The company that makes the machines that make the world’s most advanced chips just delivered a blunt diagnosis of Europe’s AI ambitions: the continent is barely in the game.
ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet has called Europe “very weak” in the AI ecosystem, pointing to a staggering imbalance in where the most cutting-edge semiconductors actually end up. According to Fouquet, 80% of the most advanced AI chips are purchased in the United States. Europe, meanwhile, accounts for just 1-2% of ASML’s shipments of high-end lithography systems over the last decade.
Here’s the thing about ASML’s position. It is arguably the most strategically important company in the global semiconductor supply chain. Its EUV machines, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars apiece, are the only tools capable of printing the tiny transistor patterns needed for the most advanced processors. Every leading chipmaker, from TSMC to Samsung to Intel, depends on them.
Fouquet described the region as functioning primarily as a consumer of AI technology rather than a producer or innovator. Europe buys the finished products but doesn’t build the infrastructure, train the models, or design the silicon.
Europe has its own version, the EU Chips Act, which aims to boost domestic semiconductor production and reduce dependence on foreign suppliers. But critics have argued that the continent’s regulatory environment actively works against the kind of rapid scaling that AI demands.
