Two of the world’s most important chip companies can flip a “kill switch” remotely on their most advanced chipmaking machines should China invade Taiwan, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Netherlands’s ASML — Europe’s top tech company by market value — supplies advanced machines to chip-making companies. They include Taiwan’s TSMC, which produces, by some estimates, 90% of the world’s most advanced processor chips.
The news of a forced shutdown, or a “kill switch,” on ASML’s chip-making gear comes amid intensifying rivalry between Washington and Beijing and mounting concerns over a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory.
Taiwan is the world’s epicenter…
