{"id":135634,"date":"2025-03-13T13:55:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T17:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=135634"},"modified":"2025-03-14T06:00:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T10:00:32","slug":"economist-the-race-is-on-to-build-the-worlds-most-complex-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=135634","title":{"rendered":"(Economist) The race is on to build the world\u2019s most complex machine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Few would expect the future of artificial intelligence (AI<\/small>) to depend on Eindhoven, a quiet Dutch town. Yet just beyond its borders sits the\u00a0headquarters of\u00a0ASML<\/small><\/a>, the only company that makes the machines, known as lithography tools, needed to produce cutting-edge\u00a0AI\u00a0<\/small>chips.\u00a0ASML<\/small>\u2019s latest creation is a 150-tonne colossus, around the size of two shipping containers and priced at around $350m. It is also the most advanced machine for sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The firm\u2019s expertise has placed it at the centre of a\u00a0global technology battle<\/a>. To prevent China from building whizzy\u00a0AI\u00a0<\/small>chips, America has barred\u00a0ASML\u00a0<\/small>from selling its most advanced gear to Chinese chipmakers. In response,\u00a0China is pouring billions of dollars<\/a>\u00a0into building homegrown alternatives. Meanwhile, Canon, a Japanese rival, is betting on a simpler, cheaper technology to loosen\u00a0ASML<\/small>\u2019s grip. Yet unlike software, where industry leadership can shift in a matter of months, success in lithography is a slow-moving race measured in decades. Overtaking\u00a0ASML\u00a0<\/small>won\u2019t be easy. At stake is control of the machine that will shape the future of computing,\u00a0AI\u00a0<\/small>and technology itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ASML<\/small>\u2019s most advanced machine is mind-boggling. It works by firing 50,000 droplets of molten tin into a vacuum chamber. Each droplet takes a double hit\u2014first from a weak laser pulse that flattens it into a tiny pancake, then from a powerful laser that vaporises it. The process turns each droplet into hot plasma, reaching nearly 220,000\u00b0C, roughly 40 times hotter than the surface of the Sun, and emits light of extremely short wavelength (extreme ultraviolet, or\u00a0EUV<\/small>). This light is then reflected by a series of mirrors so smooth that imperfections are measured in trillionths of a metre. The mirrors focus the light onto a mask or template that contains blueprints of the chip\u2019s circuits. Finally the rays bounce from the mask onto a silicon wafer coated with light-sensitive chemicals, imprinting the design onto the chip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>

ASML\u2019s tools are indispensable to modern chipmaking. Rivals are now racing to dethrone the company\u2014but it won\u2019t be easy https:\/\/t.co\/WNWBencgIo<\/a><\/p>— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 14, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>