Bloomberg reports that U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has expressed concerns in several recent meetings that one of ASML’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) systems— the sole machines on Earth capable of printing the most advanced semiconductor patterns—may have ended up in China. This allegation would represent a serious violation of export controls that have prohibited ASML from selling EUV technology to China since the first Trump administration.
Senior officials in the administration claim they possess evidence that ASML shipped EUV-related components and transport equipment to China, yet they have repeatedly refused to disclose it—neither to Bloomberg nor to ASML. The company maintains that no such machine exists in China and has never existed there. The Commerce Department has not responded to inquiries about whether it has proof of an EUV system on Chinese soil.
While this issue may seem niche to those outside the chip industry, it is of nationwide importance. ASML, a Dutch company largely unknown outside technology circles, is by far the most critical supplier in the global artificial‑intelligence infrastructure—second only to companies like Nvidia or major hyperscalers. Its EUV machines are the only tools capable of producing the microscopic circuit patterns that define the most advanced processors.
The leading semiconductor foundry, TSMC, which builds Nvidia’s and Apple’s chips, uses ASML equipment for all its cutting‑edge die, after roughly two decades and billions of dollars of development. With no second supplier, ASML is Europe’s most valuable public company, its market capitalization hovering around $700 billion this week after a surge driven by AI‑driven chip demand.
This dominance is why the Chinese question matters: a single EUV machine in Chinese hands would represent a monumental breach of the U.S. export‑control framework designed to keep advanced AI capabilities out of the hands of Beijing’s military and industrial base.
I spoke with ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet six weeks ago, before this story broke, and asked him directly about the issue of potential Chinese possession.
Fouquet explained that ASML records every machine it ever ships—either as active customers under close monitoring or as dismantled units returned to the company. He described a “firewall” implemented years ago: employees who can access EUV technology, documentation, and training are on a different side than those who cannot, and ASML’s China‑based teams sit on the wrong side of that wall by design. According to Fouquet, the only part of an EUV machine that had to be solved anew—generating EUV light itself—took the last 20 years to achieve, building on 80 % of existing knowledge. Consequently, he asserted that a machine could not be reverse‑engineered by China, which has never had an EUV system.
There is also a clear commercial logic that would dissuade ASML from breaching its export license to quietly supply a Chinese customer. While the company does sell older‑generation deep ultraviolet (DUV) tools to China—a technology it originally shipped a decade ago—Fouquet framed this as a protective calculation rather than a loophole. The idea is to maintain a generational gap that lets customers continue to do business without creating a future competitor. ASML estimates that about 20 % of its 2026 revenue will come from permitted sales to China, and that the company is unwilling to risk its EUV ban and its standing as Europe’s leading technology monopoly over a single illegitimate sale.
None of this definitively disproves the allegations. The government has not yet made its evidence public, and judgment should wait until it does.
Under Lutnick’s leadership, the Commerce Department agreed late last year to invest up to $150 million of taxpayer money in xLight, a start‑up developing next‑generation light‑source technology that could challenge ASML’s EUV monopoly. xLight’s CEO told me that year the company sees itself as a future partner to ASML, not a rival, building hardware to integrate with ASML’s machines rather than replace them. When I broached the topic with Fouquet in May, he was courteous, yet unconvinced; he made clear that ASML does not view its success as hinging on xLight’s technology.
That relationship does not explain why Lutnick is now scrutinizing ASML’s EUV program. There is no public link, and it could well be unrelated, though the co–occurrence of federal scrutiny and agency funding of a potential competitor deserves close attention.
xLight is not the only external bet on lithography’s future. Peter Thiel has backed Substrate, a start‑up pursuing a distinct EUV‑rival technology with the aim of directly competing with ASML beyond what xLight intends.
A bipartisan bill moving through Congress would go even further than the EUV ban, calling for a comprehensive freeze on all of ASML’s DUV shipments to China—the less advanced lithography tools that account for roughly one‑fifth of the company’s expected 2026 revenue. The bill cleared a key committee in April, and the Trump administration has not taken an official stance.
Pictured above: ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet
