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Quiz of the week, 2026-09-27

The week Europe's biggest company sold none of its machines at home

Ten questions from this week in AI and the factory floor. One is a match-up. Every answer is a fact from a piece on this site or a public source, and every explanation says where it came from.

10 questions1 match-upsAbout 4 minutesEvery answer sourced

0 of 10 answered

Question 1 AI this weekAcross the first half of 2026, what share of ASML's system revenue came from Europe, the continent where the machines are built? About 45% 0% About 15% About 30%

Zero. In the second quarter, South Korea took 43% of shipments, Taiwan 30%, China 14%, the United States 9% and Japan 4%. Europe took nothing at all. Read the piece

Question 2 AI this weekOn 22 September 2026, at a public debate in Amsterdam, ASML's EVP of public affairs Frank Heemskerk gave a reason for that zero. What was it? European chipmakers cannot afford them ASML has stopped supporting European customers There is simply no demand in Europe for these machines Export controls block European sales

Demand, not rules. His words: "We are selling absolutely nothing in Europe… There simply is no demand here for these kinds of highly specialized machines. That is the problem. So apart from trying to attract investment with capital on the supply side, we should do much more to create demand." Read the piece

Question 3 The numberTrue or false: "zero sales in Europe" means ASML has no European business at all. True False

False, and the distinction matters. Zero refers to new systems. ASML's installed-base management business — service, parts and upgrades on machines already running in Europe — still generated roughly €2.76 billion in the second quarter, close to 30% of net sales. Read the piece

Question 4 The numberRoughly what does one of these lithography machines cost? Around $200 million, and about $380 million for the newest High-NA version Around $2 million Around $20 million Around $2 billion

A standard EUV system runs roughly $183–220 million. The High-NA Twinscan EXE costs about $380 million, with 10 to 20 units booked and a target of 20 systems a year by 2028. Read the piece

Question 5 AI this weekThe European Chips Act put €43 billion behind a target for Europe's share of world chip making. What was the target, and what do Europe's own auditors say about it? 20% by 2030, and the Court of Auditors calls it very unlikely 20% by 2040, and the auditors have not commented 50% by 2030, and the auditors call it achievable 10% by 2030, already achieved

Twenty percent by 2030. The European Court of Auditors concluded the Act is "very unlikely to be sufficient" to achieve it, and the Commission's own forecast moves the EU share from 9.8% in 2022 to only 11.7% by 2030. Read the piece

Question 6 AI this weekIntel cancelled its planned €30 billion factory in Magdeburg, Germany, despite about €9.9 billion of German public money being pledged. What reason did Intel give? Construction costs had doubled The German government withdrew the subsidy It could not hire enough engineers Not enough customers had committed to buying the chips

A lack of committed demand — not cost, and not the subsidy. A $4.6 billion assembly and test plant planned for Poland, with €1.7 billion pledged, was cancelled alongside it. Read the piece

Question 7 AI this weekEurope does have one large new fab going up: the TSMC-backed ESMC plant in Dresden. Why does the video call it the part nobody notices? It will only make memory chips It is owned by ASML It makes older-node chips for cars, which never needed the expensive machine It has already been cancelled too

It targets 28/22nm planar and 16/12nm FinFET processes for automotive and industrial customers, with production due by end 2027 and around 2,000 direct jobs. Those are genuinely useful chips — and those nodes never required EUV lithography. Europe's flagship fab does not buy Europe's flagship machine. Read the piece

Question 8 MES and the floorTrue or false: a chip fab is usually built close to the company that makes its equipment. True False

False. A fab is built close to its customers and its existing industrial cluster, not close to its toolmaker. That is why nearly three quarters of this year's machines shipped to South Korea and Taiwan, which already make most of the world's advanced chips, while the machines themselves are built in the Netherlands. Read the piece

Question 9 MES and the floorWhat is the general lesson the video draws from all of this? Chip factories should be built where machines are made Owning the tool guarantees owning the industry Subsidies always work if they are large enough You can subsidise supply, but you cannot subsidise demand

You can pay a company to build a factory. You cannot pay anyone to need what it makes. Owning the critical technology is not the same as owning the industry that runs on it — which is why the piece is called "a machine is not an industry". Read the piece

Question 10 The numberMatch each share to where this year's lithography machines actually went.

43%

30%

14%

0%

Second-quarter 2026 shipment shares. The United States took 9% and Japan 4%. The striking figure is the last one: the continent that builds the machine took none of it. Read the piece

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Earlier weeks

2026-09-26The week two labs shipped models and a factory read twelve characters 2026-09-20The week the AI boom ran out of power 2026-09-15The week the AI companies asked to slow down 2026-09-12The week the dashboard turned out to be a copy

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