Leevi Saari

I want to add something this morning. Watching the folks who are building open social - @seabass.bsky.social and @sherif.eurosky.social and the whole Eurosky team - is one of the genuinely inspiring stories in Europe right now. It's not easy to take territory from Big Tech. But we can, and we will.

Enlightening chart from @financialtimes.com today.

Memory is the blood in the circulation of the AI boom. The retail plebs are starting to face a severe case of anaemia.

Against transparency - of Berghain Bouncers and the poverty of thought Despite its prevalence, transparency does not suffice for a normative anchor in tech politics

What Berghain bouncers can teach us about limits of transparency? A lot, I say.

substack.com/home/post/p-...

YouTube video by Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie ICE Kills Another American

The montage towards the end hits especially hard. www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_71...

I can't believe this is a real headline. This sent me directly to the @politico.eu website. Sight to behold

The AI is management and the GPU is labor, I’m not interested in what the suits have to say

Fascintern Media We are facing a coordinated international fascist movement that works with explicit backing from Moscow, Washington, and tech monopolies, and is propagating itself through its own media apparatus. Yet...

2025 is coming to end and some people who claim not to be fascists are still associating themselves with fascist outlets like X.

I claim, perhaps charitably, that it's because they don't understand how the internet works. Either way, this needs to change.
berjon.com/fascintern-m...

🤖 AI is reshaping finance faster than regulation can keep up.

Adriana Cuppuleri from @algorithmwatch.org, @leevisaari.bsky.social from @ainowinstitute.bsky.social and Christian M. Stiefmüller discuss how Big Tech is reshaping our financial system (and society).

#FinanceForSociety

Nvidia’s ‘I’m Not Enron’ memo has people asking a lot of questions already answered by that memo The Streisand Effect strikes again

I mean I did have other things to do today but fine www.theverge.com/business/828...

Meet CoreWeave, the AI industry’s ticking time bomb The debt-laden AI compute company has been boosted by Nvidia.

Essential reading in the AI bubble and the wild Wild West that is the neocloud market - with lots of insight from @leevisaari.bsky.social

www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

Here interesting dynamic are the contract mechanics. The covenants in CRWV DDTL loans seem to make sure that secured lenders get their money back in most eventualities. Hence, it is interesting to ponder who gets burned instead.

OK, who pulled the plug on Cloudflare just to give @ccs.bsky.social the 'reporting LIVE from another global outage' line

Opinion | You May Already Be Bailing Out the AI Business Washington is treating the industry as if it’s too big to fail, even as the market sends lukewarm signals.

OUR @wsj.com OPED: The AI bubble debate misses what's already happening: a massive gov bailout, fast-tracked infrastructure, guaranteed contracts & regulatory exemptions. AI firms get a taxpayer-funded insurance policy that dot-com companies could only dream of.

www.wsj.com/opinion/you-...

Read @404media.co's piece on our new nuclear & AI report by @heidykhlaaf.bsky.social and Dr Sofia Guerra, "Fission for Algorithms: The Undermining of Nuclear Regulation in Service of AI.”

ainowinstitute.org/publications...

Join us for a webinar on December 4th at 1 pm ET to launch our North Star Policy Toolkit for Data center Organizers & Policymakers. We’ll preview the guide and feature a panel of organizers who have won local and state battles against data center expansion.

Register: bit.ly/data-center-...

"Profit-driven companies are an awkward fit as midwives to strategic technological development, and the Trumpian grip over Europe cannot simply be wished away on the grounds of it being humiliating, inconvenient or plainly unpleasant"

I had the honour of sharing some comments on the political economy of neoclouds for this great @theverge.com article by @lopatto.bsky.social

Thorough and compelling read, please check it out!

The big tech playbook By framing digital sovereignty around regulation and political autonomy, big tech has deflected attention from deeper critiques of its systemic power

How does big tech turn Europe's nascent digital sovereignty into a new compliance product, and what would it take to chart a different path? See my take for @fesonline.bsky.social below.

www.ips-journal.eu/work-and-dig...

The big tech playbook By framing digital sovereignty around regulation and political autonomy, big tech has deflected attention from deeper critiques of its systemic power

Want to read something sharp and well-written in advance of the Digital Sovereignty summit tomorrow? That's what @leevisaari.bsky.social is for.

www.ips-journal.eu/work-and-dig...

EU launches strategy to foster ‘sovereign’ AI ecosystem Is it worth redirecting €1 billion of existing funds towards AI adoption?

We got access our hands on the document a early, so here is our deep dive:
@leevisaari.bsky.social
@ainowinstitute.bsky.social
euaipolicymonitor.substack.com/p/eu-launche...

Frederike Kaltheuner, Politikwissenschaftlerin, über problematische Abhängigkeiten von monopolistischen US-Tech-Firmen Frederike Kaltheuner, Politikwissenschaftlerin, über problematische Abhängigkeiten von monopolistischen US-Tech-Firmen

Gute Erklärung von @frederike.bsky.social , warum es wenig Grund zur Freude über die Google-Ankündigung gibt:

Amazon Cloud Outage Reveals Democratic Deficit in Relying on Big Tech | TechPolicy.Press The AWS outage demonstrates the need for a fundamental shift in how we think about digital infrastructure, write Corinne Cath and Don Le.

Today's AWS outage, which affected a range of websites and applications—from Signal to Fortnite to key UK government services—reveals the dangers of relying on a handful of Big Tech firms, write Article 19's Corinne Cath and Don Le. These are not glitches; they are democratic failures, they say.

If you're looking for some rock solid techno-geopolitical analysis, get the good stuff from @leevisaari.bsky.social.

📣THREAD: It’s surprising to me that so many people were surprised to learn that Signal runs partly on AWS (something we can do because we use encryption to make sure no one but you–not AWS, not Signal, not anyone–can access your comms).

It’s also concerning. 1/

We've also taken a closer look at Mistral's new funding round (and what that means for tech sovereignty debates):
More here: euaipolicymonitor.substack.com/p/issue-12-m... @leevisaari.bsky.social

ASML-Mistral is Europe’s dream tech tie-up. Can it deliver? Two tech champions face the daunting task of keeping Europe on the AI map.

Dutch chipmaker ASML is investing €1.3B in French AI firm Mistral. Our EU policy fellow Leevi Saari spoke to @politico.com about how a takeover by Apple would have been “quite negative” for Europe’s tech sovereignty goals.

www.politico.eu/article/asml...

The Brussel’s effect meets hard power AI arms race 2.0: from deregulation to industrial policy in the US

In this week’s EU AI Policy Monitor, Leevi Saari and @frederike.bsky.social unpack EU's Google adtech flip flop and why attacks on Europe’s digital rulebook are so effective.

Read it and subscribe: euaipolicymonitor.substack.com/p/the-brusse...

Nvidia’s ‘Sovereign’ AI Could Win a Prize for Irony The global scramble for chips risks entrenching new tech dependencies in Europe.

What does it mean for Europe to claim AI “sovereignty” atop global supply chains and US-owned chips? @leevisaari.bsky.social shares with @bloomberg.com: what’s on offer increasingly resembles “sovereignty-as-a-service.”

Read Lionel Laurent's story here: www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

The Brussels Defect: "the faith that global politics is all about markets, multilateralism and economic regulation."

Oof. As brutal as it is true. 🧵

NEW REPORT: Artificial Power, our 2025 Landscape Report, is out.

Today’s AI isn’t just being used by us, it’s being used on us. We urgently need to reclaim public power over the future trajectory of AI. Another path is possible.

Read the report: ainowinstitute.org/2025-landscape