ASML New Dutch Facility
ASML’s new project in the Netherlands is the culmination of a growth story that has been building for decades
ASML’s latest expansion in the Netherlands marks the latest chapter in a decades-long growth story that has reshaped the global semiconductor industry. Since its founding in 1984 as a Philips spin-off, the company has steadily evolved from a small joint venture into the world’s most strategically important lithography supplier. Its early and sustained investment in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology proved transformative, making ASML indispensable to leading chipmakers as demand for advanced semiconductors surged across AI, high-performance computing and automotive markets.
By the late 2010s and early 2020s, that growth began to stretch ASML’s Eindhoven-area operations to their limits. Rising order backlogs and a rapidly expanding workforce pushed the company beyond incremental expansion and toward a far more ambitious vision: a large-scale campus capable of supporting manufacturing support, R&D and systems integration for decades to come. This ambition closely aligned with Dutch and European priorities around technological sovereignty, prompting close coordination with national and regional authorities under the banner of “Project Beethoven”.
Progress was not linear. Early plans triggered debates over zoning, environmental impact, housing pressure and infrastructure capacity. The sheer scale of the proposal sparked national discussion about how much growth the Eindhoven region could absorb. Momentum returned in 2023 and 2024 as political backing strengthened and ASML made clear that constrained domestic growth could force future expansion abroad.
With the global AI boom accelerating, the project has taken on new urgency. The campus is designed not only to increase capacity, but to deepen collaboration across ASML’s engineering teams, suppliers and customers. Expected to create up to 20,000 jobs over time, its impact will extend well beyond the company itself.
Now moving from concept to execution, ASML’s expansion stands as a clear statement of intent: to anchor the world’s most critical semiconductor technologies firmly in the Netherlands and reinforce Europe’s role at the forefront of advanced chip manufacturing.
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