MIT Technology Review profiled ASML’s latest advanced chipmaking system, a machine described as the size of a double-decker bus and costing about $400 million. It is packed with precision components, cables, tubes, and controlled subsystems.
The machine matters because advanced AI chips depend on manufacturing tools that are extraordinarily difficult to build, buy, and operate. Scaling AI hardware is not only a question of chip design; it also depends on a narrow supply chain of lithography equipment.
The article puts today’s AI infrastructure boom in physical context: every model race ultimately runs through factories, tools, and years of engineering.