ASML, Europe's most valuable company, sold zero lithography machines to European chipmakers in 2026.
Frank Heemskerk, ASML's executive vice president of public affairs, said on Dutch TV program De Balie that the company's European revenue share fell from 1% in 2025 and 5% in 2024 to 0% in the first two quarters of 2026. He argued the issue isn't a lack of investment incentives but a lack of demand, since no new chip factories are being built in Europe. ASML is now pushing Brussels, including talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, to help aggregate demand from big industrial buyers rather than just subsidizing fab construction. Meanwhile, several fabs are still going up on the continent, including Intel's Fab 34 expansion in Ireland, ESMC's new Dresden site backed by TSMC, Infineon's Dresden power-chip fab, and GlobalFoundries' Fab 1 upgrade, so the picture isn't quite the wasteland Heemskerk describes.
This is a notable shift in Europe's chipmaking pitch. The EU has spent years subsidizing new factories under its Chips Act and hoping buyers would follow. ASML is effectively saying that approach solved the wrong problem, since none of the fabs currently under construction in Europe use EUV, the tool ASML actually wants to sell, and most produce older, mature-node chips instead.
Even if Brussels manages to conjure demand, Europe's supply chain still lacks the pieces needed to capture much of the value, since even advanced chips made in Ireland get shipped elsewhere for packaging.