CTS: China Amassed 343 ASML DUV Tools, Urges Full Export Ban

The number is 343. That is how many immersion DUV lithography systems Chinese-owned fabs had acquired by early 2026, according to a new Center for Technology & Statecraft report highlighted by the South China Morning Post. Roughly 270 are ASML's Twinscan NXT:1980i, the generation Washington still permits into China despite its ability to pattern 7-nanometre-class logic.

Chinese fabs spent over $13 billion on NXT:1980i machines in 2024 and 2025, taking about 90 systems in the first year and 89 in the second. The CTS authors, Nicholas Brown and Saif M. Khan, draw a sharp line between legacy production and AI-grade capacity: 'dry DUV systems can support all of China's legacy logic and memory nodes without enabling the nodes used to produce AI chips,' they write.

The capacity math is the uncomfortable part. One NXT:1980i in a Chinese fab, the report estimates, is enough for 'over 100,000 Ascend 910C-equivalents per year,' even with yields below world-leading facilities.

Their recommendation is blunt. Brown and Khan call for 'a China-wide ban on all DUVi exports,' which they argue would 'secure the US advanced AI chip production advantage for at least a decade.'

ASML's own geography already shows pressure. China was 41% of the Dutch firm's net system sales by shipment destination in 2024 and 33% in 2025, before falling to 19% in the first quarter of 2026 and 14% in the second. The CTS numbers now land in the middle of a steady run of chip-export and smuggling stories our team has been tracking, each one tightening the same loop around the same loophole.