Zeiss称EUV关键光学部件产能可满足AI芯片需求

One of the critical suppliers in the semiconductor industry, Germany’s Zeiss Group, pushed back on investor concerns about bottlenecks in the AI supply chain and said it’s confident it has the capacity to handle booming demand.

The company’s semiconductor unit announced last month that it has built out its Oberkochen headquarters as part of an effort to optimize existing space and add scope for production. It’s also constructing a factory on another Zeiss site, and says it can expand more if needed.

“These are the real, long-term items when it comes to capacity expansion,” Frank Rohmund, who leads the group’s semiconductor division, told Bloomberg in an interview.

The German firm provides optical equipment to ASML Holding NV, the only company in the world that manufactures the extreme ultraviolet lithography machines capable of producing the most cutting-edge semiconductors. Zeiss’s ultra-smooth mirrors, which take months to make, are vital to EUV machines. They are precisely built to reflect EUV light with the goal of printing fine patterns onto the silicon wafers that power chips.

Through this partnership, Zeiss says its components have played a role in producing around 80% of the world’s chips. The company’s semiconductor division is so critical to the Dutch chip-equipment maker that in 2016, ASML paid €1 billion to acquire a minority stake in Zeiss’s semiconductor unit.

Rohmund expects “significant growth” this year thanks to investments from hyperscalers. At the same time, investors have been concerned that ASML and partners like Zeiss won’t be able to keep up as chipmakers such as TSMC, Intel, Samsung and Micron race to build chip production facilities. In July, ASML announced plans to increase manufacturing capacity for its EUV machines to meet a large number of orders queued up for 2028.

Nestled in a countryside town within Germany’s Swabian Jura mountain range, the Zeiss Group has been developing optical products for nearly 180 years. Its camera lenses were used by NASA to capture the first lunar landing. The portfolio of the closely held company now includes semiconductor parts, medical technology, microscopes and eyewear.

Zeiss’s semiconductor unit entered into a partnership agreement with ASML in the late 1990s, when the two were working together to make chips smaller, more powerful and energy efficient. Over the years, their technologies have developed in tandem. Within the EUV machines, Zeiss’s mirrors are tilted so precisely that if one of them “were to redirect a laser beam and aim it at the moon, it would be capable of hitting a ping-pong ball on the moon’s surface,” according to the company.

ASML’s bet has paid off. The division reported record revenue of €5.06 billion in its last fiscal year that ended in September 2025, according to the group’s annual report – a 23% jump. It attributed that to an increase in AI applications and growing demand from China. The unit was also the largest contributor to Zeiss’ overall revenue, which totaled nearly €12 billion over that same period.

“Together with ASML, we have a roadmap which extends relatively far into the future. We’re talking about 2040 or so,” Rohmund said.

Yet trade tensions between the US and China, one of ASML’s top markets, could present risks for both companies. ASML is restricted from selling its most advanced tools to China due to US-led export controls, and earlier this year US lawmakers proposed further limiting sales of chip-making equipment to China. If adopted, the legislation would expand curbs to all of ASML’s deep ultraviolet immersion machines and block the company from servicing machines at certain sites. That could impact Zeiss, which makes lenses for ASML’s DUV tools.

The German government has also been informally gathering information on China’s trade flows, supply chains and company-level data as part of an effort to map its economic vulnerabilities, according to people familiar with the matter. Bloomberg reported last week that Germany has identified Zeiss as one of the companies it could leverage in a potential trade war with China.

Read More: Germany Maps China’s Weaknesses in Preparation for a Trade War

Rohmund, a physicist who has worked at Zeiss for almost 25 years, is pleased about the rising demand for AI chips. He cautioned, however, that the industry is cyclical. “Sooner or later, most likely, there will be some kind of correction,” he said. “We are Germans. We are always cautious, we are never really excited,” he said.