Christophe Fouquet

Without ASML, the world’s only producer of manufacturing equipment for cutting-edge semiconductors, the AI boom can't happen. That’s how Dutch giant ASML’s former CEO put it to Bloomberg News in January. Normally, one can dismiss such comments from a chief executive as hyperbolic marketing speak. But in ASML’s case, they might be right.

This spring, the company elevated Christophe Fouquet, its former chief business officer to the chief executive position. Fouquet is now responsible for overseeing how ASML responds to the growing demand for semiconductors. It is the only company in the world that builds the machines needed to produce the AI chips designed by heavyweights such as Nvidia.

Its machines, which cost up to $380 million each, are used by semiconductor manufacturers like Taiwan’s TSMC to etch unfathomably small patterns—measured in single-digit nano-meters—in pieces of silicon. Achieving this level of precision involves hitting tiny droplets of molten tin with lasers to emit extreme ultraviolet light, in a technique known as EUV lithography. 

Fouquet also has to navigate the company as it finds itself caught amidst growing U.S.-China tensions. Washington-led export restrictions imposed in January, aimed at curbing China’s access to advanced semiconductors, are expected to reduce the company’s sales in the country by 15%, and the Biden administration is considering tighter controls. Fouquet has previously stated he believes decoupling the global semiconductor supply chain would be “incredibly expensive” if not impossible. He’s also warned that cutting off China may only push the country to develop its own ASML-alternative.