The US has raised concerns that Dutch semiconductor giant ASML may have shipped an ultra-high-tech chip-making machine to China.
Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, reportedly held several meetings with ASML executives in which he voiced fears that an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine may have ended up in Chinese hands.
This would be a major violation of the US’s export control regime, which bans the transfer of ASML’s EUVs to restricted markets such as China.
Mr Lutnick’s concerns suggest that Washington has not entirely abandoned its vigilance over sensitive tech exports to China, despite Donald Trump recently relaxing some restrictions on US chip sales there.
The US concerns were first reported by Bloomberg, which said the White House had not provided its reporters with any evidence to back up Mr Lutnick’s behind-closed-doors claims.
ASML said on Friday that it had “never shipped an EUV machine to China, nor have we shipped to China any component, module or equipment specially designed to be used in an EUV machine”.
The Netherlands government told Reuters that it strictly enforced its licensing rules for semiconductor manufacturing “equipment, components and technology that explicitly fall under these rules”.
ASML has been prevented from selling China an EUV, which is about the size of a school bus and weighs 180 metric tonnes, since Mr Trump’s first term.
The machines are used by companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to make chips for US firms such as Nvidia.
China’s lack of an EUV is a barrier to its ambitions to rival the US as a technology superpower.