Why Company Sovereignty Matters - China's $1trn Surplus Flood Zone - European Punching

Upside is a weekly pod that looks at the global news headlines and works out what really matters for European tech, venture, startups and investing.

With European VCs - Lomax Ward, Dan Bowyer and Mads Jensen

What’s on the docket this week:

•SpaceX mega-raise / IPO noise: “what are you really buying?”

•“Europe’s euro success”: North–South polarity flipping

•China’s $1T+ goods trade surplus + what it means for Europe

•US defence spend reality check

•AI corner: chips, models, and AI bubble chatter

00:44 — Is DeepMind a “UK business”?

02:07 — Sovereignty is back baby!

•In defence / strategic sectors, cap table sovereignty now affects outcomes.

•Mentioned: UK rules requiring government consent in certain sectors (context: national security screening).

03:18 — DeepMind × UK DSIT partnership

•New partnership + UK research lab expansion; tied to the AI Security Institute and public services.

06:20 — AI tutor moment (education-focused Gemini)

•Vision: curriculum-grounded AI tutor as a once-in-a-generation lever for education.

08:56 — SpaceX: IPO in 2026? Raise ~ $30B? Valuation talk: $1.5T

•Why IPO now if private markets still open? Answer: scale + capital needs + timing.

◦Starlink: fast-growing, high-margin connectivity “golden goose”

14:18 — The “rest of the valuation”: orbital data centres thesis

•Speculative upside: compute in orbit (solar intensity, cooling, vacuum data transmission).

•Reality check: today’s revenue is tiny; power + mass constraints are brutal.

•Europe lens: founder talent often needs the US ecosystem to build at this frontier.

20:02 — Europe gets hit from both sides: US + China

•US signals Western Europe is lower priority; more warmth to Central/Eastern Europe (per discussion).

•China’s exports keep powering ahead; tariffs leak via third-country routing.

25:45 — Musk vs EU + the single-market problem

•Musk lobs political grenades after X/EU regulatory action (context: DSA).

•Core structural issue raised: no true EU single market in financial services → higher friction + lost productivity.

29:17 — Defence spending

•Warning to VCs: commitments don’t equal budgets landing now.

•Startup mismatch: defence procurement cycles vs 18–24 month funding cadence.

32:19 — AI corner: “bubble” talk + positioning

•Institutions trimming exposure at the margin, but not fleeing.

•View expressed: still upside runway, despite concentration and risk-off hedging.

33:44 — Europe W: Mistral open-sources DevStral 2 (coding model)

•Narrative: Europe “back in the open-source game.”

•Contrast: Meta reportedly leaning toward a closed model strategy (“Avocado” mentioned).

35:23 — Chips geopolitics: Nvidia H200s, China domestic ramp

•Thesis: export controls accelerate Chinese domestic chip ecosystems.

•Mentions: Huawei Ascend; Moore Threads momentum (plus broader “self-reliance” logic).

38:18 — Deal of the week: Unconventional AI — $475M seed