ASML’s mysterious machine costs $400 million, and companies that make GPUs cannot operate without the machine. There is no AI without GPUs, and at the moment there is no economy without the idea that AI absorbs investors’ money and uses it to sadly build companies and expand and advance all the dubious and even more useful economic activities that we all may not like, but support. In the meantime.
A new 55-minute YouTube video is the most detailed and clear explanation I’ve ever used of a $400 machine—a large ASML EUV lithography system—how and why this technology was invented, and how it works. Created by Veritasium, science activist Derek Muller’s YouTube channel has just 20 million subscribers, which sounds like a lot when you compare it to MrBeast’s 458 million. It’s a powerful channel, but powerful, prominent enough to reach the clean room of ASML, but still probably close to the ceiling of the channel’s popularity in terms of hard science.
As of this writing, the video has been doing impressive business, pushing ten million views, even though it’s about, well, ultraviolet lithography. Luckily it leaves most of the usual corn syrup messing up your epic video. It does not treat its audience like children. It’s not injected with loads of “what just happened” jokes. The vibe is that video creators respect their viewers and genuinely want them to leave more informed than they were when they started.
Will you actually be more knowledgeable than you were before you watched the video? Speaking for myself, I’m not sure I deserve Veritasium’s respect. Standing in the audience is a guy named Casper Mebius, and he responds to an ASML guy talking about a red laser wavelength of 650 nanometers with “something like that, yeah.” I can’t relate to that at all. I would say “if you say so.” Maybe I deserved Miss Rachel’s version of this video.
But you, like me, have to stare into the heart of the $400 machine. You have to look at the otherworldly smoothness of the mirrors. You must hear, in detail, how the tin drops are sprayed and blasted with a laser, and how they emit the light of a supernova. You have to try, and fail, to really wrap your head around a thought experiment about laser accuracy that involves aiming dimes at the moon. Most importantly: you have to watch the dirty dance when compared to GPU wafers that are lithography-ed inside the machine.
It was very important to the people in power in the US that China does not use the full potential of the GPU. But keeping China away from the edge chips seems to be taking precedence lately. A few weeks ago, it was revealed that a Chinese team in Shenzhen, by hunting down ASML workers, had created a replica of the $400 million machine. It’s amazing to think what all this could mean.
A $400 device will one day no longer be the crown jewel of the tech economy. Moore’s law will continue, processing power will continue to rise, and the $400 million machine will be e-waste like everything else. A $1 billion machine is not far off. Stare at this one while it says something.
