ASML just told investors its order book is maxed out through the end of the decade.
The Dutch lithography maker, whose machines are required to make advanced chips, said its current supply plans cannot fully satisfy customer demand in 2027 or 2028. Some chipmakers are already trying to lock in orders for 2029 and 2030, years before those machines would even ship. Despite the bottleneck, ASML raised the low end of its 2026 sales guidance. Investors took it as good news anyway: shares rose 2.8%.
ASML is effectively the only company that makes the lithography machines needed to print the most advanced chips. So when it says it is sold out for three years, that sets a hard ceiling on how fast the rest of the chip industry, including everyone racing to build AI hardware, can actually expand capacity.
Call it the chip industry's version of a restaurant with no open tables until 2029, except the reservation is for a machine that costs more than the building it sits in.