ASML announced plans to manufacture at least 60 standard EUV lithography machines in 2026, representing a 36 percent increase over 2025 sales figures. The Dutch company remains the sole supplier of equipment capable of producing cutting-edge semiconductors at scale, and the acceleration reflects relentless demand from AI chip manufacturers.

The bottleneck in AI is not software. It is not talent. The bottleneck is silicon. Whoever can deliver the most advanced chips at the highest volume owns the AI market. ASML manufactures the only tools that produce those chips. This gives ASML extraordinary leverage over every semiconductor company, which gives every semiconductor company leverage over every AI company. The hierarchy is clear and fixed.

Modern warfare is not constrained by willpower; it’s constrained by supply chains.

The romantic version of military strategy centers on resolve—the side that wants victory more, endures more, sacrifices more, prevails. It’s a useful story for recruitment and memorialization. It has almost nothing to do with how prolonged industrial-era and post-industrial conflicts actually terminate. What ends wars is not the exhaustion of will but the exhaustion of the material systems that translate will into battlefield effect.