US EditionReuters: How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips
China's prototype EUV lithography machine built by ex-ASML engineers is operational but has yet to produce chips, marking progress toward semiconductor independence by 2030, sources say.
- In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists and engineers built an EUV lithography prototype filling nearly a factory floor that is operational and generating extreme ultraviolet light but not yet producing chips.
- Driven by a six-year push to cut foreign reliance, the effort caps a government initiative led by Xi Jinping and overseen by Ding Xuexiang's Central Science and Technology Commission.
- A focused team of around 100 recent university graduates reverse-engineers parts using salvaged components from older ASML machines and export-restricted parts from Nikon and Canon, working under strict secrecy with fake IDs and on-site sleeping.
- China set an official goal to make chips on the prototype by 2028, but insiders say 2030 is more realistic amid export controls and ASML's $845 million judgment.
- With Huawei coordinating supply-chain steps, EUV systems, costing about $250 million, are vital for advanced chips used by Nvidia, AMD, TSMC, Intel, and Samsung, and success could reshape global supply chains.
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With the help of trained Western engineers, China has built a prototype for a chip machine, which up to now only the Dutch company ASML can produce. Chip production is targeted for 2028.
der Standard AT
der Standard DEChina is developing a prototype EUV machine – Beijing is targeting chip production for 2028
Under the leadership of the Tech Group Huawei, ex-employees of the Dutch company ASML were able to copy state-of-the-art EUV machines for the production of microchips.
China’s Shadow Foundry: The Secret EUV Breakthrough Defying Global Chip Controls
In a fortified complex on the outskirts of Shenzhen, a team of engineers has achieved what U.S. export controls aimed to make impossible: a functioning prototype of an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine, the crown jewel of advanced semiconductor manufacturing. This machine, essential for etching the tiniest features on chips powering AI models, smartphones and military systems, was assembled in early 2025 under conditions of utmost se…
China has reportedly collaborated with a former ASML engineer to successfully reverse engineer an EUV lithography machine, suggesting that a prototype has already been completed and that domestic production of high-performance semiconductors is on the hor
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