If there is today a machine that can affect more than anything the balance of power in the world, this is neither a fighter aircraft nor a rocket.
It is a Dutch ASML lithograph machine. Without it, the most advanced microchips are not manufactured, which feed the most powerful artificial intelligence systems, supercomputers, and most sophisticated weapon systems.
This explains why the information that such a machine may have ended up in China caused an alarm in Washington. According to a report by Economist ASML categorically refutes it, insisting that it knows where each of the 340 ultra-violet lithograph machines (EUV) it has built is located and that none is located on Chinese soil.
The confrontation, however, far exceeds the question whether or not a machine crossed the Chinese border. It is about controlling the technology that will determine who will lead the age of artificial intelligence.
The «holy chalice» of semiconductors
ASML's EUV engines are the most complex industrial product manufactured today. At a cost exceeding EUR 350 million per unit, they use light of extreme ultraviolet radiation to carve circuits of a few nanometers on silica disks, allowing the production of the most advanced processors in the world.
ASML is the only company that has this technology. For this reason, since 2019 the United States has imposed restrictions on exports of EUV machines to China, considering that Beijing's access to this technology would accelerate the development of Chinese advanced chips with military and industrial applications.
The question and the real question
The recent report by the American Trade Minister, Howard Latnik, that an EUV engine may have been found in China brought ASML to the centre of geopolitical confrontation.
The Dutch company responds that not only has it never exported an EUV machine to China, but it keeps monitoring its equipment and is the only one who can carry it, install it and maintain it.
At the same time, neither has the Dutch government announced that it is investigating the case, and so far the US authorities have not presented public evidence confirming their suspicions.
The real war
Even if the complaint turns out to be unfounded, the problem for Washington remains, notes Economist.
As China explains, it has accelerated its efforts to develop its own lithography technology, while companies such as SMIC and Huawei use older DUV machines with complex production techniques to make increasingly advanced chips.
At the same time, in the US, pressure is increasing for even stricter restrictions, not only on new exports, but also on technical support for hundreds of DUV machines already operating in China. The proposal for a MATCH Act goes in this direction, causing strong reactions in the Netherlands and other European countries.
For Europe, the dilemma is complex. On the one hand, there is the need to protect the technological supremacy of the West. On the other hand, ASML is one of the continent's most important industrial champions and China is still one of its largest markets.
The question, therefore, is not only whether China acquired the most important machine in the world. It is who will control the technology that will determine the economic, military and geopolitical power of the next decades.
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