Christophe Fouquet, CEO of ASML, the world's sole maker of EUV chip lithography systems, said on June 17, 2026 that the company must ensure it does not run into supply constraints when serving new projects such as Elon Musk's planned megafab "Terafab."
EUV Lithography · ASML
The Machine That Could Bottleneck Musk's $119B Chip Megafab
ASML — the world's only supplier of High-NA EUV systems — warns it must not become a supply-chain constraint as Elon Musk's "Terafab" pursues vertically integrated chips for Tesla, xAI and SpaceX. The catch: only a few dozen of the critical machines exist per year.
$119B
Terafab total investment at full build-out (from $55B initial)
$400M
Price of a single High-NA EUV lithography system
$1.5T
Forecast total chip-equipment market by 2030
The Bottleneck, To Scale
High-NA EUV output is capped at a few dozen units a year — the single hardest constraint on any mega-fab's ambitions.
60–80
High-NA EUV units made worldwide
vs
Soaring
Data centers, Starlink & humanoid robots
How A Chip Tool Becomes A Choke Point
AI boom
Explosive demand for advanced logic chips
→
Mega-fabs
Terafab, TSMC, Samsung, Intel all order tools
→
Single supplier
ASML alone makes High-NA EUV — supply limited
The opportunity
Fouquet calls Terafab a "new opportunity" and Musk "very serious." Vertical integration could deliver more stable, dedicated chip supply across Tesla, xAI and SpaceX.
The constraint
A few dozen High-NA units a year falls far short of Terafab's targets. Full operation only around 2028–2029, leaving mature-node processes as a possible workaround.
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