ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet: No one is coming for us

Every time you use AI, you are, in some small way, depending on a 42-year-old, 44,000-person Dutch company that spends €4.5 billion each year to advance its technology.

ASML, headquartered in the Netherlands, makes the machines that make the chips that make AI possible. More specifically, it makes the only machines in the world capable of printing the microscopic patterns on silicon wafers that define the most advanced semiconductors — a process called extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV. The machines are roughly the size of a school bus, take months to assemble, involve hundreds of suppliers, and cost anywhere from $200 million to upwards of $400 million apiece depending on the generation (prices that give even ASML’s biggest customers pause occasionally).