ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet on the company’s lithography monopoly

Every time a person uses artificial intelligence, they depend on ASML, a 42-year-old, 44,000-person Dutch company that spends €4.5 billion annually on research and development. Headquartered in the Netherlands, ASML is the only company in the world capable of producing machines for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV), a process used to print microscopic patterns on silicon wafers for semiconductors. These machines cost anywhere from $200 million to upwards of $400 million each. This monopoly has pushed ASML’s valuation to over $530 billion. As the four largest American tech companies commit more than $600 billion to AI infrastructure, demand has surged. Christophe Fouquet, who became CEO of ASML in 2024, warned that the global chip market will be supply-limited for quite a bit. Specifically, Fouquet thinks hyperscalers—large-scale cloud computing providers—will not have enough chips for the next two to five years.

This supply bottleneck has attracted competitors. Substrate, a San Francisco startup backed by investor Peter Thiel, has raised more than $100 million and reached a valuation of over $1 billion by attempting to build a rival lithography machine. Fouquet dismissed the threat, noting that ASML’s EUV development relied on the fact that 80% of the technology already existed from previous products, and solving the EUV light problem alone took 20 years. He emphasized that wanting to build a machine is vastly different from actually producing one. He also addressed xLight, a laser startup working on EUV machine components, noting that it remains unclear whether their technology will offer a cost or performance advantage over ASML’s existing systems. Meanwhile, ASML is deploying its newest generation of technology, high-NA (high numerical aperture) EUV machines, which cost $350 million or more. While TSMC, an ASML customer, has raised concerns about the price, Fouquet stated that the machines reduce the cost of making a wafer on advanced layers by 20% to 30%.

Geopolitics also present challenges, particularly regarding China. Fouquet addressed reports that former ASML engineers in China have partly reverse-engineered the technology. He denied that any EUV machines have been shipped to China. “The idea that one of our systems is in China is simply wrong,” Fouquet said. To prevent technology leaks, ASML maintains a complete separation within the company between those who can access EUV technology and those who cannot. Regarding broader export controls, Fouquet agreed with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s philosophy that maintaining a generation gap in technology exports is an effective strategy to keep a competitive advantage. While ASML currently ships older tools to China as allowed by export controls, the specific tool was first shipped in 2015, representing a significant technology gap.

Why it matters

ASML’s EUV monopoly makes it a critical bottleneck for the global AI industry as hyperscalers commit hundreds of billions of dollars to infrastructure. Fouquet’s perspective clarifies how the company plans to defend its market position against emerging startup rivals and navigate complex geopolitical export controls.