미국 관계자들은 중국이 ASML의 최첨단 EUV 리소그래피 장비를 불법 반출했다고 의심합니다; ASML은 이를 부인합니다.

Washington suspects China may have obtained ASML's extreme ultraviolet lithography machine, one of the world's most advanced chipmaking tools. ASML says the numbers, the logistics, and its own tracking systems point the other way.

The allegation is simple enough to understand and hard to believe: one of ASML's EUV lithography machines may have reached China despite years of export controls. If true, it would be one of the biggest leaks in the semiconductor supply chain. If false, it still tells you how nervous Washington has become about losing its best choke point over Chinese AI chips.

According to Bloomberg, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick raised the concern with ASML executives in meetings earlier this year. ASML's answer was direct: no. The Dutch company circulated a document in Washington titled "No indication of any ASML EUV System in China," stating that 314 EUV machines were operating worldwide, 26 had been decommissioned, and none was in China.

That is the strongest fact on the table. ASML says it can detect interruptions, abnormal behavior, or loss of connectivity across its EUV fleet, and customers cannot move or reinstall these systems without ASML involvement. The company also denied shipping EUV machines, EUV-specific modules, or EUV transport equipment to China. You should take that seriously, because this isn't a box of servers someone can hide in a warehouse.

The machine is enormous. An EUV system weighs about 180 tonnes, contains vast numbers of precision parts, moves through specialized freight, and requires extensive installation and calibration support. A full shipment requires roughly 250 crates and multiple cargo flights. You don't lose a bus.

China has never been allowed to buy one. Since the first Trump administration pressed the Netherlands to block EUV exports to Chinese customers, ASML's top scanners have become the West's cleanest pressure point in chips. TSMC uses EUV to make advanced processors for Nvidia and Apple. Huawei and SMIC do not have the same path. That is why one rumored scanner matters so much.

Bloomberg reported that senior US officials pointed instead to EUV-related components and transport equipment, but did not make the evidence public. The Commerce Department also would not say whether it had proof of an actual EUV scanner on Chinese soil. That leaves ASML's inventory count facing an undisclosed suspicion—which is not enough to call the machine smuggled.

There is a real policy fight underneath it. The House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced the MATCH Act on April 22, 2026, designed to tighten controls on critical semiconductor manufacturing equipment going to China and other countries of concern. Older DUV machines from ASML now face scrutiny alongside the most advanced tools.

Lutnick's department has another stake in the lithography race. On June 2, 2026, the Commerce Department and NIST finalized $150 million in CHIPS Act incentives for xLight, a Palo Alto company building a free-electron laser source for EUV lithography at the Albany Nanotech Complex. xLight describes the system as a future light source for lithography, not an ASML replacement. Yet the optics are awkward: the same department questioning ASML is also funding technology aimed at the most valuable part of ASML's world.

Beijing is not waiting for a missing ASML scanner to solve its problem. Tsinghua University researchers have been working on steady-state microbunching (SSMB), a particle-accelerator approach to generating EUV light. Tsinghua has described it as a possible high-power EUV source for lithography, with researchers discussing a 100- to 150-meter storage ring site in Xiongan. This is not a near-term rescue; it is a long bet.

The nearer threat is more practical. SiCarrier, the Shenzhen equipment maker widely linked to Huawei, showed about 30 tools at SEMICON China in March 2025, including machines for etching, thin-film deposition, diffusion, inspection, and metrology. TrendForce, citing Chinese media and prior Bloomberg and Reuters reporting, said SiCarrier was seeking funding at a valuation around 65 billion yuan in September 2025. That is not ASML, but still a serious industrial push.

Reuters also reported that SiCarrier received a patent for a multi-patterning technique using DUV lithography and self-aligned quadruple patterning to hit technical thresholds associated with 5-nanometer chips. The catch is familiar: extra patterning steps raise complexity and defect risk. It can help China stretch older tools further, but it does not make EUV irrelevant.

So is the leak real? Nobody outside classified channels has shown proof that it is. ASML's count—314 operating EUV machines, 26 decommissioned, zero in China—remains more concrete than Washington's public case. The smarter conclusion is less dramatic but more useful: China still lacks ASML's EUV machines, and the US is now worried enough to treat every crate, component, and older DUV sale as part of the same fight.