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The head of ASML, the chip toolmaker that is Europe’s biggest tech company, said he was guarding against intellectual property theft more fiercely than “ever before”, as a geopolitical tussle forces China to bolster its homegrown semiconductor industry. Peter Wennink said growing restrictions imposed by the US on China’s ability to source cutting-edge chips and semiconductor equipment had raised the stakes for the company’s security efforts. “It’s like 1973, it’s like the oil crisis,” Wennink told the Financial Times, pointing to increasing efforts by the US, Europe and Japan to bolster their domestic chipmaking capabilities. “Oil was always there until it wasn’t, and it was a strategic commodity. Fast forward to 2020 and it’s the same thing with chips.”"