tarakiyee<p><strong>The Hardware Innovation Monopoly Problem: Why Europe Should Stop Chasing Unicorns</strong></p><pre><strong>I'm writing this article within the context of the SOAM "RE:FUND OUR DIGITAL FUTURE: REIMAGINING FUNDING ARCHITECTURES FOR PUBLIC INTEREST TECHNOLOGY”</strong> <strong>residency program I'm taking part in to order to create a new speculative institutional model with the goal of empowering open hardware infrastructure and promoting its development through an public institution funded by public bonds. <a href="https://tarakiyee.com/how-can-open-hardware-catch-up-with-open-source-software/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">More information in the article where I announced it. </a></strong></pre><p>Europe has a hardware unicorn problem. Not the lack of billion-dollar startups that dominates policy discussions, but something far more fundamental: the continent has fallen into the trap of celebrating private control over public hardware infrastructure as innovation success. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">ASML’s dominance in semiconductor lithography</a> is held up as a European triumph, the <a href="https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/european-chips-act_en" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">European Chips Act allocates €43 billion</a> to create “European champions,” and policymakers dream of building the next TSMC or Nvidia on European soil.</p><p>Within the context of the digital sovereignty discussions happening, I highly question this approach. At worst, it will probably fail, and at best, it will continue to lock us in a system that treats essential technological infrastructure as private property rather than public commons. The real question isn’t how to build European monopolies to compete with American and Asian ones, but how to reclaim democratic control over the infrastructure that shapes technological development through open hardware infrastructure.</p><p>Information-age innovation operates on different principles that challenge the logic of private infrastructure ownership. Open Source Software development has demonstrated that publicly governed, collaborative models can consistently outpace private monopolistic alternatives. Linux powers most servers and smartphones, Apache runs most web servers, and countless developers contribute to open source projects that drive the digital economy.</p><p>The success of open source software commons isn’t just about licensing. It’s about fundamentally different approaches to infrastructure governance. When development tools are publicly available, coordination platforms are democratically governed, and knowledge can be shared instantly, innovation accelerates because the best ideas can emerge from anywhere and spread rapidly across entire ecosystems.</p><p>Hardware development has remained stuck in private monopolistic patterns partly because the underlying infrastructure remains privately controlled. Design tools, manufacturing coordination, and development platforms are owned by a handful of companies that optimize for extraction and scarcity rather than abundance and public benefit. This creates artificial barriers that concentrate innovation capability within a few large private organizations while excluding the broader public from participating in technological decision-making.</p><p>The distinction between infrastructure and end products is crucial for understanding where collaborative models can succeed. Just as we don’t expect every company to build their own internet protocols or programming languages, there’s logic to having shared hardware development tools and platforms. When development tools are publicly available, coordination platforms are democratically governed, and knowledge can be shared instantly, innovation accelerates because the best ideas can emerge from anywhere and spread rapidly across entire ecosystems. This doesn’t mean eliminating competition in final products, but rather ensuring the underlying infrastructure that enables innovation remains accessible to all participants rather than controlled by private monopolies.</p><p>ASML represents both Europe’s greatest semiconductor success and its most instructive failure. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The Dutch company holds a 100% monopoly in EUV lithography equipment</a> required for advanced chip manufacturing, with <a href="https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/extreme-ultraviolet-lithography-market-241564826.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">82.9% overall market share in lithography equipment</a>. While the company claims to have invested $10 billion over 20 years to develop EUV technology, this narrative obscures the massive public investment that made ASML’s monopoly possible.</p><p>EUV development has consumed no less than $14 billion in funding over the years. Much of this came from public sources: <a href="https://www.asml.com/en/news/press-releases/2006/asml-industry-partners-advance-euv-development" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">European EUV R&D programs were organized through MEDEA+, funded by national governments of the Netherlands, Germany, France and Belgium</a>, and <a href="https://www.asml.com/en/news/press-releases/2006/asml-industry-partners-advance-euv-development" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">the IST program supported by the European Commission involving more than 100 companies, institutes and universities</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">ASML operates under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) funded by the US government</a>, and current EU programs like <a href="https://www.asml.com/en/news/press-releases/2025/asml-and-imec-sign-strategic-partnership-agreement" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Horizon Europe, Digital Europe, and the Chips Joint Undertaking have provided approximately €1.4 billion in public investments</a>.</p><p>This is the core issue with privatized public infrastructure: ASML extracts value from technology development that was largely funded by European and American taxpayers, yet makes private decisions about technical roadmaps, pricing strategies, and geographic access. While the company innovates impressively, it innovates in a narrow manner that serves its shareholders’ strategic goals rather than the broader public interest that funded its development. Critical decisions about humanity’s technological infrastructure are made in corporate boardrooms rather than through democratic participation or consideration of the public that financed its creation.</p><p>More fundamentally, ASML’s monopoly exists because the entire ecosystem of hardware development infrastructure has been privatized despite massive public investment in its creation. The company succeeded not just through technical excellence, but because taxpayer-funded research has been converted into proprietary and concentrated private assets. Design software from Cadence and Synopsys costs hundreds of thousands in Euros per license. Access to advanced foundries requires millions of Euros in minimum commitments. Manufacturing coordination happens through opaque networks of established players who control access to publicly-funded technological capabilities.</p><p>This exemplifies the broader problem: when essential technological infrastructure becomes private property, it creates artificial scarcity and concentrates innovation capability within a few large organizations. The tools and platforms that should enable broad participation in technological development instead become barriers that exclude all but the most well-funded players.</p><p>This isn’t a failure of ASML as a company. It’s a failure of the political and economic system that allowed decades of public investment in critical technological infrastructure to be converted into private property and monopoly control. When taxpayer-funded research is privatized and the resulting infrastructure is controlled by private monopolies, only companies with massive resources can participate in advanced development. The result is that decisions about humanity’s technological future are made in corporate boardrooms, optimizing for shareholder returns rather than the democratic participation and public benefit that funded the original development.</p><p>Europe’s current semiconductor strategy perfectly illustrates how policy thinking has become trapped in privatization logic. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Chips_Act" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The European Chips Act aims to increase EU semiconductor production from 10% to 20% of global capacity by 2030</a>, but this €43 billion investment follows traditional subsidy models designed to create private “European champions” that can compete with other private monopolies.</p><p>This approach treats private control of technological infrastructure as inevitable rather than examining whether critical development tools and platforms should be publicly governed in the first place. <a href="https://futurumgroup.com/press-release/top-10-semiconductor-companies-grabbed-67-market-share-in-2024/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The top 10 semiconductor companies controlled 67% of global sales in 2024</a>, with capital requirements that have grown exponentially from thousands to billions of dollars. <a href="https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-to-build-a-20-billion-semiconductor" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Modern fabs require $15–20 billion investments</a>, creating barriers to entry that effectively exclude all but the largest private players.</p><p>But these barriers aren’t purely technical. They’re partly the result of privatized infrastructure that creates artificial scarcity from publicly-funded research. Much of the cost comes from proprietary tools, duplicated private facilities, and coordination inefficiencies rather than fundamental physical constraints.</p><p>Rather than questioning these assumptions about private ownership of technological infrastructure, European policy seems to accept infrastructure privatization and is scrambling for a piece of the cake. This creates a zero-sum competition where success is measured by which private entities capture market share rather than whether technological development serves our democratic goals or public interest.</p><p>What we need is intentional investment into open hardware infrastructure: the design tools, development platforms, manufacturing coordination systems, and standards, which can be developed collaboratively even when final products remain competitive.</p><p>The choice isn’t just about technology policy. It’s about what kind of relationship between technology and democracy Europe wants to build for the 21st century. Information-age innovation requires different organizing principles for its underlying infrastructure that prioritize public benefit over private extraction.</p><p>Europe has the institutional capacity and collaborative traditions to lead this transition. The continent has great examples of creating international institutions that coordinate complex technical work, such as CERN and the European Space Agency. Building a similar institution to build and maintain open hardware infrastructure won’t happen overnight, but requires long-term vision and patient investment.</p><p>The benefits of opening up hardware infrastructure are undeniable. It will enable thousands of companies and millions of engineers to develop hardware solutions faster and more effectively than private monopolistic competition allows, while ensuring that decisions about technological development remain democratically accountable rather than concentrated in private hands.</p><p>We should leave private hardware monopolies model in the past. Publicly governed open hardware infrastructure is the future we deserve, but only if we choose it.</p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://tarakiyee.com/tag/digital-sovereignity/" target="_blank">#digitalSovereignity</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://tarakiyee.com/tag/open-hardware/" target="_blank">#openHardware</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://tarakiyee.com/tag/open-source/" target="_blank">#openSource</a></p>