China’s CXMT muscles into the memory-chip fight
ChangXin Memory Technologies is chasing an $8.6 billion Shanghai listing as AI demand strains DRAM supply and rattles the old chip order.
By Frankie Delgado · News Reporter
4 min read
China’s top homegrown DRAM maker is preparing an $8.6 billion listing in Shanghai, and the timing could hardly be hotter: memory chips are scarce, AI servers are hungry, and the industry’s old guard is watching a new rival gain ground.
ChangXin Memory Technologies, known as CXMT, has become the world’s fourth-largest producer of dynamic random-access memory, with an 8% market share, according to Counterpoint Research. That puts it behind the long-dominant trio of Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung.
Reuters has reported that CXMT is set to list on Shanghai’s STAR Market later this month in what is shaping up as one of Asia’s biggest initial public offerings of 2026. The cash would help the company lift production, court more customers outside China and push into high-bandwidth memory, the prized chip category powering AI data centers.
China’s memory problem gets a contender
China has long been the world’s major electronics assembly base and a giant buyer of semiconductors, but memory chips remained a weak spot. DRAM is the fast-access working memory inside phones, laptops and servers, and for years China relied heavily on American and Korean suppliers.
CXMT was founded in 2016 in Hefei, a Chinese city that used state-backed investment to build a chip cluster. MarketWatch reported that GigaDevice founder Zhu Yiming and the Hefei government committed roughly $2.5 billion to start the DRAM project.
Zhu had argued as early as 2004, in an email to investors cited by MarketWatch, that China should become a force in memory design and manufacturing. He later left his CEO post at GigaDevice in 2018 to run CXMT, reportedly saying he would forgo pay until the company became profitable.
The company built its know-how by acquiring DRAM patents and designs from Qimonda, the German memory company that collapsed during the financial crisis, and by hiring engineers from Elpida Memory, Samsung and SK Hynix, according to MarketWatch. By the end of 2019, CXMT had opened its first fabrication plant and begun commercial output.
More state support followed in 2020 from China’s National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Phase II, known as the Big Fund, elevating CXMT from a local push to a national priority.
AI boom changes the math
CXMT posted its first annual profit in 2025 and reported 719% year-over-year revenue growth in the first quarter of 2026, according to company filings cited by MarketWatch. The company now operates three fabs in China and produces more than 300,000 wafers a month.
Tom’s Hardware, citing research, reported that CXMT could reach 350,000 wafers a month by the end of 2026, putting it close to Micron’s estimated DRAM capacity.
The AI buildout has tightened memory supply because high-bandwidth memory uses stacks of DRAM chips and commands better pricing from data-center customers. As producers focus on HBM, consumer electronics makers have faced higher component costs.
Apple has reportedly sought U.S. approval to buy DRAM from CXMT, according to Reuters and the Financial Times. CXMT is on a U.S. Defense Department list of companies suspected of having ties to China’s military. Apple did not respond to MarketWatch’s request for comment.
Poe Zhao, founder of the Hello China Tech Substack, told MarketWatch that the memory crunch is putting pressure on technology decoupling because U.S. restrictions collide with companies’ need for reliable supply at workable prices.
The hard part: HBM
CXMT still trails the leaders technologically. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron are already shipping HBM4, while CXMT aims to mass-produce HBM3 by the end of 2026, according to MarketWatch.
Andrew Lu, an independent chip analyst and former Asia Pacific semiconductor research chief at Barclays and Citi, told MarketWatch that CXMT is probably two to three years behind mainstream DRAM technology and further back in HBM.
U.S. export controls have blocked CXMT from using ASML’s most advanced extreme-ultraviolet lithography tools. MarketWatch reported that the company has still moved from 19-nanometer production to 16 nanometers using less advanced deep-ultraviolet technology and multi-patterning.
Counterpoint Research projects CXMT could take 0.4% of the HBM market in 2027 and 3% in 2028. Tom Coughlin, founder of Coughlin Associates, told MarketWatch that the test will be whether CXMT can make advanced memory consistently and at strong yields, not just produce small quantities.
This story draws on original reporting from MarketWatch.