European software industry is so interesting because my impression is that the (Western) OSS sector is largely supported by talented European developers. Just a vibe from interacting with hundreds of successful OSS projects.

Europe clearly has endemic talent, and I'm not even sure it's a funding problem rather than an organizational/leadership one. They could throw money at developers who already have decent if humble QoL, or they could bring them together to build large systems that can compete with American big tech.