Lithography Monopoly: ASML Raises 2026 Revenue Forecast Due to AI Boom

The hardware supercycle continues to enrich the owners of underlying technologies. On July 15, 2026, Dutch monopolist ASML revised its financial forecast for the end of 2026 upward and announced a massive expansion of its production capacities.

The driver of this growth is obvious: the avalanche-like demand for AI accelerators forces TSMC, Samsung, and Intel to aggressively buy up lithography equipment. Without Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems from ASML, it is physically impossible to print modern chips at the level of NVIDIA Blackwell or Meta’s new ASICs. ASML’s revised forecast is mathematical proof that hyperscalers’ capital expenditures (CAPEX) on infrastructure are not shrinking. The entire global AI market is effectively paying a "tax" to a single European company that controls the bottleneck of global microelectronics.

Source: ASML / Reuters