President, Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Board of Management, ASML Holding
ASML CEO on AI Demand, Data Centers in Space and Musk's Terafab
ASML Holding NV CEO Christophe Fouquet says the demand for AI infrastructure is still "enormous" and discusses the potential for data centers in space. Speaking during an interview on Bloomberg Television, Fouquet also says the company has to make sure it doesn’t experience supply constraints when servicing new projects such as on Elon Musk’s Terafab.
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About Christophe Fouquet
In a June 2026 interview on Bloomberg Television, ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet described the demand for AI infrastructure as "still enormous" and stated that he expects the semiconductor market to be "supply limited" for "quite a few years" due to the scale of infrastructure buildout. He noted that the industry's move to build capacity accelerated rapidly at the end of the prior year and emphasized that ASML must ensure it does not face supply constraints when servicing projects such as Elon Musk's Terafab. Fouquet also discussed geopolitical and sovereignty concerns, stating that Europe needs to prioritize innovation to achieve sovereignty in AI and semiconductors. He said the U.S. is "a clear winner" across the entire AI and semiconductor ecosystem, though he noted the U.S. was "missing out a bit on manufacturing" and has been "extremely aggressive" in attracting key companies to manufacture domestically. Regarding India, Fouquet expressed optimism about a partnership with Tata, noting that India's first semiconductor fab is expected next year and that ASML views the country as a growing opportunity over the next five to ten years.
Transcript (21 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Interviewer0:00
We are meeting and talking at a moment where there is a lot of focus here in Europe on the decision by the US to impose export controls on Anthropic models. And Europe is feeling the impact of that. And it's a reminder of the questions around sovereignty, particularly around AI. And you are pushing hard on this. What is your message to Brussels? What is it that Europe needs to do to ensure that it is not vulnerable to those kind of supply chain risks?
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Christophe Fouquet0:22
Well, I think indeed there is a lot of discussion around that. And sovereignty has become a key word because people realize that strategically, if you don't have a big enough part of a certain ecosystem, in this case AI, you're going to be exposed to the goodwill of other parties. But I think that's very important to understand when it comes to sovereignty is to get sovereignty. You need innovation first. You have to do things in the right order. It's not enough to say, I want sovereignty. What's very important is make sure that innovation can happen in Europe. And I think that's a bit the idea of the tech creators group we have created, where we believe that it is very, very important to have a dialogue with the different government commission, but also national governments, to help them to understand how to create the condition such that the AI ecosystem can develop in Europe. You will never have the entire ecosystem, but you cannot do it all. It's too much or you cannot do it all at the same time, but you need at least to have enough skin in the game in the ecosystem so that when those discussions or those decisions happen, you have a seat at the table.
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Interviewer1:41
Where can Europe have skin in the game? They've got skin in the game where they have skills and the role that you play. Where else can you have skin in the game when it comes to AI?
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Christophe Fouquet1:49
Well, I think a very important place is the market itself. The European market is pretty attractive, right? You look at 22% of GDP. It's a very, I would say, mature market, very good market. So this means we are users. We are buying a lot of stuff. And that's to start with a strength for Europe. And I think that's a reason why Europe was created. Now if you look at the other part, we have a lot of talk and sometime we discuss a lot semiconductor manufacturing. Yes, there is a gap there, but most probably not the right place to start, because semiconductor manufacturing is only needed if you have people to buy a semiconductor. Today, if we had a two nanometer fab in Europe, most probably most of the wafers will go to the US. So since we have a strong market, we have to start by looking at that and focus on what we call the market-demand products and have strong industrial projects around AI applications, around maybe AI products, then maybe chip design and then chip manufacturing. But you have to look at the entire sequence. And look at it in the right order.
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Interviewer3:08
How would you score Europe right now on a score of 1 to 10 in this AI race?
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Christophe Fouquet3:12
Well, I think I've said that before. I think that, you know, if we compare all we do on the entire ecosystem versus the U.S. and China, I think today the US is a clear winner. I mean, they have champions across the entire AI semiconductor ecosystem. I think the one place they were missing a bit out was manufacturing. And I think they have been extremely aggressive in bringing some key company to manufacture in the US. They can do that because they buy chips. 80% of the advanced chips manufactured worldwide is bought by the United States. So I think the US is doing very, very well. China has been investing also across the entire ecosystem. I think most really they do very well on the application side, a bit less on what's before that. But I think they are driving the use of AI most probably more aggressively than any other country. And again, when you look at Europe, a lot of talk. So I would say, you know, Europe is really quite behind what's happening elsewhere today.
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Interviewer4:18
So that gap is obviously there. How interventionist should European governments be? The US taking a 10% stake in Intel. Is that a playbook that we should copy?
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Christophe Fouquet4:30
Well, I think two things maybe. So first, we need to have a dialogue between the industry and government. Government is to really develop instruments, regulation or lack of regulation in some cases to make the industry champions' life a lot easier.
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Interviewer4:50
I want to ask you about the IPOs that come through SpaceX, notably, and possibly OpenAI and Anthropic coming up into the future. Are we underestimating the CapEx spend that could come about as a result of that capital raising, and what it means for the demand for your lithography machines?
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Christophe Fouquet5:07
Well, if you look at, you know, worldwide, the demand for AI infrastructure is still enormous. And the demand for AGI-age computers start to come up. So the demand is continuing to go up. I think a lot of us are convinced that we're going to be looking at a supply limited market for AI, for semiconductor for quite a few years, because the build up of the infrastructure is huge. And I think some of the IPO you mentioned are just pointing to the opportunity that the AI is represented.
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Interviewer5:42
Are we early in this still? Where are we in that sequentially?
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Christophe Fouquet5:46
Because, you know, even a year ago, the AI company were already very vocal about the need for this architecture, the need to build up capacity. My industry, the semi industry was still a bit hesitant to move. And the move really happened basically at the end of last year and very quickly. And now we all need to build capacity so our customers will have to build fab. We have to make sure we build enough equipment to fill those fab. And to catch up will take quite a bit. That's only for the infrastructure. And then the application will come.
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Interviewer6:22
Are you seeing a pull forward of orders for your DUV and EUV machines from customers? We see a pull, we see customers continuing to create longer-term visibility, telling us this is here to stay. So I would say the trend we see is still very strong towards demand. Right, with me on this one?
Data centers in space. Is there a potential additional revenue stream for ASML if Musk pulls that one off?
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Christophe Fouquet6:54
Well, I think, you know, you need a certain amount of data center. And they would be in space. They would be on the Earth doesn't necessarily change the number. I think the discussion about data center in space is to maybe address another potential bottleneck in the ecosystem, which is energy. I think the discussion around putting data center in space is there because there is an idea that if you do that, the energy consumption or the energy availability will be there. So maybe not too much to do with, you know, the total datacenter capacity, but maybe more about trying to solve another potential big issue, which is energy for data center.
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Interviewer7:35
Elon Musk is also looking at a Terra fab plan, potentially one terawatt of power. What's the potential upside for ASML on that? Have you talked to Musk about that project? Is that a potential uplift as well for the business going forward?
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Christophe Fouquet7:52
Well, you know, any added capacity is of course a potential upside for us. I think we are looking very carefully on the development on when things will happen. At what speed. New projects are opportunity as long as you are not supply limited. So that's also important to say that. But I think the Terra fab is an example of a major fab project. If you look at some of the DRAM project in Korea, you also look at millions of wafers per year. So that's also pretty big.
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Interviewer8:26
So Korea and the build out there is going to be a driver as well. Staying with the US, so one of the top House Republicans on the House China Committee sent a letter in April suggesting that ASML was going to start shipping DUV lithography machines into China. They have some concern that you do have a response to that?
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Christophe Fouquet8:45
No, it's not a response because, you know, we have a dialogue with every government. And I think, you know, that in the last few years we have been subject many, many times to those kind of negative rumors about what we do. I mean, every time the rumors have been quite, I would say, potentially a hurtful event for ASML. And I want to say it again. I mean, we have been following every single rule and we continue to do that, though without changing, by the way, quite often and sometimes something you could do you cannot do anymore. But when this happen, you know, we change our behavior accordingly. So we are extremely cautious in trying to follow or follow basically the rule of laws. It's very important. And it's true for DUV, that's true for EUV, that's true for any activity we have in China or anywhere else in the world. And I can promise you, there's a lot of people in ASML making sure that we comply.
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Interviewer9:56
Compliance is a very important element in a very difficult geopolitical environment. The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, will be here in Paris tomorrow. You've partnered with Tata on their aspirations around foundries and build out of semiconductor capacity in India. How much of a growth story potentially is India for ASML?
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Christophe Fouquet10:13
Yeah. So I think, so first we're very happy with this partnership. Because we are partnering at the very start at the very beginning. So of course we all know that India today doesn't have manufacturing for semiconductor. But you know, by 2030 they believe that 10% of any chips would be used by India. And like anyone else, that becomes therefore a strategic question of supply. And therefore they want to get their factory. So first Fab will come up next year. A lot of learning has to happen and we will help India, Tata for this partnership to accelerate their learning. And you know as learning gets successful you grow the opportunity. So we're very happy to start now because we look at that as a growing opportunity for the not the next two years, but for the next five and ten years in India. And we're very happy that we had this from the start.