ASML has just reminded everyone that it is the real bottleneck in the AI gold rush.
The Dutch kit maker lifted its full-year sales forecast on Wednesday, saying the boom in computing demand is piling into orders for the machines that make modern chips possible.
ASML now expects net sales of €36bn to €40bn this year, up as much as 22 per cent on 2025, ahead of analysts’ €37.9bn forecast from Visible Alpha.
Founded in 1984, ASML’s grip on cutting-edge lithography has turned it into Europe’s most valuable company, even if it can only ship a few dozen EUV machines a year.
Its Amsterdam-listed shares are up about 40 per cent this year, with chip demand still outstripping supply at manufacturers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
The stock dipped 0.4 per cent in early trading on Wednesday, leaving ASML valued at about €497bn.
ASML chief executive Christophe Fouquet said orders from customers including TSMC, Samsung and Intel were “very strong”, with supply shortages continuing “for the foreseeable future”.
That has some in the AI world pointing at ASML as the new choke point, slowing Nvidia and Google as they try to scale services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude Code.
Memory chips are feeling it hardest, with AI data centres soaking up supply and pushing up prices for PCs, smartphones and games consoles.
The upgraded outlook landed with first-quarter net sales up 13 per cent year on year to €8.8bn, just ahead of expectations, while net income rose 17 per cent to €2.8bn.
“The semiconductor industry’s growth outlook continues to solidify, driven by ongoing AI-related infrastructure investments,” Fouquet said.
ASML finance chief Roger Dassen said demand is strong enough that even sales of older machines should rise this year, after a prior view they would be flat.
Alongside its “High NA” EUV push, with systems still being tested by chipmakers and priced as high as $400mn each, ASML is upgrading installed tools so customers can crank out chips faster.
Pressure from Washington is building to tighten export controls on China, with a draft US bill this month proposing tougher limits on selling or servicing older lithography equipment for customers such as Huawei and SMIC.
The Netherlands’ prime minister, Rob Jetten, dined with US President Donald Trump at the White House on 13 April 2026, alongside King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima, and local reports said he planned to raise the issue.
Jetten met Fouquet two weeks ago, and Chipzilla and the rest of the customer list will be watching how far ASML gets dragged into someone else’s trade war.
