AI’s capital intensity means Capital Markets Union matters more than ever
An interactive explainer.
Wessel Janse van Rensburg · The Hague and London
Creative technologist, working on Europe’s technology sovereignty.
Many people understand institutions or technology. I understand both, and I build and write. This is my work on Europe’s technology sovereignty: why it matters now, what Europe depends on others for, and whether it can govern what it does not own. Here you will find models, tests, scenarios and arguments.
Available for senior roles in European institutions and think tanks, and for advisory commissions.
Three crafts, one subject
01
Research with code
Models and tests with every figure sourced and every run reproducible. Benchmarks, scenario engines, data pipelines, and tests of what an algorithm does rather than what its maker says.
Capex Watch · GeoVeu · Public Sphere Post Review · the Options Simulator02
Advise on policy
Sovereignty, digital regulation, and money as technology, for boards, supervisors and policy teams. Trained in law, worked in product, advised a global bank: I read the institution, the balance sheet and the code together.
The LSE paper and Atlantik-Brücke, with Andreas Dombret · advisory work since 202003
Make it land
Interactives, scenarios and speeches built so the research gets read. Twenty years of earning attention with technology, from the agency and Reach to Ana Botín’s public voice at Santander.
Diesel Winter · Capex Watch · the Guardian’s Digital Campaign of the YearWork
Written and built, newest first
Each entry says what it argues and how it was built.
In progress
In progress
ASML: the one chokepoint Europe holds
What Europe holds in the semiconductor supply chain and what it cannot make; what Chips Act 2.0 buys without a funding figure; Nexperia as the first test of Dutch economic security.
Oct 2026
Diesel Winter
A scenario for the winter of 2026–27: America bans diesel exports before its midterm elections, and Europe, short of fuel, finally acts as one. Everything to 14 October 2026 really happened.
ArguesA shock from Washington would push Europe together, not apart.
BuiltSeven chapters, six charts, a margin that shows the date and the data as you read. One data file; every point marked real, forecast or invented.
2026 · Live
Capex Watch
What the AI build-out needs to earn to pay for itself. Change the assumptions and see the answer move.
ArguesThe boom is funding real technology and is still likely to end in a crash. Europe does not own the compute and will feel the fall.
BuiltA revenue-floor model with every assumption on a slider, and a dated earnings watch-list that retests the thesis each quarter, fed by GeoVeu.
2026 · Live
GeoVeu
A calendar of the dated events that matter for Europe: summits, rulings, tariff reviews and European Parliament votes.
ArguesEurope’s choices arrive as dates. Most of them are known in advance, and almost nobody keeps the list.
BuiltA rolling timeline with daily AI enrichment and a pipeline that finds European Parliament agenda items with high precision.
2025 · Paper
Learning to Live with Crypto: Supervisory Dilemmas in a Dollarised, Tokenised World (opens another site)
With Andreas Dombret, for the LSE Systemic Risk Centre. A shorter version, “Why stablecoins are Silicon Valley’s Pandora’s box (opens another site)”, at Atlantik-Brücke.
ArguesDollar stablecoins are a monetary dependence, not a payments gadget. A digital euro matters for that reason.
BuiltThe tracking side is GeoLedger: stablecoin currency dominance, market structure, depegs and miner concentration, in four dashboards.
2025 · MVP
Public Sphere Post Review
Checks any social-media post against a research-backed rubric for whether it helps or harms public conversation.
ArguesWhether speech helps a public debate can be scored, and the score can be argued with.
BuiltA rubric turned into a test, run on real posts; the closest thing here to an algorithm audit.
In development
Europe Options Simulator
A scenario engine for Europe’s strategic choices to 2035.
ArguesEurope’s dependencies on Washington, Beijing and Moscow are two-sided, and can be measured.
BuiltA deterministic engine around a choke-exposure index. Every figure carries a source and a confidence tier; every run is reproducible and citable; calibrated against the 2022 gas shock.
Also: Retorik, a voice-matched executive communications platform at pilot stage, and the essays on Leviathan. Every project, on portfolio.raak.work.
Questions I’m working on now
Open, and worth a conversation
How would the EU pay for its own priorities?An interactive.
How, and why, did the EU come about?
Is the digital euro a sovereignty project or a payments project, and does the difference matter to its design?
If Europe can get the productivity gains anyway, why not just use American technology?
What does AI do to the arguments behind Section 230, the US law that shields platforms from what their users post?
If you are working on one of these, write to me.