I’ve spent two decades watching technology trends, and the HSBC analysis on OpenAI confirms what many of us have suspected: the AI revolution is fundamentally an infrastructure arms race, not a simple software update. When a leading firm, faces a projected $207 billion funding gap by 2030 in their most optimistic scenario, the conversation shifts from innovation to pure unit economics. To power its ambitions, OpenAI requires an energy capacity that rivals a mid-sized nation, revealing the $620 billion annual data-center bill that is simply unsustainable under current models.

For us, across Silicon Valley and in the growing tech hubs of Southeast Europe, this analysis is a mandate to re-strategize. The pursuit of AGI has exposed the true, immovable bottleneck: energy, efficiency, and economics. Forget the talent war for a moment; the game is now about power plants, cooling towers, and supply chains. If the world’s most advanced lab can’t make the math work, every other company pursuing large-scale models must now pivot. This challenge is not a signal of collapse, but a catalyst for the next wave of innovation.

The winners of the next decade will not be defined by who develops the best model, but who develops the cheapest one. We need to prioritize breakthroughs in sparse architectures and efficiency gains that drastically cut consumption. The biggest investment cycle since the industrial revolution is here, and it’s disguised as a chat interface. We must stop thinking of this as a software problem and start treating it as an industrial-scale infrastructure problem that demands disciplined capital and energy-aware technology.

The European Commission’s new €2 trillion budget proposal is a textbook example of legislative ambition disconnected from financial reality. The EU has made digital sovereignty a policy imperative, launching landmark frameworks like the AI Act and the Cyber Resilience Act, yet it has failed to allocate specific, substantial funding for open source software, the critical foundation of modern digital infrastructure. Open source is what delivers the transparency, security, and flexibility required for sovereign tech. To fund resilience while sidelining the bedrock of that resilience is a strategic omission that risks undermining every other digital goal the bloc has set.

For global leaders and founders, the business implication is clear: dependence. If Europe does not strategically invest in its open source ecosystem, it guarantees its reliance on foreign tech giants. This structural failure compromises the EU's autonomy and weakens the competitiveness of businesses, particularly those scaling up in Southeast Europe, who need control over their core technology stack. The battleground for the AI era is code ownership, and without explicit funding mechanisms, such as the proposed EU Sovereign Tech Fund, Europe concedes control of its digital future.

This is not merely a policy debate; it’s a critical challenge to our economic autonomy. The next wave of innovation, especially in AI, requires robust, European-owned infrastructure built on open standards. We must treat this not as a side-project, but as a core industrial strategy. The failure to budget for the future of digital infrastructure is short-sighted and directly impacts Europe's ability to drive transformation in an increasingly multipolar world.

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On the product front, the new Gemini 3 model is being hailed for its "product delight" and deeply advanced reasoning engine, which includes a 'Deep Think' capability that moves beyond basic prediction to logical problem-solving. This is a direct competitive strike at the core competence and user experience formerly monopolized by OpenAI, creating a serious erosion of their perceived technological lead in the enterprise space.

The more structural and arguably more impactful move is on the infrastructure side: reports have surfaced that Meta is in discussions to use Google’s custom-built Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) for its own AI model training. If this mega-deal materializes, it would be a foundational shift that directly challenges Nvidia’s hardware dominance, creating a powerful second front in the AI war. For business leaders, this signals a future where the cost of AI compute, the single biggest expense in the industry, will become a fierce competitive lever, driving down the overall price of deploying advanced models for everyone.

Meanwhile, Meta continues its open-source strategy, though not without friction, as evidenced by a prominent Asian AI program opting for a rival's model due to better regional language performance. Concurrently, Grok AI (xAI) is now aggressively integrating its AI-powered ranking system directly into the X platform’s "Following" feed today, which demonstrates a commitment to embedding AI for real-time content and experience curation, forcing every social and enterprise platform to re-evaluate how quickly they must integrate AI into their core user flows.

HackSoft, a well-known engineering company from Sofia, is joining Waracle, a UK digital product consultancy based in Scotland. The move brings together two teams that already proved they work well side by side, and it gives both companies a stronger presence across Europe.

HackSoft was founded in 2017 and has grown into a 55-person team known for solid engineering, a healthy culture, and a practical approach to building products. They’ll continue supporting their existing clients, with a rebrand coming later as they integrate into Waracle. From what the founders shared, the partnership came naturally after a recent joint project, where both sides saw clear alignment in how they think and work.

From my perspective, these kinds of deals matter because they show a shift in how regional companies are growing. It’s not only about scale, but about finding partners who share values, treat people well, and want to build long-term. HackSoft joining Waracle feels like one of those moves that fits the bigger picture of how the Balkan tech scene is maturing.

DevFest Kosova 2025 is coming to Prishtina on 5–6 December, and I’m genuinely glad to see this event growing into something the local community can count on each year. It brings together developers, designers, product people and anyone curious about what's next in tech.

This year’s edition will cover cloud, mobile, AI and a mix of practical sessions and talks. It’s the kind of event where you can learn something useful, meet people who are building real things, and feel the energy of a community that keeps getting stronger. I’ll be there, and I think it’s worth marking your calendar if you want to stay close to the region’s tech momentum. Registrations are already open.

DevFests are local tech conferences hosted by Google Developer Groups (GDG) around the world. Each DevFest is uniquely crafted by its local organizers to fit the needs and interests of their developer community. From hands-on workshops and technical talks delivered by industry experts to networking opportunities that bring together passionate developers, designers, and tech enthusiasts.

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