ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is China's largest producer of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips and the world's fourth-largest DRAM maker, with about 7.7% of the global market in 2025 according to its IPO prospectus (Source: finance.yahoo.com). The Hefei-based company filed in July 2026 for an initial public offering on Shanghai's STAR Market expected to raise at least 57.9 billion yuan ($8.6 billion) — Asia's largest share sale of the year to that point — while facing a US Department of Defense "Chinese Military Company" designation and congressional pressure for further export restrictions (Source: finance.yahoo.com; ft.com).
Snapshot
Revenue
| Date | Figure | Note | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-15 | ¥110–120B expected H1 2026 | Nearly double full-year 2025; per IPO prospectus | (Source: finance.yahoo.com) |
| 2026-Q1 | ¥50.8B ($7.51B), up 719% YoY | Per IPO prospectus | (Source: finance.yahoo.com) |
| 2025 (FY) | ¥61.8B | Per IPO prospectus | (Source: finance.yahoo.com) |
Valuation
| Date | Figure | Note | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-15 | ~$86B implied at IPO filing | IPO proceeds ≥¥57.9B ($8.6B), up to ¥66.6B with over-allotment | (Source: New Developments Log/2026-07-17-0805-ai-developments.md; finance.yahoo.com) |
Business
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Hefei, the capital of Anhui province, CXMT is widely regarded as China's only domestic DRAM maker to have achieved mass production; its LPDDR products have entered the supply chains of Chinese electronics brands including Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Transsion, and Lenovo (Source: scmp.com).
CXMT makes DRAM, the short-term memory used in smartphones, personal computers, servers, and AI systems. The global DRAM market has long been dominated by Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology; CXMT's rise to fourth place has coincided with the AI-driven memory upcycle that began in 2025, which lifted prices and demand for advanced memory (Source: finance.yahoo.com).
The company trails the three incumbents in high-bandwidth memory (HBM), the stacked DRAM used in AI accelerators. Its IPO prospectus discloses no dedicated HBM project, though the company has invested in HBM and reportedly aimed to begin production by the end of 2026 at a back-end packaging facility in Shanghai (Source: scmp.com). Independent supply-chain analysis has described CXMT's HBM capacity as severely limited — roughly 2 million stacks in 2026, projected sufficient for only 250,000–300,000 Huawei Ascend 910C accelerators (see Semiconductor Supply Chain).
Ownership and state backing
CXMT's shareholder base reflects China's state-backed semiconductor financing system: state-owned shareholders held 36.29% before the IPO, including Anhui Investment Group and the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Phase II (the "Big Fund"). Zhu Yiming, founder of NOR-flash designer GigaDevice Semiconductor, is described in company filings as central to CXMT's creation and later became chairman (Source: finance.yahoo.com). The company plans to use IPO proceeds to expand capacity, upgrade manufacturing technology, and fund research and development (Source: finance.yahoo.com).
IPO
CXMT filed on July 15, 2026 for a STAR Market listing expected to raise at least ¥57.9 billion ($8.6 billion), rising to ¥66.6 billion if the over-allotment option is exercised (Source: finance.yahoo.com). Coverage framed the listing as a test of whether China can build a globally competitive memory producer under Western technology restrictions, entering the market during windfall memory pricing (Source: scmp.com).
Export controls and US designations
CXMT's access to advanced chipmaking tools, particularly from ASML, is limited by US-led export controls, which coverage identifies as the main obstacle to closing its technology gap (Source: finance.yahoo.com). In June 2026 the US Department of Defense designated CXMT a "Chinese Military Company," and Reuters has reported that a US interagency committee approved adding CXMT to the Entity List, though the listing had not been implemented as of mid-July 2026 (Source: finance.yahoo.com).
Congressional pressure intensified around the IPO filing. On July 15, 2026, two US lawmakers urged the Commerce Department to blacklist the company (Source: New Developments Log/2026-07-17-0805-ai-developments.md), and on July 16 the chair of the House China committee urged the Trump administration to ban US companies from buying memory chips from CXMT and YMTC, criticizing Apple's lobbying for access to Chinese memory as a national-security risk (Source: ft.com). Enforcement has also reached allied jurisdictions: in April 2026 a Samsung researcher was sentenced to seven years in South Korea for leaking DRAM and HBM intellectual property to CXMT (see Export Controls (AI)).
Relationships
- regulated-by: Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) (Entity List approval reported, not yet implemented)
- related: Semiconductor Supply Chain (China memory-localization chokepoint), Export Controls (AI) (import-side memory restrictions debate), Chip Smuggling and Export-Control Evasion, US-China AI Competition: Different Races, Different Metrics
- related: Nvidia & TSMC — AI Compute Infrastructure (HBM demand from AI accelerators), Apple (House China committee criticism of Apple lobbying on Chinese memory)