The company at the heart of the AI chip boom isn't a household name, but it may be about to make European history.
According to Reuters, the global artificial intelligence boom has propelled Dutch firm ASML to the top of Europe's stock market, as soaring demand for AI computer chips flows down to the equipment that makes them. In an analysis published July 20 from Amsterdam by reporters Toby Sterling and Nathan Vifflin, Reuters raised the question of whether that surge could turn ASML into Europe's first trillion-dollar company.
ASML occupies an unusual choke point in the tech economy. It doesn't make chips itself; it builds the extraordinarily complex machines that chipmakers use to print them. That means when demand for AI processors climbs, orders for ASML's gear tend to follow.
The momentum shows up in the company's own numbers. According to IBTimes, ASML raised its 2026 revenue forecast to €43-45 billion, expanded its chipmaking capacity plans, and moved closer to a $1 trillion valuation on the back of robust demand.
Reaching that milestone would be a first for the continent. No European company has yet crossed the trillion-dollar mark, a threshold already passed by a handful of American tech giants. For ASML to get there on the strength of AI would underline how much of the current boom rests not just on the firms building AI models, but on the narrow supply chain that physically produces the chips they run on.
Why it matters: If ASML crosses the trillion-dollar line, it would mark the moment Europe's most valuable company became a bet on the machinery powering the global AI race.