Chris McGuire(@ChrisRMcGuire):I could not agree more with @KonstantinPilz that it is critical to cut off China's access to DUV immersion machines, and that the current controls are insufficient and we must do more. However, it's just not accurate to say that there are no controls on DUV or that this has not been an area of focus for policymakers. As my former colleague @KhanSaifM can attest, there was IMMENSE focus on China's access to DUV immersion machines during the Biden administration. Following extensive negotiations, the United States, the Netherlands, and Japan agreed to implement measures that restricted export of advanced DUV immersion machines to any entity in China. But crucially, these controls permitted the continued export of some less-advanced (but still extremely capable) DUV immersion machines to all but a small handful of fabs in China. Over the last three years, China has massively ramped up purcahses of these non-restricted DUV machines, and is using these machines to fuel its production of advanced chips--pushing the limit of what is possible without the most advanced DUV machines or EUV machines. There are also rumors that some of these less-advanced DUV machines in China may have been illicitly upgraded to be as capable as banned, more advanced DUV machines. And ASML continues to provide servicing and maintenance support to already-installed DUV machines, including ones at China's most advanced and sophisticated fabs, such as SMIC South. We can and should cut off China's access to all DUV immersion machines. The United States could do so unilaterally via the foreign-produced direct product rule, given all DUV machines require U.S. technology to operate. This should be scoped to capture not just exports of new machines, but also servicing of existing machines - which would cause the machines already in China to rapidly degrade. This absolutely is one of the most important things we could do to ensure U.S. leadership over China in AI. But it definitely used to be a strong area of focus in the government, even if it has not been in this administration.

2026.09.18 20:30

I could not agree more with @KonstantinPilz that it is critical to cut off China's access to DUV immersion machines, and that the current controls are insufficient and we must do more. However, it's just not accurate to say that there are no controls on DUV or that this has not been an area of focus for policymakers. As my former colleague @KhanSaifM can attest, there was IMMENSE focus on China's access to DUV immersion machines during the Biden administration. Following extensive negotiations, the United States, the Netherlands, and Japan agreed to implement measures that restricted export of advanced DUV immersion machines to any entity in China. But crucially, these controls permitted the continued export of some less-advanced (but still extremely capable) DUV immersion machines to all but a small handful of fabs in China. Over the last three years, China has massively ramped up purcahses of these non-restricted DUV machines, and is using these machines to fuel its production of advanced chips--pushing the limit of what is possible without the most advanced DUV machines or EUV machines. There are also rumors that some of these less-advanced DUV machines in China may have been illicitly upgraded to be as capable as banned, more advanced DUV machines. And ASML continues to provide servicing and maintenance support to already-installed DUV machines, including ones at China's most advanced and sophisticated fabs, such as SMIC South. We can and should cut off China's access to all DUV immersion machines. The United States could do so unilaterally via the foreign-produced direct product rule, given all DUV machines require U.S. technology to operate. This should be scoped to capture not just exports of new machines, but also servicing of existing machines - which would cause the machines already in China to rapidly degrade. This absolutely is one of the most important things we could do to ensure U.S. leadership over China in AI. But it definitely used to be a strong area of focus in the government, even if it has not been in this administration.

MTS@MTSlive

2026.09.18 02:44

CTS co-founder @KonstantinPilz says China makes all its AI chips on Western DUV machines, the US could cut that off tomorrow, and explains why it hasn't: "China is relying entirely on Western machines to make its AI compute. They are not using EUV, which has been banned since 2019, but they are using DUV, the previous generation. China has rapidly ramped up the amount of DUV they are buying, and the US is just not doing anything about that." "If the US wanted to, they could just restrict those exports and China would be making way less AI compute." "Someone goes to policymakers and says, here's my first recommendation, ideally we'd also do this, this, and this. And policymakers are like, oh, maybe we'll talk about the first one." "We've known about DUV for probably several years now. It's just a very slow process to convince people to actually act on it." @techstatecraft