# ASML becomes Europe's first $700 billion company as the AI chip boom accelerates > Source: > Published: 2026-07-21 03:16:01+00:00 *ASML just became the first European company worth $700 billion, and Wall Street thinks it's only about a third of the way to a trillion.* ASML Holding crossed a $700 billion market valuation this month, according to a report from Seeking Alpha, making it the first European public company ever to reach that threshold. The Dutch firm's shares have climbed roughly 60% since the start of 2026, and the reason is almost embarrassingly simple. Every advanced chip powering the AI boom has to pass through one of ASML's machines first. ASML makes extreme ultraviolet lithography systems, the machines that etch the smallest circuit patterns onto silicon wafers. No other company on Earth builds them. TSMC, Samsung Foundry and Intel Foundry all depend on ASML's EUV scanners to produce the logic and memory chips that end up inside Nvidia's GPUs and the data centers built to house them. That is not a metaphor. It is the literal supply chain, and ASML sits at the top of it alone. Canon and Nikon, the two other big lithography makers, still sell tools for older process nodes, but neither has managed to build a machine that generates usable extreme ultraviolet light at commercial volume. Closing that gap took ASML roughly two decades and billions of euros in research, done in partnership with Zeiss on the optics and Cymer, a San Diego light source maker ASML bought outright in 2013. Nobody else gets a vote. ASML reported second quarter results on July 15, posting 9.3 billion euros in net sales and a 54% gross margin, both ahead of its own guidance. The company raised its full year 2026 sales forecast to a range of 43 billion to 45 billion euros. CEO Christophe Fouquet told analysts that ASML is close to fully booked on Low NA EUV orders for 2027, even as it adds roughly 30% more EUV capacity next year. ASML expects to ship about 65 Low NA EUV machines in 2026, with EUV revenue growing around 45% for the year. That is a company turning away business, not chasing it. Not every customer is buying everything ASML makes. Its newest High NA EUV systems, priced at roughly $400 million apiece, have found early takers in Intel and Samsung - SK Hynix is in too. TSMC passed, for now. The world's largest contract chipmaker has reportedly decided High NA is too expensive at this stage and pushed adoption toward its A13 node, expected around 2029. Even ASML's most important customer negotiates from a position of need, not leverage. ## Wall Street's trillion dollar math Barclays and Susquehanna have raised their price targets on ASML this month. So has Bernstein, setting a Street high near 2,500 euros a share. Combined, the three firms' targets imply a share price above $2,600, roughly 49% higher than where ASML trades now and close to the level needed to push the company past $1 trillion in market value. Bernstein's note cited what it called unprecedented AI driven expansion in both advanced logic and DRAM capacity as the reason to keep raising numbers. Frankly, the more interesting story here isn't Nvidia's stock chart or TSMC's foundry backlog. It's the machine that makes the machines. The risk sitting under all of this is geopolitics, not demand. Dutch and U.S. export controls have barred ASML from selling its most advanced EUV systems to Chinese customers since 2023, cutting off what was once one of its fastest growing markets. China is not in these numbers anymore. Fouquet has said ASML can still hit its targets without it, but a further tightening of controls, or a sudden slowdown in AI capital spending at TSMC and Samsung, is the clearest way this rally stalls. ASML has already overtaken Roche, LVMH, Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca and SAP to become Europe's most valuable public company, and by a wide margin. If the trillion dollar scenario plays out, it won't be because ASML found a new market. It will be because the one market it already owns outright keeps growing faster than anyone building GPUs or cloud servers can slow it down. **Also read:** [Boxabl Shares Jump 20 Percent as Tiny Home Startup Debuts on Nasdaq](https://startupfortune.com/boxabl-shares-jump-20-percent-as-tiny-home-startup-debuts-on-nasdaq/) • [Oracle Sues Wisconsin Over A $7 Billion Data Center Collateral Bill](https://startupfortune.com/oracle-sues-wisconsin-over-a-7-billion-data-center-collateral-bill/) • [A Judge Just Capped Sony's Copyright Case Against Udio at 333 Songs](https://startupfortune.com/a-judge-just-capped-sonys-copyright-case-against-udio-at-333-songs/)