If we're going to be like that, we should go for Nvidia. Their market cap is currently ~4T.

I can see that going very well.

> Reproducing an ASML machine is a piece of cake

No its not, you have to be extremely precise when making the machine, and only ASML knows how to do that. China already have a big government funded project to reproduce ASML machines and they have failed so far.

Nonsense. Patents are a locked glass door; anyone can get in if they knock hard enough. And Chinese engineers wear heavy gloves and eye protection when going door-to-door.

I used to work for ASML as a design engineer, and I asked my manager why we didn't shred our paperwork, like some other companies I worked at.

"With all the trouble we've had, getting our designs to work? We should publish them to slow down our competitors!"

He wasn't wrong. “Nothing that's good works by itself, you've got to make the damn thing work.” — Thomas A. Edison.

> Reproducing an ASML machine is a piece of cake. Okay, not a piece of cake but definitely doable. The problem is that you cannot sell your reproduction in rich countries because the US government will threaten you with sanctions and US companies will screech "patents!".

... An argument that may not convince China and Russia, who have a track record of ignoring it - I doubt it is a significant reason why they have not achieved semiconductor manufacture tooling parity.