ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet's latest remarks on the ban on exporting chipmaking equipment to China highlight a deepening dilemma for Western tech firms. The tighter the curbs, analysts say, the greater the risk of harming their own market interests, disrupting global supply chains and accelerating China's push for technological self-reliance. ASML is the Dutch supplier of advanced lithography equipment used in the production of semiconductors, some of which the U.S. has banned for export to China. In a rare interview on the sidelines of a technology event in Antwerp, Belgium, Fouquet said the booming global semiconductor market will be “tense” with tight supply for the foreseeable future, with demand from AI, satellites and robots outpacing what the industry can produce, according to Reuters. He also said there would likely be “sporadic bottlenecks throughout the supply chain” of a chip market that could reach USD1.5 trillion by 2030.
Fouquet called for more consistent rules around exports of chipmaking equipment to China. He said the lower-tech DUV tools ASML sells to China are based on technology introduced in 2015 or “eight generations of chip technology ago.” He warned that further restrictions would only push China to develop its own competing tools faster. “If I put you in a desert and tell you you're not going to have access to food anymore, how long does it take you to make your own garden? It's a matter of survival.” ASML, Europe's most valuable firm, dominates the market for systems used to print the tiny circuitry on high-tech chips. Its most advanced tools are essential for producing logic chips used in AI, as well as the memory chips needed alongside them.
Fouquet's latest remarks show that U.S. extraterritorial pressure and Washington-led curbs on chip equipment exports to China have deepened the dilemma facing Western equipment makers, with China's rapid progress in independent semiconductor R&D creating growing market pressure, Liu Gang, Chief Economist at the Chinese Institute of New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Strategies, told the Global Times. Despite long-term equipment restrictions and technology blockades by some Western countries, China has continued to advance in immersion lithography and other key chip technologies, Liu said. “For ASML, which has long dominated lithography equipment, China's progress is a commercial reality it must take seriously.”
In April, U.S. lawmakers proposed a law forcing allies to abide by U.S. restrictions, blocking ASML's sales and servicing of its DUV immersion lithography tools to customers in China, leading to a decline in ASML shares. The Netherlands has previously aligned with the U.S. on restrictions barring ASML from selling its most advanced equipment to Chinese customers, but the latest U.S. proposal went further by seeking to force its allies to follow Washington's export controls against China. The proposed law drew objections from the Dutch government. Dutch Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma said the main objection was the bill's extraterritorial nature, referring to provisions that allow Washington to impose restrictions on companies outside the U.S. He also warned that it could hurt the market position of semiconductor companies, including ASML.
Liu pointed to the extent of U.S. influence over ASML, saying that key parts of ASML's most advanced systems remain tied to U.S.-controlled technologies, while its overseas sales are heavily constrained by U.S. policy, which makes it difficult for the company to make fully independent commercial decisions. “The U.S. is asking its allies to bear the commercial cost of Washington's strategic competition with China. For European companies, however, losing access to the Chinese market, or facing repeated uncertainty over China-related business, will directly weaken their global position,” Liu said. A third of ASML's sales last year were to customers in China, and are forecast to account for 20% of the total in 2026. But the new U.S. rules could weaken ASML sales to a single digit percentage.
Meanwhile, China has made technological self-reliance and industrial upgrading central to its next-stage development agenda. According to the outline of the 15th Five Year Plan (2026-30), China will take measures to achieve decisive breakthroughs in key core technologies in major fields such as integrated circuits, industrial machine tools, high-end instruments, basic software, advanced materials, and biomanufacturing. That push is already reflected in lithography-related materials. Earlier in May, the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory said Chinese researchers had developed an AI-powered platform that enables the stable production of high-purity, consistent and efficient krypton fluoride (KrF) photoresist resin, a core chipmaking material whose quality directly affects chip performance and yield. The momentum is also visible in microchips. Alibaba's chip unit T-Head has unveiled the Zhenwu M890, whose performance is three times that of the previous-generation Zhenwu 810E. Industry observers see the 810E as broadly comparable to Nvidia's H20, a cut-down AI chip designed for export to China.
ASML is not alone in warning about the consequences of U.S. export restrictions. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said that the company has largely handed China's AI chip market to Huawei as U.S. curbs continue to reshape the global AI semiconductor landscape. Huang suggested Nvidia remained eager to return to the market should conditions improve, the Global Times reports.
