Nvidia edges ASML as 2026 AI chip pick on $215.9 billion revenue

The article frames the choice as one between two ends of the AI supply chain. ASML is the world's only manufacturer of EUV lithography systems, the machines used to produce leading-edge chips, and it sells to makers of both logic and memory chips. Nvidia operates at the other end, designing the GPUs and software used to train and run AI models in data centers.

Each carries distinct risks. ASML depends on a narrow supply chain, relying on external vendors and often single suppliers for components, and export controls limit which systems it can ship to China, which accounted for about 29% of total net sales in 2025. Nvidia does not manufacture its own chips, relying on foundries such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and it competes with large cloud companies such as Alphabet and Amazon that design their own AI hardware. A U.S. license requirement on its H20 chips led to a $4.5 billion charge in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, and Nvidia said it was effectively foreclosed from China's data center compute market as of the end of that fiscal year.

The article's author calls Nvidia the better buy for 2026, with a caveat: both stocks depend on the same wave of AI data center spending, so either should be held only as part of a diversified portfolio for five years or more. The risk that matters most is concentration — two Nvidia customers accounted for more than a third of fiscal 2026 revenue, and large cloud companies are designing their own AI chips. ASML, meanwhile, gives investors a stake in AI's growth regardless of who designs the leading-edge chips, and management raised its 2026 sales outlook in July to a range roughly a third above its 2025 total while planning to add EUV capacity for 2027. The test for Nvidia is whether it can keep growing without China data center compute revenue, which its fiscal third-quarter guidance of about $108 billion assumed.