China Enters The Extreme Ultraviolet Race
Modern PC gaming, streaming and AI all depend on one thing: insanely advanced chips. To make those chips, manufacturers use some of the most complex machines ever built, extreme ultraviolet lithography systems. Until now, those have been entirely dominated by a single Western company, ASML in the Netherlands.
According to a detailed report from Reuters, China now has a prototype EUV chipmaking machine of its own. It has not yet produced working chips, but it is reportedly generating usable EUV light, which is one of the hardest parts of the entire system.
Chinese government targets expect a working chip from this machine around 2028, although many industry watchers think 2030 is more realistic. Even that would be a major shift in the balance of power in semiconductor manufacturing.
Why does this matter for PC gamers and hardware enthusiasts? Because whoever controls advanced chipmaking technology influences the cost, supply and performance progress of GPUs, CPUs and every other component inside your rig.
How EUV Became The Crown Jewel Of Chipmaking
To understand the importance of this move, it helps to know what EUV machines actually do. Chips start life as patterns etched onto silicon wafers. As transistors shrink, those patterns become smaller than the wavelength of normal light, so manufacturers need much shorter wavelengths to draw ever finer features.
Extreme ultraviolet light sits at around 13.5 nanometers. Generating and controlling this light is insanely difficult. Modern EUV machines from ASML use molten tin droplets hit by powerful lasers tens of thousands of times per second to create EUV light. That light is then bounced through an intricate optical system to project the transistor patterns onto wafers.
These systems took ASML many years to make reliable. Even today, they are constantly tweaked in the field. They must run for long periods, produce a huge volume of wafers and maintain extreme precision. That is why there has effectively been a monopoly: no one else could build a comparable machine at scale.
Because EUV tools unlock smaller process nodes, they directly enable faster, more efficient GPUs and CPUs. Your latest gaming graphics card or high end processor likely owes its performance to chips made on EUV based processes at fabs such as TSMC or Samsung, using ASML gear.
China has been locked out of this club. The United States pushed the Dutch government to block export of EUV systems to Chinese fabs, so none of the most advanced ASML machines have ever shipped to China. That has kept Chinese chipmakers at older process nodes, limiting their ability to build cutting edge gaming GPUs, desktop CPUs and AI accelerators.
China’s Prototype And What Comes Next
The Reuters report suggests that a team including former ASML employees helped China build its prototype EUV tool. Sources describe it as crude compared to ASML’s mature machines, but operational enough for testing. In other words, it is a proof of concept, not yet a production workhorse.
Even so, this is a big strategic step. Chinese leadership clearly wants to cut dependence on Western technology and supply chains. One source summed up the goal starkly: China wants the United States completely removed from its supply lines.
That ambition fits into a broader geopolitical battle over semiconductors. While ASML is Dutch and TSMC is Taiwanese, a large part of the chipmaking ecosystem is still heavily influenced by the United States, from design tools to key intellectual property and export rules. By developing its own EUV capabilities, China is trying to escape that leverage.
Western governments are not ignoring this. The Netherlands is working on policies that would require universities and research institutes to screen personnel more rigorously so advanced knowledge does not quietly flow to foreign programs. But if China already has a functioning prototype, some damage may already be done.
There is also a cloak and dagger side to the story. Reuters recounts how some ex ASML staff involved in the project were allegedly given aliases and told to use fake names at work, with strict secrecy and national security classifications around what they were building. That gives you an idea of how sensitive EUV technology is viewed on both sides.
What This Could Mean For Gamers And PC Builders
So how does all this tie back to your next GPU or CPU upgrade?
- If China can eventually mass produce EUV systems and get advanced fabs running, there could be more global capacity to build cutting edge chips. In theory, more competition could reduce costs and improve availability.
- On the other hand, the chip world is deeply tied to politics. New capabilities in China might trigger more export controls, trade tensions or tech blocs, which could disrupt supply chains and pricing in unpredictable ways.
- In the nearer term, do not expect a sudden wave of Chinese made top tier gaming GPUs rivaling NVIDIA and AMD. Building a prototype EUV tool is an important but early step. ASML spent years transforming prototypes into industrial workhorses, and Chinese efforts are still likely many years behind.
- For AI compute, cloud hardware and massive data centers, the stakes are even higher. Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang has said China is right behind the West in AI, mostly referring to server and accelerator deployment. If China can pair that with independent advanced chip fabrication, the landscape for AI hardware could shift strongly.
For now, the main takeaway is that the era of a single company and a single region owning the most advanced manufacturing tool in the world may be coming to an end. That could reshape where your next gaming GPU is made, how much it costs and how often we get big generational leaps in performance.
We are clearly deep into what a game like Civilization might call the future era of technology. Extreme ultraviolet machines, molten tin light sources and secretive national projects all eventually filter down into one thing most of us care about: faster, more efficient chips driving smoother games, better graphics and more powerful PCs.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/processors/ex-asml-workers-reverse-engineered-state-of-the-art-chipmaking-machines-to-get-china-far-closer-than-previously-thought-to-independence-from-foreign-tech/
