To all technical students and engineers in Europe.
The US export control on LLMs is the first taste of what will become the new norm. Many people are calling for "radical measures" and that we need the equivalent of a Manhattan Project to create change in Europe. But this is not how change will happen. Change will never come top-down from a government. The state and EU can fund, but they cannot found it. That part is on us.
You are the only ones who can change this.
You are among the few people on this continent who actually know how to build foundational technology - LLMs, robotic AI, actuators from scratch, chip infrastructure, rocket engines, organoids. ETH, EPFL, TUM, École Polytechnique, KTH, Imperial and dozens more produce absurd talent every single year. And almost all of it talks itself out of building.
We finish our degrees surrounded by such an incredible average that we're sure someone is always better at [your idea] - so who are we to start? I've seen so many friends at ETH think they need to "get more experience first" and take a job at Nvidia or Google and never do anything interesting again.
Technology-driven companies aren't founded by the most qualified person. They're willed into existence by people who see what others do not and refuse to stop. The person who's "better than you" almost never does it. And as for experience, nothing will teach you how to build the thing like, well, just trying to build the thing.
Our education is a chance most of the world will never have. There are people in Europe who have to worry about getting a job. We get to worry about finding our dream job. We're able to make bets that not many people can make or afford. It's nothing anybody expects you to do, but if you want a life filled with purpose, this is a unique kind of responsibility you can choose to step up to.
So if you actually want to do something ambitious, how about changing a continent?
If you really want change, you cannot wait for others. You are one of the few people who can create it. It starts with you.