouldn't bet on their effectiveness.

And when the network card firmware of your server in the "national" cloud is written in the US, talking about "privacy" is completely useless. They get in when they want.