US Says ASML's Top Chip Tool May Be in China; ASML Denies

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has raised concerns in recent meetings with senior ASML executives that one of the Dutch company's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines may have ended up in China, according to Bloomberg. Such a transfer would represent a major breach of export controls that have banned ASML from selling EUV tools to China since the first Trump administration.

ASML categorically denies that any of its EUV machines are in China. CEO Christophe Fouquet told TechCrunch in an interview before the story broke that the company tracks every machine it has ever shipped – they are either in active use with monitored customers or have been dismantled and returned. He also noted that ASML built an internal firewall years ago, separating employees who can access EUV technology from those who cannot, and that China-based staff are deliberately placed on the wrong side of that barrier.

While US officials claim to have evidence of EUV-related components and transport equipment being shipped to China, they have repeatedly declined to show it – to Bloomberg or, apparently, to ASML itself. The Commerce Department did not respond to Bloomberg's questions about whether it has evidence of an actual EUV system on Chinese soil.

The allegations come amid US government investment in xLight, a startup developing next-generation light-source technology that has been described as a long-term challenge to ASML's EUV monopoly. Separately, Peter Thiel has backed Substrate, a startup explicitly pursuing EUV-rival technology. A bipartisan bill moving through Congress would go further, calling for an effective ban on all of ASML's deep ultraviolet (DUV) shipments to China, which account for roughly a fifth of the company's expected 2026 revenue.

ASML expects about 20% of its 2026 revenue to come from already-permitted sales to China. Risking the EUV export ban entirely would put that revenue, and the company's standing as Europe's most valuable public company with a market cap around $700 billion, on the line over a single alleged illegal sale. The government has not yet made its evidence public, so judgment should be withheld until it does.