ASML CEO confident no competitor is close to matching its EUV machines

ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet says the company’s monopoly on extreme ultraviolet lithography remains secure, arguing that challengers underestimate the decades of accumulated engineering required to build viable EUV systems. Despite rising demand driven by AI and hyperscaler spending, Fouquet expects chip supply to remain constrained for years, with ASML scaling production but still unable to meet global needs. He dismissed claims of Chinese reverse‑engineering and downplayed threats from startups like Substrate, noting that making a single EUV image is far easier than producing chips at industrial scale. Fouquet also supports a “generation gap” export model similar to Nvidia’s, selling older tools abroad while keeping cutting‑edge systems closer to home.

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Editor’s note: If you want a deeper sense of why ASML’s CEO speaks with such confidence, I highly recommend watching “The World’s Most Important Machine” by Veritasium. The video shows just how extraordinary the engineering behind ASML’s EUV systems truly is — a decades‑long effort that no competitor has come close to matching. It’s the clearest illustration of why this company’s technological lead isn’t just a claim, but a hard‑earned reality.