The US says ASML’s top chip tool may be in China. ASML says it isn’t
Key takeaways
- That would be a major breach of export controls that have barred ASML from selling EUV to China since the first Trump administration.
- The company says no such machine exists in China and has never existed there.
- You might think this isn t worth paying attention to if you re outside the chip industry, but it is.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
According to Bloomberg, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has, in a series of recent meetings, told senior ASML executives he s concerned that one of the Dutch chipmaker s extreme ultraviolet lithography machines — the EUV systems that are the only tools on Earth capable of printing the most advanced semiconductor patterns — may have ended up in China. That would be a major breach of export controls that have barred ASML from selling EUV to China since the first Trump administration.
It s a serious claim. Senior administration officials told Bloomberg they have evidence that ASML shipped EUV-related components and transport equipment to China, though they ve declined, repeatedly, to show it — to Bloomberg or, apparently, to ASML itself. The company says no such machine exists in China and has never existed there. The Commerce Department didn t respond to Bloomberg s questions about whether it has evidence of an actual EUV system on Chinese soil.
You might think this isn t worth paying attention to if you re outside the chip industry, but it is. ASML is a Dutch company most people have never heard of, but it is, by a wide margin, the most important company in the global AI buildout that isn t named Nvidia or one of the hyperscalers. It makes the only machines on the planet capable of EUV lithography — the process of printing the microscopic circuit patterns that define the most advanced chips.