THE BOMBSHELL OF THE WEEK
OpenAI launches “OpenAI Deutschland” with SAP: ChatGPT for the German government with full sovereignty
On September 24, OpenAI and SAP announced “OpenAI for Germany”—ChatGPT for the ENTIRE German public sector, running on 100% sovereign data centers in Germany. Microsoft is left OUT of the equation. It’s the first country with its own national OpenAI.
SAP is building 4,000 GPUs in German data centers completely separate from Microsoft Azure. Delos Cloud (an SAP subsidiary) will operate EVERYTHING independently. Neither Microsoft nor OpenAI USA will be able to touch the data. It’s as if Germany had nationalized ChatGPT.
Sam Altman personally flew to Berlin to sign, and it’s the first time OpenAI has agreed to give up total control. Christian Klein (SAP CEO) keeps saying “built in Germany, for Germany.”
Satya Nadella had to smile at the announcement while Microsoft loses access to millions of government users. By 2026, EVERY German public employee will have sovereign ChatGPT. It’s the model France (with Mistral) and the UK want to copy.
SAP is investing €20B in German digital sovereignty. If it works, ALL of Europe will demand its own national version of AI.
POWER MOVES
• Nokia laid off 2,000 workers in China and 350 in Europe (Sept 22): The Finnish giant is cutting 20% of its workforce in China and closing offices in Germany, France, and the UK. The plan: save €1.2B by 2026. The reality: they lost the 5G war against Huawei and now they’re bleeding.
• AI Act compliance deadline in force (Sept): Since August 2, 2025, the AI Act is fully active. OpenAI and Anthropic signed the voluntary “Code of Practice” in July. Only 5-15 global companies (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft) are under maximum scrutiny. TensorTrust tests show only Claude performs well on compliance; the rest fail on discrimination.
• Exodus in Berlin (Sept 25): HeyJobs (recruiting platform) lays off 90 people, SeatGeek (online tickets) cuts 15% at its Berlin office. The German startup ecosystem is collapsing: it raised €10B in 2024 but this year is tracking at -40% (only €6B in 9 months). Investors are fleeing Europe for Silicon Valley, where the AI boom remains intact.
• SAP quietly cuts 3,000 jobs (Sept): The German software giant (€30B revenue, an Oracle/Microsoft competitor) is eliminating 2.5% of its 100,000+ employees “to optimize the portfolio.” The reality is that its cloud business is losing market share to Azure and AWS. The CEO calls it “controlled restructuring,” but employees on Blind (the anonymous app where tech workers share internal secrets) report “total panic” and more layoffs coming.
MONEY TALKS
• Nscale UK (Sept 25): $1.1B Series B—THE LARGEST SERIES B IN EUROPEAN HISTORY. Led by Aker ASA (the Norwegian energy giant) with Microsoft, OpenAI, NVIDIA. They’re going to build AI data centers powered by renewable hydroelectric energy in Norway. It’s the UK/Norway answer to Germany’s OpenAI-SAP deal: every country wants its own sovereign AI infrastructure. In Spain, we have ALIA (irony mode on).
• Factory AI (Sept 25): $50M Series B at a $300M valuation. NEA leads, with Sequoia and NVIDIA participating. They build tools where AI agents write code automatically (not humans). MongoDB, Bayer, and Zapier are already customers. The message they’re sending: within 2 years, programmers will be AI supervisors, not people who write code directly.
• Tide London (Sept 22): $120M to become a unicorn ($1.5B valuation). It’s a digital bank exclusively for small businesses (SMEs), like a “Revolut for business.” TPG and Apax lead. The irony: while Silicon Valley flees fintech for not being profitable, Europe keeps betting big.
PRODUCT SECRETS
• Mistral “Le Chat Enterprise” (May-Sept): Mistral (the French OpenAI) tripled its revenue in 100 days after launching Le Chat Enterprise. BNP Paribas (investor and customer) uses its models for sales and support. On September 1 it added “Memories” - it remembers previous conversations. For European companies that need GDPR compliance, it’s the alternative to ChatGPT.
• EU Digital Identity Wallet (Sept 26): Europe launches its own mandatory digital wallet (like Apple Wallet, but run by the government). Beta in Spain, Germany, and France. By 2026, ALL Europeans will need it for official procedures. Apple Pay and Google Wallet will be banned for government services. The EU wants to control its citizens’ digital identity.
• Tesla Giga Berlin production boost (Sept): Tesla is ramping up production in Berlin on “very strong sales” in Q3/Q4. André Thierig (head of production) confirmed the upward revision. The plant now produces 3,000-4,000 Model Y/week and started autonomous FSD in September. Meanwhile, Optimus (ITS humanoid robot) is still in testing at US plants, not in Berlin.
NUMBERS VS REALITY
The metrics that aren’t in the press releases
• Mistral vs OpenAI - The European bubble: Mistral (French) is worth €11.7B but only books €50M a year in revenue. OpenAI is worth 500B and books 3.5B. Do the division: investors pay €234 for every €1 Mistral books, but only 142 for every 1 of OpenAI’s. Mistral is 65% more inflated than OpenAI — or France knows something we don’t.
• GDPR - Fake fines: Since 2018, the EU has collected €5.88B in total GDPR fines. Meta paid €1.2B (20% of it). Sounds like a lot until you do the math: Meta generates €1.2B in revenue in just 3 days. For them, GDPR fines are like parking tickets: annoying but affordable. They don’t change behavior.
• Nokia - Suspicious math: Nokia says laying off 2,350 people saves €400M/year. Each employee “cost” €170K. But the average salary at Nokia is €65K. Where’s the other €105K per employee? Answer: million-euro severance packages for executives leaving with golden parachutes while engineers get the legal minimum.
VALLEY DRAMA
• The Paris vs Berlin cold war: France has Mistral (its ChatGPT) valued at €11.7B. Germany has Aleph Alpha (its competitor) nearly dead. Macron gloats, Scholz is furious. Germany’s revenge? Blocking European funds for French startups.
• ASML betrays its customers: ASML (Dutch) makes the only machines in the world for producing advanced chips. Its customers (NVIDIA, Intel, TSMC) depend on them. Now ASML has invested €1.3B in Mistral, becoming a competitor to its own customers. Jensen Huang (NVIDIA CEO) reportedly called ASML’s CEO a “traitor” on a private call (so they say). It’s like your only gas supplier opening its own taxi company.
• Spain’s Startup Law is a total failure: Spain created a law to attract startups with tax benefits. A year later, only 200 companies have qualified. Why? Absurd requirements: being profitable (startups lose money for years), being innovative (who decides?), and having 60% EU employees (impossible in tech). Result: Spanish startups incorporate in Delaware (USA) and put, at most, a sales office in Spain.
WHAT TO WATCH NEXT WEEK
• EU AI Act - First fines (Oct 2): The EU could announce the first big AI Act fines. Rumors point to three targets: Meta (for training AI on European data without permission), OpenAI (it has no EU office as the law requires), and Midjourney (it generates copyrighted images). Each fine could be €35M to “send a message” to everyone else.
• Berlin Startup Week - The funeral (Sept 30-Oct 5): The annual Berlin startup event expects 50% lower attendance. With funding down -40% and mass layoffs, American investors are canceling. It could mark the official end of the “Berlin startup ecosystem.”
• Tesla vs German unions (Oct 1): IG Metall (Germany’s most powerful union) is demanding from Tesla: a 15% pay raise + a guarantee NOT to replace humans with robots. If Musk says no, there will be a massive strike. Watching Elon Musk fight German unions will be entertaining.
MY TAKE
The AI Act is starting to look like a masterstroke to me.
Europe is playing chess. They’re not trying to win at AI. They’re trying to collect rent on it. It’s the colonial model inverted: if you can’t create the technology, tax whoever creates it — massively. The AI Act isn’t regulation; to me, it’s a business model.
The OpenAI Deutschland deal strikes me as pivotal. Not so much because public employees handling confidential information can now use it without risk of data loss, but because — and this is the key point for me — that government AI will open infinite possibilities for tax enforcement, which I believe is what this is really about.
Mistral trading at obscene multiples tells me something is cooking that we don’t know about — but we will. And maybe OpenAI, at 500B, is actually cheap.
The startup situation in Spain is laughable. In case the Startup Law had any chance of surviving, the AI Act finishes it off. It reminds me of the Wipp ad from the 90s with the famous slogan “El frotar se va a acabar” (“scrubbing is over”) — now it’ll be “innovating is over.”
I’m going to go out on a limb.
I believe that in 2 years there will be TWO internets. One for USA/Asia with unlimited AI. Another for Europe with neutered AI. Europeans will use VPNs to connect to the first one and get fined for it. It will be like the Cold War, but digital. The Berlin Wall will be a firewall.
As you can see, I’ve removed the references. I think they add a lot of noise, so you’ll have to trust me or look things up on Perplexity. If you want them back, say so in the comments.
Fourth issue. Still motivated.
I’ve noticed a second-order effect. Before, I ran the agents and I was just a consumer of the newsletter, without really weighing the output. Now I do several iterations selecting what I think will interest you most that week, and in the end I’m the one who learns more.
And you know the drill: if you comment, repost, or share it with your friends, then maybe after issue 12 — which is when I’ll evaluate whether to continue — the answer will be YES.
I’m counting on you. Thank you