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China holds about 343 advanced DUV chip tools, report says

A new think tank counts the immersion lithography machines in Chinese fabs and asks for a full export ban.

By Alexandre S. , 05:40 UTC

Chinese-owned chip fabs held about 343 immersion deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines by the first quarter of 2026, according to a report by Nicholas Brown and Saif M. Khan of the Center for Technology and Statecraft, published in late September 2026 and covered by the South China Morning Post. About 270 are ASML’s NXT:1980i; the rest are 22 NXT:2050i, six NXT:2100i and roughly 45 older systems.

Retro-futurist illustration: a striped sunset over a grid horizon under a starry sky, with a ringed globe standing on the horizon.
Drawn by adtestbench from DUV Immersion Lithography: The Foundation of the US AI Advantage,

The NXT:1980i matters for AI because it can make 7nm logic, such as Huawei’s Ascend processors, and the HBM2e memory those chips use. The authors estimate that one machine in a Chinese fab can turn out more than 100,000 Ascend 910C-class chips a year. ASML makes about 99 per cent of immersion DUV tools and Nikon the rest, and the report does not expect China to make immersion DUV tools at a scale that expands its AI chipmaking before the mid-2030s.

The authors want all immersion DUV sales to China stopped, and spare parts and servicing restricted too. ChainCatcher’s summary of the SCMP piece adds that the think tank was set up in August 2026 and that China’s share of ASML’s sales fell from 41 per cent in 2024 to 14 per cent in the second quarter of 2026.

For buyers of AI compute, the count shows how much of China’s AI chip output rests on machines already installed, which is why the report targets servicing and spare parts as well as new sales.

Sources

  1. Center for Technology and Statecraft: DUV Immersion Lithography: The Foundation of the US AI Advantage. Checked
  2. ChainCatcher: Analysis: China may have stockpiled 343 immersion deep ultraviolet lithography machines. Checked

Alexandre S.

Alexandre S. is a creative ad strategist and copywriter with ten years' experience in digital marketing across multiple channels.

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