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This is correct: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-21/asml-tsmc...

The most advanced ASML machines also cost something like $300-400M each and I am willing to bet if configured wrong can heavily damage themselves and the building they are in.

You don't need to physically destroy anything. All you need to do is zero-fill the storage devices in the facility and walk away. The tools are worthless without parameters/recipes/configuration. Reinventing this stuff is harder than acquiring an EUV tool.

Isn't it fairly likely that espionage would have already got to that kind of data?

I wonder if the destruction would actually go ahead.

What's worse, China having a monopoly on production, or the entire world being set back by X years?

In this scenario X is a two-digit number, right?

I don't think X is a two-digit number. TSMC might be slightly ahead of Intel, maybe a few years ahead of Samsung. People forget that the original ChatGPT models were powered by the A100, a chip manufactured by Samsung, which was Sota just a few years ago.

On top TSMC has fabs and personnel with expertise in other places. After all this threat isn't new.