Zero. That is the number of lithography systems ASML delivered to European buyers in the second quarter, and it reads as a verdict on the continent’s chip ambitions.
The figure was confirmed by Frank Heemskerk, who runs global public affairs at the Dutch equipment maker, during a talk in Amsterdam. His framing was unusually direct: the regional order book is empty because nobody there is breaking ground on a new plant, and the money is simply absent.
The accounts agree. Regional revenue dropped to nothing from roughly 1 percent a year earlier, a share that covered Europe, the Middle East and Africa combined. Korea topped the first-half destination list, with Taiwan and China behind it.
Political trouble follows. Brussels is revising the Chips Act it passed in 2023 after the pandemic shortage, a law written to lift the bloc’s slice of world production. Independent auditors have since forecast that the targets will be missed. Intel dropped its German megafab and other announced projects have quietly stalled.
Officials in Washington, Beijing and New Delhi are meanwhile competing for the company’s next plants. Heemskerk said capacity has to grow and that not all of it will sit in the Netherlands, pointing to a partnership signed in May that ties the company to India’s domestic manufacturing push with Tata Electronics.
The strategic picture is uncomfortable. Whoever supplies the tools for the most advanced chips is not obliged to buy them, and the customers who do are gaining leverage every quarter.
