ASML (ASML) shares fell about 6% in a single trading session, a sharp decline for a company this size. The trigger came from a rather unexpected place: Anthropic’s Dario Amodei called for the AI industry to slow the pace of model development. Shortly after, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of xAI (SPCX) backed it too. That warning sent chip equipment stocks lower, and ASML was among the hardest hit. The reason lies in what the company does. ASML builds the machines that make advanced chips, and it’s the only firm in the world that makes the most cutting-edge ones. So every major chipmaker that wants to build the chips behind AI has to buy from ASML.
