By Kim Mackrael

VELDHOVEN, Netherlands - DeepSeek's success shows companies are making the most of limited resources in a hot artificial-intelligence market, but that doesn't mean controls targeting China's chip sector have failed, the chief of a leading semiconductor equipment maker said in an interview.

ASML Holding Chief Executive Christophe Fouquet said tech companies would always look for ways to advance despite restrictions that have limited their access to cutting-edge chips and the equipment that is needed to make them.

Chinese AI upstart DeepSeek last week roiled markets and sparked questions about the effectiveness of export controls after the company said it had produced a high-performing model using less-advanced chips. For many investors, the news upended a conventional view that expensive, cutting-edge chips are needed to train the most advanced AI models.

President Trump called DeepSeek a wake-up call for the U.S. industry, which he said needs to be "laser-focused on competing to win". The leaders of a bipartisan congressional committee also asked for tougher controls on certain Nvidia chips that were reportedly used in DeepSeek's AI model, as well as other chips with similar capabilities.

During a press conference and interview with The Wall Street Journal last week, Fouquet cautioned against drawing conclusions about what technology DeepSeek had access to or whether Western export controls had worked.

Nvidia, the world's largest AI chips company, adjusted its designs in recent years to comply with U.S. restrictions while still offering competitive products to China, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Nvidia said it believed DeepSeek relied largely on smart engineers and access to advanced AI models.

Fouquet struck a similar tone in his comments last week. He said advances in software and algorithms would be the most open field of AI technology going forward. A group of students can start a company using a laptop and some AI model access, he said, but that doesn't necessarily mean export controls are ineffective.

ASML is a top supplier of lithography machines, including the most sophisticated extreme ultraviolet lithography machines that are used to make the most advanced chips. It has never been able to sell its EUV machines to China.

Some of the initial concerns about DeepSeek's implications for tech companies have cooled in recent days, analysts said. Meta Platforms and Microsoft said last week that they were sticking with ambitious investments in the technology and see DeepSeek's advances as helping to make AI cheaper and more widely used.

Fouquet expressed a similar view. "Any technology, whatever it is, that will contribute into a cost reduction overall of AI, will increase the opportunity," he said.

For now, Fouquet said China remains far behind the West when it comes to manufacturing cutting-edge chips. And that means its companies are still constrained on what they can create.

"If you don't have the most advanced technology at hand, you won't be as good as the people who have it," he said.

Fouquet said in the interview that ASML intends to reach out to the Trump administration to discuss the company and its role in the U.S., something he said was typical of ASML's engagement with new U.S. administrations. He said he is encouraging Western governments to focus on creating conditions that will help semiconductor companies compete globally.

"Our strong advice is: Win by winning. Innovate, invest, create the space for companies to innovate and compete," he said. "If you start to only worry about what the other people are doing you are already dead."

Fouquet said he accepted that export controls might be needed for national security, but he warned against applying those restrictions as a tool to curb competition.

"What we need to make sure is that this is being used for the right sake," he said of Western export restrictions. "Sometimes I heard that economy is a matter of national security, and this is where, again, you could be blurring the line."

Write to Kim Mackrael at kim.mackrael@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 03, 2025 10:14 ET (15:14 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.