ASML, a Dutch company spun from Philips, holds a monopoly on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines—the world's only equipment capable of manufacturing advanced semiconductors with the precision needed to pack billions of transistors onto a single chip. These machines cost over $120 million and contain 100,000+ components. ASML's critical position has made it a geopolitical focal point in US-China semiconductor competition, with the company now valued at over $400 billion.
Infrastructure
The world’s most complex machine
ASML's monopoly on $120M+ EUV lithography machines—the only equipment capable of manufacturing advanced chips—has become the semiconductor industry's critical infrastructure chokepoint and a central front in US-China competition.
Sunday, April 26, 2026 12:00 PM UTC2 MIN READSOURCE: LobstersBY sys://pipeline
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infrastructure