Computer Chip Giant ASML Places Big Bets on a Tiny Future

An optical system is prepared for testing in a vacuum chamber at Carl Zeiss SMT in Oberkochen, Germany, in an undated photo. Helmut Issler ZEISS/Handout via Reuters

VELDHOVEN, Netherlands—ASML, a semiconductor industry and stock market giant, has to think smaller. Or maybe bigger.

It is building machines the size of double-decker buses, weighing over 200 tonnes, in its quest to produce beams of focused light that create the microscopic circuitry on computer chips used in everything from phones and laptops to cars and AI.