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ASML’s (NASDAQ:ASML) CEO Christophe Fouquet said that chip buyers, including Germany’s car industry, need older generation computer chips which Chinese chip manufacturers are currently investing in, Reuters reported citing Fouquet’s interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt.
Fouquet’s comments comes amid the European Commission, or EC, starting surveying companies including ASML for their views on Chinese companies’ investments in so-called “legacy” chips, a vital source of revenue for ASML, the report added.
“The automotive industry in particular, including the German one, needs a lot more chips that are manufactured using simpler, long-known technologies,” Fouquet noted.
Amid U.S.-led export curbs on advanced technology, Chinese companies are boosting their capacity to make these older chips, raising West’s concerns about the long term potential for oversupply.
Fouquet noted that worldwide demand for such chips was growing, but making them was not very profitable and Western companies were not investing enough.
“Europe cannot even cover half of its own needs,” Fouquet added.
Chinese chip manufacturers will grow capacity by 14% in 2025, more than double the growth of the rest of the world, to 10.1M wafers per month in 2025, representing about a third of total worldwide production, the report added, citing estimates by industry group SEMI.
Fouquet said that “if someone wants to slow it down, for whatever reason, then alternatives are needed. There is no point in stopping someone from producing something you need.”
Last month, U.S. export policy chief Alan Estevez, reportedly, was trying to build on a 2023 agreement between the Netherlands, Japan and the U.S. to help keep advanced chipmaking tools away from China, which could modernize its armed forces.
