ASML reports record bookings as AI demand persists

On Wednesday morning, Dutch photolithography company ASML released its quarterly earnings, revealing an increase in demand that indicates the AI infrastructure boom is continuing without signs of slowing down. One way to track the speed of this expansion is through the hardware supply chain. While market attention often focuses on companies buying billions of dollars of GPUs, looking at their suppliers provides a longer-term view of the market. ASML reported 13 billion euros’ worth of new orders, or “new bookings”—a financial metric representing new orders received during a specific period. This record figure is more than double the bookings from the previous quarter, serving as a primary indicator of future semiconductor manufacturing capacity.

ASML plays a central role in the semiconductor supply chain, making its financial health a bellwether for the industry. The company reported 32.7 billion euros in net sales. It is the sole supplier of Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment, which is required for manufacturing cutting-edge chips. Because companies like Nvidia—the GPU manufacturer and market leader in AI hardware—rely on manufacturers that use ASML’s machines, ASML’s sales reflect long-term industry expectations. Looking at these bookings reveals how much capacity chip manufacturers believe they will need to support data center buildouts in the years to come.

This demand is directly tied to the ongoing buildout of AI infrastructure. According to ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet, the company’s customers have a more positive outlook on the medium-term market due to sustainable AI demand. “In the last months, many of our customers have shared a notably more positive assessment of the medium-term market situation, primarily based on more robust expectations of the sustainability of AI-related demand,” Fouquet stated in the earnings release. This shift suggests that chip manufacturers expect AI laboratories to require the data centers currently under construction, prompting them to spend money now to prepare their production pipelines.

However, this expansion comes with caveats. While current order volumes are strong, future infrastructure spending and order fulfillment are not guaranteed. It may take years for ASML to fill these orders, and customers could potentially scale back or cancel their plans before the equipment is delivered. Nonetheless, the record bookings suggest that any anticipated slowdown in AI infrastructure spending remains speculative for now.

Why it matters

ASML’s record 13 billion euros in new bookings provides a critical indicator that the AI infrastructure boom and demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment remain robust, despite market uncertainty.