Typically, the acquisition of a software distributor isn’t big news.

But EMA Design Automation isn’t your ordinary distributor. And its purchase, by Cadence, isn’t your ordinary acquisition.

The EIPC Winter Conference in February was revealing for several reasons, not the least of which was that the view among the 125 primarily European electronics engineers and executives in attendance was their industry and governments had failed them by not acting more swiftly and vigorously to staunch the offshoring tide.

Analysis of artificial intelligence’s place in the world is as ubiquitous (and occasionally, insufferable) as those chatbots cluttering up many businesses’ websites. Not unironically, then, am I adding to the din.

Many years ago, in The Dark Knight, Batman’s nemesis the Joker famously observed that nobody panics when things go “according to plan – even if the plan is horrifying.” It’s when the unexpected happens that chaos erupts.