ASML Holding NV experienced a significant pre-market decline of 6.14% on Tuesday, as investors reacted to news of the company's strategic expansion into new business areas beyond its core extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems.

The semiconductor equipment maker is planning to push into advanced packaging tools that are becoming critical for manufacturing artificial intelligence processors, according to company announcements. ASML is also researching whether it can increase the maximum chip size its systems can print to support larger chip designs needed for increasingly complex AI chips.

This strategic shift represents a significant move beyond ASML's traditional EUV business, with the company exploring new scanner systems and lithography tools to accommodate the growing demands of the AI chip market. The expansion into advanced packaging comes as chip architecture evolves toward multi-level structures rather than flat components, a change crucial for improving computational speed for large AI models.