Tech Gets Real

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday proposed a wide-ranging “alliance for the future” between his country and the European Union. It was all about self-preservation in the face of Trump’s America – and a lot of it was about tech sovereignty, particularly regarding AI and its infrastructure.

(Sorry for mangling “Bruegel”…)

Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control at a time of rapid technological change. I'm Berlin-based tech journalist David Meyer, and I've been covering tech policy for two decades. If you like this, please hit like and subscribe, and share it with others who might find it useful.

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REFERENCES:

Full video of Carney’s speech https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/video/formal-sitting-with-mark-carney-canadian-prime-minister-address-by-mark-carney-canadian-prime-minister_I294232

Official transcript (slightly different) of the speech https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/speeches/2026/09/17/prime-minister-carney-delivers-address-european-parliament

My ISMG article on Carney’s address https://www.govinfosecurity.com/canadian-pm-floats-tech-sovereignty-alliance-europe-a-32856

Europe 2031 estimates of EU compute capacity https://europe2031.ai/compute-forecast/

Bruegel analysis of Europe’s comparative disadvantage in compute capacity https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/how-can-europe-address-its-pressing-ai-compute-infrastructure-shortfall

Report on Canadian data center capacity https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/politics/2026/07/08/canada-data-centre-capacity-could-soar-to-20-gw-in-planned-projects-government-document/

Anthropic has not given UK and European AI officials access to Mythos 5.1, its latest powerful model, seemingly because the Trump administration won’t allow it. There’s no easy explanation for this – especially as OpenAI is being allowed to grant similar access to its latest model,

Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control at a time of rapid technological change. I'm Berlin-based tech journalist David Meyer, and I've been covering tech policy for two decades. If you like this, please hit like and subscribe, and share it with others who might find it useful.

To contact me, please email david@techgetsreal.com or connect on:

Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/superglaze.eurosky.social
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@superglaze
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidmeyerwrites
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmeyer2/

REFERENCES:

Financial Times on UK AI Security Institute being shut out https://www.ft.com/content/560e1c8b-f163-4fd6-b604-e905550ac870

My ISMG article on Anthropic’s Mythos access promise https://www.databreachtoday.com/europe-edges-closer-to-claude-mythos-access-a-31827

FedScoop on CAISI being underfunded https://fedscoop.com/caisi-would-benefit-from-more-resources-ostp-director-tells-lawmakers/

Protect Democracy on Trump voluntary AI framework lawsuit https://protectdemocracy.org/work/uncovering-the-trump-administrations-secret-rules-for-ai-model-release/

Anthropic announcement of Mythos 5.1 and Fable 5.1 https://www.anthropic.com/claude-fable-and-mythos-5-1

Jacob Coxon’s X posts on AI risks https://x.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843

Anthropic post on Mythos security https://www.anthropic.com/research/alignment-assessment-cybersecurity-incidents

Europe’s attitude towards data retention – seeing it as mass surveillance anytime people’s information is indiscriminately collected and stored – may be changing, judging from a new opinion from the chief adviser to the EU’s highest court, the Court of Justice.

Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control at a time of rapid technological change. I'm Berlin-based tech journalist David Meyer, and I've been covering tech policy for two decades. If you like this, please hit like and subscribe, and share it with others who might find it useful.

To contact me, please email david@techgetsreal.com or connect on:

Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/superglaze.eurosky.social
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@superglaze
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidmeyerwrites
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmeyer2/


REFERENCES:

Digital Rights Ireland ruling https://infocuria.curia.europa.eu/tabs/affair?sort=AFF_NUM-DESC&searchTerm=%2522C%252D293%252F12%2522&publishedId=C-293%2F12

Tele2 Sverige / Watson ruling https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:62015CJ0203

La Quadrature du Net I ruling https://infocuria.curia.europa.eu/tabs/affair?lang=en&sort=AFF_NUM-DESC&searchTerm=%2522c%252D511%252F18%2522&publishedId=c-511%2F18

Irish Garda-Dwyer ruling https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:62020CJ0140

German SpaceNet ruling https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:62019CJ0793

La Quad II ruling https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:62021CJ0470

Szpunar’s opinion in the present case (Académie Fiscale) https://infocuria.curia.europa.eu/tabs/jurisprudence?sort=DOC_DATE-DESC&searchTerm=%2522C%252D661%252F24%2522&publishedId=C-661%2F24

We’re used to manufacturers leaving smart devices buggy or completely abandoning them for various reasons. But AI is now proving useful for reverse-engineering firmware – which clearly presents big cybersecurity risks as well as opportunities for taking real ownership of one’s own possessions – and new European laws also promise to force manufacturers to take longevity more seriously.

Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control at a time of rapid technological change. I'm Berlin-based tech journalist David Meyer, and I've been covering tech policy for two decades. If you like this, please hit like and subscribe, and share it with others who might find it useful.

To contact me, please email david@techgetsreal.com or connect on:

Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/superglaze.eurosky.social
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@superglaze
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidmeyerwrites
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmeyer2/

REFERENCES:

The Guardian on European heatwave deaths https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/25/at-least-35000-excess-deaths-europe-back-to-back-heatwaves

Chaz Schlarp’s blogpost on reverse-engineering peripherals https://schlarp.com/posts/everything-i-own-owned/

Tech Radar on Spotify Car Thing’s revival https://www.techradar.com/audio/four-years-after-its-untimely-demise-spotify-car-thing-is-back-for-free-and-with-absolutely-no-help-from-the-streaming-giant-itself

Mira on GitHub https://github.com/mira-thing/mira-releases/releases#release-v1.1.0

European Commission on Right to Repair Directive https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/right-repair-new-consumer-rights-easy-and-attractive-repairs-2026-07-31_en

Cyber Resilience Act https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/cyber-resilience-act

My ISMG article on Cyber Resilience Act guidance https://www.bankinfosecurity.net/iot-sector-given-final-eu-cyber-resilience-act-guidance-a-32349

In the wake of OpenAI’s accidental hack of Hugging Face, over 1,000 luminaries from the AI industry have called for an international agreement on slowing down the pace of AI development – signatories include Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. That kind of deal is unlikely. But without it, unconstrained capitalism won’t allow any company to slow down unilaterally.

Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control at a time of rapid technological change. I'm Berlin-based tech journalist David Meyer, and I've been covering tech policy for two decades. If you like this, please hit like and subscribe, and share it with others who might find it useful.

To contact me, please email david@techgetsreal.com or connect on:
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/superglaze.eurosky.social
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@superglaze
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidmeyerwrites
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmeyer2/

REFERENCES:

Hugging Face post-mortem on OpenAI incident https://huggingface.co/blog/agent-intrusion-technical-timeline

Announcement of AI Kill Switch Act bill https://lieu.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/reps-lieu-and-moran-introduce-bill-require-kill-switch-ai-systems-can

Pacing the Frontier petition https://www.pacingthefrontier.com/

Wikipedia article on previous call for an AI development pause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pause_Giant_AI_Experiments:_An_Open_Letter

Reuters on suspicious activity of OpenAI agents https://www.reuters.com/business/its-ai-agent-spent-days-hacking-company-sources-say-openai-did-not-notice-week-2026-07-24/