Nick Brown is a co-founder of the Center for Technology and Statecraft (CTS), a new think tank spun out of IFP, that looks at long-term technology challenges and opportunities facing the US. Nick was a physics major, spent a while as a software engineer in and around government, and had an arc as an aspiring concert violinist. But we’re here to talk about what is in pole position for my paper of the year: his master class on what would happen if the US cut off DUV exports to China: DUV Immersion Lithography: The Foundation of US AI Compute Advantage. Co-hosting is ChinaTalk’s Aqib Zakaria.We discuss:
The case for banning DUV exports to China: Why lithography is the hardest part of the semiconductor manufacturing stack for China to replicate/indigenize and the strongest point of leverage the US and its allies have over China’s future AI compute.
The cannonball-sized hole in US export controls: China imported roughly 90 immersion lithography systems a year in 2024–25, nearly two-thirds of ASML’s immersion exports. If imports continue at this rate, China could approach or even reach parity with the US in AI chipmaking within a decade.
What the MATCH Act would do: How Congress could close this gap by restricting DUV immersion exports and servicing, and whether the US can get its allies on board.
Will Beijing retaliate? Why a gradual, long-term restriction may be less likely to provoke another rare-earths crisis
Buying time for AGI: How cutting off DUV imports could preserve America’s AI compute advantage into the 2030s, giving the US more time to navigate the technological, geopolitical, and societal implications of increasingly powerful AI.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Intro
00:07:11 EUV vs. DUV
00:21:55 What the MATCH Act does
00:41:24 Would Beijing retaliate?
00:58:59 Japan, the Netherlands, and the light-source option
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