I’m not an expert, but ASML uses a very powerful ultraviolet ‘cannon’ to edge patterns into their layers …northboot.xyz/…/Extreme_ultraviolet_lithography, and apparently (from the few lines of article txt) the Chinese are going for particle accelerators for edging instead. I wonder if they will use a beam or just fire away on a masked wafer.
Slightly ot, I think hybrid photonic computing is the future, but that would probably also benefit from smaller construction techniques, so …go go China.