#applied-materials

#applied-materials

These aren't commodity tools. Each EUV system costs north of $150 million, and you can't manufacture cutting-edge chips without them. TSMC is ASML's largest customer, and the foundry's push into 2nm production (already started) and future 1.6nm nodes requires even more EUV capacity. The math is straightforward: TSMC's five new Arizona fabs plus capacity expansion in Taiwan means dozens of EUV systems. At $150-200 million per machine, we're talking $3-5 billion flowing to ASML from this capex cycle alone.

While I continue to be a big fan of the mega-cap tech innovators, I also think some lesser-covered AI firms - at least relative to the likes of Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and the rest of the titans worth more than $1 trillion - are worth watching and even betting on, even if their narratives require more patience from investors. It's not just about the hyperscalers!