China's CXMT is developing advanced chips for smartphones. How this will change the memory market

Chinese chipmaker CXMT, which went public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on July 27, plans to produce smartphone chips that are on par with the industry’s most advanced designs, Bloomberg reported, citing sources. If the plan succeeds, it will allow the Chinese company to challenge the three leading players in the market—Micron Technology, SK Hynix, and Samsung—amid a global shortage that has affected giants such as Apple.

CXMT is preparing to begin producing small batches of improved, energy-efficient memory chips by the end of the year, according to Bloomberg sources. They said the company is currently testing prototypes.

The agency notes that mastering this production process could mark an important milestone in China’s long-standing efforts to achieve technological independence and will demonstrate how far the country has come in reducing its reliance on foreign components.

A CXMT spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg. Earlier, the Chinese news outlet Yicai reported on the company's plans to produce cutting-edge memory chips.

The LPDDR6 chip, known as sixth-generation memory, offers significantly faster data transfer speeds and greater energy efficiency compared to its predecessors, according to Bloomberg. This allows smartphones and laptops to perform AI tasks directly on the device, without relying on cloud servers.

The new CXMT processor falls into the same category as products from the world’s leading manufacturers—South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix, as well as the U.S.-based Micron—which together control more than 90% of the memory market. SK Hynix unveiled its LPDDR6 chip back in March, stating that it is 33% faster and 20% more energy-efficient than the previous LPDDR5X. Samsung has also announced a similar development.

However, in order to compete with market leaders, CXMT still needs to establish mass production of the advanced chip. One of Bloomberg’s sources noted that production will begin at a later date.

Memory chip manufacturers are benefiting from the artificial intelligence boom, which is prompting corporations such as Meta and Amazon to reserve production capacity years in advance. This has triggered a severe shortage and rising prices, prompting Apple to raise the prices of its entire lineup of Macs, iPads, home gadgets, and Vision Pro headsets in June. In July, iPhone executives tried to persuade the U.S. Congress to allow the purchase of chips from Chinese manufacturers such as CXMT. However, lawmakers rejected these efforts, warning that Apple could become dependent on a geopolitical adversary for the supply of critical components.

CXMT shares rose more than 5% during trading in Shanghai on August 4, but closed at the previous day's level.

On July 27, the day of its IPO, the company’s stock price soared 466% from its IPO price of 8.66 yuan ($1.28). As a result, its market capitalization jumped to 3.7 trillion yuan ($547 billion), and CXMT briefly became the most valuable publicly traded company in China, surpassing even Hong Kong-listed Tencent, according to the Financial Times.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor