AI Markets: ASML nears $1 trillion, TSMC invests, SpaceX tumbles

ASML is closing in on the symbolic $1 trillion mark on the back of the AI chip boom, while TSMC commits another $100 billion in Arizona to keep up with demand. On the IPO front, SpaceX is down 45% from its peak and Apple is suing OpenAI, two stories to watch this summer.

TSMC pours another $100 billion into Arizona, betting AI demand is here to stay

Fresh off a record quarter fueled by the rush for AI chips, Taiwanese foundry TSMC is announcing an additional $100 billion investment to expand its Arizona fabs. The move says a lot about how confident the world’s top chipmaker is in the staying power of the AI cycle.

Key points:

On July 16, 2026, TSMC announced $100 billion in additional investment in Arizona, bringing its total commitment in the state to $265 billion, for at least four more fabs using 2-nanometer and more advanced technology.
Second-quarter 2026 results beat expectations: revenue of $40.2 billion (+36% year over year), net income of nearly $22 billion (+77.4% year over year), and a gross margin of 67.7%.
CEO C.C. Wei says “[TSMC’s] conviction in the multi-year AI megatrend remains very strong” and raised the company’s 2026 annual growth forecast to “slightly more than 40%.”
The 2026 capital expenditure (capex) budget was raised to $60-64 billion, up from an initial $52-56 billion — a strong signal to markets about how long the cycle will last.

TSMC, the invisible but indispensable link in the AI chain

TSMC doesn’t sell a single AI chip under its own name, but it manufactures nearly all of the advanced chips for Nvidia and AMD, plus Apple’s in-house processors. It’s the bottleneck — and therefore the barometer — of the entire AI supply chain. When TSMC says it sees “strong, multi-year” demand, that’s an indirect signal about the health of the AI cycle for the whole sector, from chipmakers to hyperscalers.

The Arizona expansion serves two goals: following US demand and reducing geopolitical dependence on Taiwan, a sensitive issue for customers and governments alike. On the competition side, Samsung Foundry and Intel Foundry are trying to catch up on the most advanced nodes, but neither has shown it can produce at TSMC’s scale on 2 nanometers — which is why the biggest names in AI are concentrated at the Taiwanese foundry.

How a European investor can follow the story

TSMC is listed in Taiwan and accessible from Europe through its New York ADR (NYSE: TSM). Note: this ADR is not eligible for the PEA, since the company is Taiwanese and not domiciled in the European Union — you need a regular brokerage account. For diversified exposure, UCITS ETFs such as the VanEck Semiconductor UCITS ETF or the iShares MSCI Global Semiconductors UCITS ETF generally count TSMC among their top holdings. But they generally aren’t PEA-eligible either: there is currently no semiconductor ETF that meets the geographic criteria of the French PEA. For informational purposes only, not investment advice or a buy recommendation.

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Can ASML become Europe’s first $1 trillion company?

Riding the global rush for AI chips, ASML became Europe’s largest company by market capitalization in late July 2026. One question remains, raised by Reuters and picked up by several financial outlets: can the Dutch maker of lithography machines break through the symbolic $1 trillion mark?

Key points:

ASML is currently worth about $680-700 billion (nearly €600 billion) on the stock market, making it Europe’s most valuable company, ahead of LVMH, Roche, Novo Nordisk and SAP.
The stock has jumped about 60% since January 2026 (and more than 120% over a year), powered by better-than-expected second-quarter results: €9.3 billion in revenue, €2.9 billion in net income, and a 54% gross margin.
Analysts at Barclays, Susquehanna and Bernstein are targeting, according to their own estimates (these are opinions, not facts), a share price above $2,600 — about 49% above current levels, the threshold seen as matching a $1 trillion market cap.
ASML remains virtually the world’s sole supplier of EUV lithography machines, a technology TSMC, Samsung and Intel can’t do without to etch the most advanced AI chips.

The tech → market bridge: an industrial monopoly turning into a cash machine

ASML doesn’t make chips: it makes the machines that etch them. In EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography, essential for cutting-edge AI chips, the company has no serious competitor. The result shows up in the books: a 54% gross margin in the second quarter of 2026, and an order book that’s already nearly full for 2027, according to management. In the eyes of the analysts cited, this industrial “bottleneck” justifies a valuation now above 38 times expected 2027 earnings — well above that of its own customer, TSMC.

None of this is a done deal, though: the same analysts point to the risk of a slowdown in spending by cloud giants (Google, Amazon…), and to export restrictions that could limit sales to China, a market still accounting for nearly 20% of ASML’s 2026 revenue. The $1 trillion scenario is an analyst hypothesis, not a certainty.

European investor angle: a PEA stock, but not without valuation risk

For a French saver, ASML has a rare quality: as a Dutch company, and therefore an EU company, listed on Euronext Amsterdam, it is eligible for the standard PEA — unlike most of the big American AI players, such as Nvidia. It’s one of the few ways to bet on the AI semiconductor value chain through a French tax-advantaged account without going through a regular brokerage account.

That doesn’t mean you can skip the risks: at 38 times expected earnings, a good chunk of AI optimism is already priced in. To diversify rather than bet on a single stock, indirect exposure is also available through tech or semiconductor ETFs that include ASML. This describes available options, not a buy recommendation.

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SpaceX on the market: a 45% drop that’s testing new shareholders

Six weeks after a splashy debut, SpaceX stock (SPCX) has slipped back below its IPO price. Enough to cool the euphoria and raise a bigger question: can the tech/AI IPO market still set a fair price?

Key points:

Listed on the Nasdaq on June 12, 2026 at $135, SpaceX stock climbed as high as $225.64 on June 16 before falling back to around $124 on July 19 — roughly -45% from that peak and slightly below its IPO price.
Cathie Wood (ARK Invest) bought about $51 million worth of SpaceX shares during the week of July 6 to 10, bringing ARK’s total position in the stock to more than $475 million since the IPO.
The first shares locked up since the IPO (“lock-up”) start unlocking in early August 2026, right after SpaceX’s first quarterly results as a public company (expected around August 6): about 911.5 million shares, worth nearly $123 billion at current prices, could then become tradable.
Analyst views diverge: Morgan Stanley (Adam Jonas) is targeting $300 while Goldman Sachs (Eric Sheridan) sets its target at $205 — two views that remain bullish, but with a valuation gap of about $1 trillion between the two banks.

Why the stock is sliding: gravity catches up with the story

A record IPO doesn’t protect against a hard landing. SpaceX opened trading with less than 5% of its shares actually available to buy — a thin float that mechanically inflated the price in the first few days. Since then, reality has been catching up: the company still trades at nearly 65 times sales, without having published a single quarterly result as a public company, and its 2025 net loss topped $4.9 billion. The real test comes in early August, with two events colliding: the first official results, and the release of a massive volume of previously locked-up shares — more supply without proof of near-term profitability, the classic recipe for extra pressure on the stock. Cathie Wood is betting on a rebound by adding to her position; Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs both still rate it a buy, but with targets far apart, a sign that even the pros are struggling to value a company that mixes rockets, Starlink satellites and AI ambitions.

A reminder for individual investors in Europe

For an individual investor in France, SpaceX is a standard US stock: it’s not eligible for the PEA, which is reserved for European companies, and requires a regular brokerage account with Nasdaq access, with dollar/euro currency risk on top of the stock’s volatility. Some brokers (Revolut, eToro, Trade Republic) offered access to the initial allocation during the IPO, with no guarantee of getting shares. A less concentrated alternative exists: thematic UCITS ETFs focused on space, robotics or AI offer diversified exposure to this kind of tech bet.

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Apple sues OpenAI for trade secret theft

Apple has filed a federal lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing it of siphoning off its hardware manufacturing secrets through former employees. The case lands at the worst possible time for OpenAI, which is preparing both a consumer device and a possible IPO.

Key points:

Apple filed suit on Friday, July 10, 2026 in federal court for the Northern District of California, alleging trade secret theft and breach of contract.
The defendants are OpenAI, its hardware subsidiary io Products (acquired in 2025 for about $6.4 billion and co-founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive — who is not being sued himself), and two former Apple executives now at OpenAI: Tang Tan, head of hardware, and Chang Liu, an engineer.
Apple says more than 400 former Apple employees now work at OpenAI, a talent pool it describes as a structural channel for leaking confidential information.
OpenAI firmly denies the claims (“we have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets”) and says it is sticking to its hardware plans and its timeline toward an IPO.

What exactly Apple is alleging

The complaint, which describes a scheme “at every level” of OpenAI, mainly targets two people. Tang Tan, who spent twenty-four years at Apple leading product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch before joining Jony Ive’s team, is accused of pushing candidates still employed by Apple to bring physical parts to interviews for “show and tell” sessions, and of advising departing employees on how to get around security procedures when they left. Chang Liu, eight years at Apple, is accused of keeping an Apple laptop and downloading confidential technical documents. Apple also accuses io Products of exploiting a proprietary metal finishing technique by misleading a supplier shared with Apple about whether it was authorized to use it. OpenAI disputes the claims and says it sees no basis for them; Sam Altman responded publicly, saying he isn’t afraid of Apple.

Why this case matters for investors

The timing is the real market story. OpenAI is reportedly working on a “screenless” device with Jony Ive’s team, and the market has been speculating for months about an IPO, at one point floated for late 2026 before press reports (notably from the New York Times in late June) pointed instead to 2027. Litigation of this scale, with the risk of an injunction on the use of certain hardware know-how, is exactly the kind of uncertainty an underwriting bank hates to see lingering before a listing. For an individual European investor, the issue is theoretical for now: OpenAI isn’t public, and there’s no direct access to pre-IPO equity through a brokerage account or a PEA, unlike already-listed players such as Apple itself, available on US markets (not in a PEA, through a brokerage account). So this lawsuit is mostly worth watching as an indicator of the real timeline for a future IPO, not as an immediate investment opportunity.

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Micron posts record financials, its stock plunges 30%: the AI memory paradox

In mid-July 2026, memory chips (DRAM, NAND, HBM) are going through a baffling stretch on the market: Micron Technology just reported the best quarter in its history, driven by the AI rush, yet its stock has fallen about 30% from its peak. A reminder that a booming tech sector and a rising stock aren’t always the same thing.

Key points:

In the third quarter of its fiscal 2026 (reported June 24), Micron announced record revenue of $41.46 billion (+346% year over year) and an adjusted gross margin of nearly 85%, with guidance of $50 billion for the following quarter.
Despite numbers the company itself called “record,” the stock has lost about 30% from its 52-week high ($1,255), wiping out more than $400 billion in market value in a matter of weeks.
Analysts offer several explanations, with no absolute certainty: profit-taking after a massive rally, doubts about how long margins and memory prices can hold up, rotation into SK Hynix (freshly listed on Wall Street) and fears of overcapacity in the medium term.
The US iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX), in which Micron is one of the top holdings (about 7 to 8% of the fund, third behind AMD and Nvidia), has naturally followed this sector pullback.

Memory, a quiet but critical link in the AI boom

Behind every Nvidia GPU powering AI servers sits a chip the general public knows less about: HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), an ultra-fast memory stacked right next to the processor to feed it data without creating a bottleneck. Micron says its HBM4 production is already in volume and almost entirely booked by customers, with a new generation (HBM4E) planned for 2027. The concrete result in the books: data center revenue has grown sharply and DRAM prices have hit unprecedented levels.

Why a stock can fall while business is booming

This is the paradox investors should remember: a stock price bakes in future expectations ahead of time, not just the results of the quarter that just ended. Micron had already climbed sharply on the market before its June 24 report — so a good part of the AI boom was already “priced in.” Once the results were out, it was time for profit-taking, and for more uncomfortable questions: DRAM and NAND memory have historically been a highly cyclical market, prone to sharp price reversals when supply catches up with demand. Samsung’s results and SK Hynix’s stock market debut amplified the move. At this point, there’s no way to tell whether this pullback is a healthy correction or the market anticipating a deeper cyclical downturn.

For a European investor, Micron trades directly on the Nasdaq: the stock is not PEA-eligible and is bought through a regular brokerage account. More diversified exposure is available through semiconductor UCITS ETFs accessible in Europe, which have also absorbed the sector’s volatility in recent weeks.

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Robots on the factory floor: Xiaomi claims 98% success, Hyundai negotiates under strike pressure

In mid-July 2026, two car factories tell the same story from opposite angles: at Xiaomi, a humanoid robot hits a precision milestone on the assembly line; at Hyundai, it’s the workers making their voices heard as robots are slated to arrive.

Key points:

On July 15, 2026, Xiaomi announced that its CyberOne V2 humanoid robot reached a 98% success rate on a self-tapping nut fastening task at its electric vehicle factory, up from 90.2% four months earlier.
Two new tasks assigned to the robot (sorting center console panels, folding parts bins) show success rates of about 90%; it remains in internal testing, with no commercial launch announced.
At Hyundai Motor, a partial strike took place from July 13 to 15, 2026 in South Korea, driven first by a dispute over wages and bonuses, but the union is also demanding a say before any deployment of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robots.
The industry estimates the potential disruption at about 5,000 vehicles and 200 billion won (about $133 million) in sales — a figure tied to the strike as a whole, not to the robots alone.

Xiaomi: a robot that’s improving, not yet a product

In the video shared by Xiaomi boss Lei Jun, the humanoid robot handles car parts and drops them into bins, on the same line as human workers. The 98% rate applies to a single, specific task, self-tapping nut fastening, where the gap with the human qualification rate is now just one point, according to Xiaomi. On more complex tasks involving soft objects, the rate falls to 90%. Xiaomi hasn’t shared any commercialization timeline: this is an internal pilot, not a product sold to other factories — a sign of technical maturity more than proof of widespread industrial adoption.

Hyundai: robots, a sticking point in labor talks

Contrary to some clickbait headlines circulating online, the Hyundai action isn’t a strike triggered solely by robots: it’s primarily about wages and bonuses, amid stalled annual negotiations. But the robotics angle is very real: since January 2026, the Korean metalworkers’ union has refused to let Atlas robots into factories without a prior collective agreement, while Hyundai has announced plans to deploy more than 25,000 units by 2028 across its Hyundai and Kia plants, with Boston Dynamics as supplier. For investors, the episode illustrates an often-underestimated risk in the “robots replace workers” narrative: the actual deployment timeline also depends on labor negotiations, not just on how well the machines perform. For European investors who want to follow the theme without betting on a single company, UCITS-domiciled robotics/AI thematic ETFs — for example KOID, listed in Paris — offer easier-to-access diversification than US funds like BOTZ or ROBO.

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Edition prepared by our monitoring agent (data and sources as of Monday, July 20, 2026), reviewed in line with our editorial policy. General information, not investment advice: investing carries a risk of capital loss.