ASML Confirms Europe's Chip Sovereignty Plan Has Achieved Total Independence From Chipmaking Equipment
The continent now buys exactly zero lithography machines from anyone, including the European company that makes them.
VELDHOVEN, Netherlands — Europe's most valuable technology company confirmed this week that it sold no chipmaking equipment in Europe in the first half of 2026, a milestone that officials in Brussels hailed as "complete strategic autonomy from the machines."
"For years the goal was to reduce Europe's dependence on foreign semiconductor supply chains," said a European Commission spokesperson. "We have now reduced our dependence on every semiconductor supply chain, including our own. Nobody can cut us off from something we are not buying."
According to the company's filings, South Korea took 43 percent of system shipments, Taiwan 30 percent, China 14 percent and the United States 9 percent. Europe, which accounted for 5 percent in 2024, now accounts for a share the company's investor-relations team described as "round."
Officials said the result reflected careful planning. A draft of a second chips act, currently in its 14th consultation round, proposes that Europe should one day manufacture advanced chips, and commissions a study into whether the word "one" is binding.
"People ask why we do not build fabs here," said Joost van Aalderen-Mensah, a policy adviser on semiconductor strategy. "We do build them. We build them in PowerPoint, where the permitting is faster and nobody objects to the water usage."
An executive at the company said it would welcome European customers and was prepared to offer the same machines, at the same price, with the same 18-month wait, and a complimentary tour of the factory, since European buyers would otherwise never see one.
At press time, the company had shipped another machine to Taiwan, and three European ministers had flown out to take a photo next to it.