ASML will start construction of the new Eindhoven campus in a few months. According to the chip machine maker and the municipality of Eindhoven, nothing stands in the way of the intended expansion.
ASML (annual turnover 28.3 billion euros) is in danger of outgrowing its premises on the campus in Veldhoven, the De Run business park. The company, which has 44,000 employees worldwide, expects the chip industry to double in the next decade. That is why it wants more space to assemble machines and plans to double the number of employees in the Netherlands (currently more than 20,000). ASML’s supply chain, which is concentrated in Brabant, must grow at that pace.
Former ASML CEO Peter Wennink hinted just before his retirement in early 2024 that ASML would have to leave the Netherlands if the company could no longer grow. Last weekend, the new ASML CEO emphasized Christophe Fouquet in a TV program Outside court that ASML “feels very connected to the Netherlands”. A departure would never have been seriously considered.
According to the CEO, the company will start construction of a second campus near Eindhoven Airport in early 2026, which should solve ASML’s acute space problems. If everything goes according to plan, the first factories and offices will open in January 2028.
Project Beethoven
To create room for the expansion of ASML and other high-tech companies, the government came up with a subsidy plan, Project Beethoven. In a short time, 2.5 billion euros had been released from budgets of the National Growth Fund, local and regional governments and the business community. The money is intended for more affordable housing, better connections to solve the congestion around Veldhoven and additional investments in education to meet the growing demand for technical knowledge.
The ASML expansion is being built on the Brainport Industries Campus (BIC), between Eindhoven Airport and the A2 highway, a location that the company has had in mind for some time. Even before Project Beethoven was completed, the municipality of Eindhoven was already purchasing the land there to prevent speculation. The municipality now owns 80 percent of the site.
Last week the municipality of Eindhoven published advisory letters with the legal translation of the urban development plan, which had already been approved in preliminary form. The Eindhoven city council will make a decision on the zoning plan in February or March 2026, says Stijn Steenbakkers, councilor for economics. Immediately afterwards the shovel can go into the ground.
For the biggest hurdles – nitrogen emissions and the lack of capacity on the power network – there are “promising solutions,” says Steenbakkers. For example, the government is making 100 million euros available to solve nitrogen problems in the region, part of a larger plan to help the Netherlands ‘from the lock’ to get.
Steenbakkers calls it a “horse feat” that in a year and a half an area has been made suitable for 428,000 square meters of ‘cleanroom space’ and offices. “Normally it takes us eight to ten years.”
According to the economic councilor, ASML’s expansion shows that growing and investing in the Netherlands can still be “attractive”, “not complicated and full of rules”. Although he cannot rule out that a procedure before the Council of State will still cause delays.
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