Why China Can't Copy ASML

[John Clark]

Why China Can't Copy ASML

  John K Clark    See what's on my list at  Extropolis

[Brent Allsop]

Very interesting.  Thanks.

So Tesla and the US (a fab in Arizona?) are attempting to duplicate all this stuff.  Will they succeed, or do they just use TSMC machines?

On Fri, Apr 17, 2026 at 5:29 PM John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Why China Can't Copy ASML

  John K Clark    See what's on my list at  Extropolis

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[John Clark]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2026 at 12:38 PM Brent Allsop <brent....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Very interesting.  Thanks. So Tesla and the US (a fab in Arizona?) are attempting to duplicate all this stuff. 

Yes but Tesla Terafab is being built in Texas not Arizona. 

> Will they succeed, or do they just use TSMC machines?

It's the extreme ultraviolet lithography machines from ASML that are the bottleneck, nobody else makes anything like them, everybody wants one but last year ASML was only able to make about 60, next year they hope to make 80; a top-of-the-line high numerical aperture machine costs about $380 million. This video goes into much more detail. 

America’s Biggest Chip Bet — Genius or Disaster?

John K Clark

[Keith Henson]

China should go to full molecular nanotechnology and skip all the lithography.

Best wishes,

Keith

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[John Clark]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2026 at 7:26 PM Keith Henson <hkeith...@gmail.com> wrote:

> China should go to full molecular nanotechnology and skip all the lithography.

Drexler style Nanotechnology would certainly make lithography obsolete but neither China nor anybody else has that yet. Right now ASML's lithography machines have made AI possible, and AI will help make Nanotechnology possible. And so will Quantum Computers because, although breaking cryptographic codes gets all the press, figuring out what a molecule will do when you push it in a particular way will be the true killer application for Quantum Computers. 

 John K Clark