Not Nvidia. Not Micron. This Dutch Company Controls a Key Bottleneck of AI Chip Production. | The Motley Fool

Nvidia (NVDA -8.69%) has become one of the biggest companies on the planet thanks to the popularity of its graphics processing units (GPUs), which have become the gold standard for AI data center processors. Micron Technology (MU -14.58%) isn’t as large, but the stock is up more than 200% this year, driven by surging demand for its high-bandwidth memory chips.

Both companies have been central to the build-out of artificial intelligence infrastructure. But there’s a Dutch company that’s just as important. And unlike Nvidia or Micron, it doesn’t manufacture or design the chips themselves.

That company is ASML (ASML -7.22%), and I’ve long believed it’s one of the most compelling ways you can invest in the AI infrastructure boom.

ASML has something its competitors don’t

Semiconductor manufacturers are constantly working to make their chips smaller, faster, more powerful, and more energy-efficient. But to manufacture chips with ever-tinier transistor sizes requires highly specialized equipment.

ASML makes state-of-the-art lithography machines, which use light to print microscopic patterns onto silicon wafers. Those patterns eventually become transistors and connections, allowing semiconductor chips to function.

ASML is special because it is the world’s only commercial supplier of the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines that are capable of laying down those precise patterns with the requisite fineness. This makes them essential for any…