ASML Denies EUV Machine Reached China as Commerce Secretary Escalates Pressure
What You Need to Know
- US Commerce Secretary held private meetings with ASML executives over alleged EUV lithography machine diversion to China.
- ASML denied ever shipping EUV machines or EUV-specific components to China, with no public evidence supporting the concern.
- EUV machines are critical chokepoint preventing China from manufacturing leading-edge chips at scale without them.
- China reportedly employs former ASML engineer developing domestic EUV prototype, making eventual technological gap closure inevitable.
The US Commerce Secretary reportedly held multiple private meetings with ASML executives to raise concerns that an EUV lithography machine, the kind that cannot legally be exported to China, may have ended up there anyway. ASML denied it flatly, stating it has never shipped an EUV machine or any EUV-specific component to China. No evidence was provided publicly to support Lutnick’s concern.
The timing is awkward for Washington. The Trump administration has simultaneously loosened some chip export restrictions, including approving Nvidia’s H200 AI chip sales to ten Chinese buyers, while its Commerce Secretary is privately alarming allied executives about a potential violation of the rules that remain. EUV machines are the chokepoint in this entire contest: without them, China cannot manufacture leading-edge chips at scale, which is why TSMC’s production for Nvidia depends on them and why a single confirmed diversion would represent a larger strategic failure than any tariff negotiation. The concern about maintenance agreements and DUV sales to China, which represent up to a fifth of ASML’s total revenue, suggests the worry extends well beyond a single machine.
China reportedly already has a former ASML engineer working on a domestic EUV prototype, which means the question is not whether China will eventually close the gap, but how long the current controls can delay it.
The political pressure on ASML is intensifying from multiple directions. US lawmakers proposed legislation in April that would push allies to match American export controls, naming ASML directly. Meanwhile, a speculative essay called Europe 2031, circulated during G7 meetings, argues that Europe risks being left behind in AI and advanced manufacturing if it does not build independent infrastructure. That framing is gaining traction precisely as the US signals it may restrict foreign access to its own advanced AI systems, which briefly happened with Anthropic’s Fable model. The gap between American export pressure on allies and American willingness to share its own technology is not going unnoticed in Brussels.
Domestically, the infrastructure required to use those leading-edge chips is facing its own resistance. Monterey Park became the first US city to permanently ban large data centers this month, New York passed a one-year moratorium on new large-scale projects, and fourteen states are now weighing similar restrictions. Controlling the machines that make the chips while struggling to site the facilities that run them is a tension that no export control bill resolves.
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