Why Dutch lithography giant ASML has become a strategic target for Washington

The semiconductor war has long been told through the names NVIDIA, TSMC, Intel, or Huawei. Yet the most strategic company in this standoff is neither American nor Chinese, but European.

For several weeks now, the Trump administration has been raising a growing number of questions about ASML, following suspicions that one of its EUV lithography systems may have ended up in China. The company insists that no machine of this type has ever been exported to Chinese territory and says it has mechanisms in place to track its entire global fleet.

The affair reveals the increasingly deep tension between Washington and the rest of the world. ASML has become one of the most critical industrial assets in the global tech competition — and a genuine irritant for the American government. So much so that, according to Bloomberg News, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick reportedly told ASML executives that the U.S. administration feared that “one of the company’s most advanced machines” may have ended up in China despite export restrictions.

Behind these suspicions lies a far more fundamental question: who really controls the technologies that will determine the future of artificial intelligence?

The most strategic monopoly in the digital economy

Although it’s held the top market capitalization since June 5, ASML’s influence isn’t measured by its stock market value or revenue, but by the absence of any alternative — at least in the short term.

The Dutch company is currently the only firm in the world capable of producing extreme ultraviolet lithography systems — the famous EUV machines — at scale. This equipment is what allows the most advanced components in the electronics industry to be etched.

Each EUV system contains several hundred thousand parts, draws on supply chains spread across multiple continents, and takes years to assemble. Their price now exceeds €350 million for the latest versions.

Without these machines, it’s practically impossible to produce TSMC’s most advanced processors, NVIDIA’s GPUs, or Apple’s custom chips. In other words, behind every AI model, every high-end smartphone, and every modern cloud infrastructure sits, indirectly, a technology controlled by ASML.

It’s a situation with no real equivalent in modern industry — ASML holds a more dominant position in advanced lithography than Intel ever held over microprocessors at its peak, or Microsoft over operating systems in the 1990s.

Washington is no longer just trying to control chips

Since 2019, American strategy toward China has gone through several phases. The first aimed to limit Beijing’s access to the most advanced semiconductors. The second targeted companies capable of designing those chips, Huawei chief among them. The third went after AI accelerators from NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel.

A fourth phase is now underway, one where the target is control of the means of production themselves.

American officials have gradually come to understand that as long as China could access the tools needed to manufacture its own components, it would keep a path toward technological catch-up open.

The logic of control has therefore shifted further up the value chain — to the machine that makes the manufacturing possible in the first place.

Washington’s problem: ASML isn’t American

The American administration has considerable leverage over the global semiconductor industry.

The leading electronic design software is American. The dominant computing architectures are American. The main cloud providers are American. The most advanced GPUs are American. But ASML is not.

The company answers legally to Dutch authorities, its export licenses are issued in The Hague, and its industrial interests don’t always align with Washington’s.

America’s technology-restriction strategy depends on aligning several allied jurisdictions. But the more critical a technology becomes, the harder it is for American officials to accept dependence on foreign players.

China has become too important to ignore

One of the difficulties facing American authorities is that China remains a major market for ASML. The group still expects to generate around 20% of its revenue there in 2026.

For Washington, that economic dependence represents a potential vulnerability. From the American point of view, every dollar earned in China indirectly helps strengthen an industrial ecosystem the U.S. is specifically trying to slow down.

From the European point of view, the situation looks different. Industry players on the continent often see their role as applying the regulations in force, not actively taking part in a geopolitical strategy set in Washington.

This gap in perspective explains part of the current tensions.

The real problem: China is advancing regardless

Another point deserves attention.

Even American officials don’t appear to have public evidence proving an EUV system is actually present in China — yet the progress made by Chinese manufacturers is very real.

Huawei keeps improving its production capabilities, Chinese foundries are gradually increasing their yields, and local players are developing alternatives to Western equipment.

This leads to an uncomfortable conclusion. We cannot rule out that the problem isn’t ASML at all — but that China keeps advancing regardless of any embargo.

ASML, the first test of a new extraterritoriality

The stakes go well beyond semiconductors. What’s playing out today around ASML could foreshadow how Washington intends to manage critical technologies over the next decade.

While Washington’s questions are today directed at a private company, it will be hard for the EU to stay out of the conversation. But is it aware of what ASML represents for Europe — and who within it will carry a voice that will need to combine real firmness with clear diplomacy in dealing with Washington?