The race to make the world’s most in-demand machine

Big tech companies are gearing up to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on artificial-intelligence infrastructure.

- Kim Mackr

ASML is the only supplier of the machines needed to make cutting edge AI chips at scale.

(AFP)

Their plans depend on a one-of-a-kind Dutch equipment maker that most Americans have never heard of.

ASML is the world’s only supplier of the complex machines that are needed to make cutting-edge chips at scale.

Those chips help Open AI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini produce the instant, humanlike responses that have made them so popular.

Now ASML is racing to meet an industrywide surge in demand. It is building new facilities, repurposing clean rooms and working on more advanced machines capable of churning out more chips. It is also adding more engineers, while cutting leadership roles in a push to speed up decision-making.

“We do not want to be the bottleneck for our customers,” ASML Chief Executive Christophe Fouquet said this month after the company lifted its revenue guidance for the year. “We have been using all the tools we have at hand to make sure we don’t get there.”

Four US. tech giants—Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Amazon.com and Alphabet’s Google—are planning more than $600 billion in capital spending this year alone as they build out AI infrastructure. That in turn has spurred chip makers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., to accelerate investments, fueling more demand for ASML’s machines.

The boom has helped cement ASML’s position as Europe’s most valuable company. It has soared above Europe’s luxury industry stalwarts like LVMH and Hermés in market value, making ASML a rare tech darling in the region.

“All their customers are saying, ‘Please give me as many machines as you can. And by the way we need more next year, and we need way more in 2028,’” said David Dai, senior analyst at Bernstein.