Europe Could Halt AI Race by Blocking ASML’s $400 Million Chip Machines

1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Sep 1

$400 million ASML EUV lithography machines are presented as the clearest choke-point in advanced AI, because without them chipmakers cannot build the next generation of high-end semiconductors.
That bottleneck reaches far beyond one supplier: it underpins TSMC’s planned $265 billion in future fabs and the roughly $7 trillion in datacenters the industry is expected to build by 2030.
A flat EU export ban on ASML tools would effectively force the global AI industry to tread water, slowing chip supply and buying regulators and lawmakers time to catch up on rules from copyright to tax.
The argument says Europe also has a self-interested reason to act, since restricting ASML now could preserve leverage over US-led AI models and compute before rivals replicate the technology or build around it.
US export controls already blocking ASML’s most advanced sales to China are cited as proof that governments see the Dutch company as a strategic pressure point in the wider AI competition.