CXMT’s blockbuster IPO will test whether China’s memory makers are ready for the spotlight: ‘It does not yet mean China is broadly catching up’

Chinese chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies, or CXMT, became the country’s most valuable company almost overnight. CXMT’s shares surged over 500% in its Shanghai debut last Monday (July 27) and rallied throughout the week, jumping 8.95% on Friday to close at 57.60 yuan ($8.50). Its market capitalization also hit 3.54 trillion yuan ($523 billion) by the week’s end, toppling reigning chart leader, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. 

Yet experts are split on whether the rise in CXMT’s stock price is a temporary boost fueled by AI-driven memory shortages, or a long-term shift in global AI supply chains where Chinese chipmakers are now coming to the fore.

“China is clearly becoming a more important memory chip player, but this is happening in a market distorted by AI demand, supply shortages and state-backed industrial policy,” says Barbora Valockova, a research fellow at Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. “It does not yet mean China is broadly catching up to the leaders across the full chip stack.”

According to Valockova, though shortages are forcing companies to explore Chinese chip supplies, adoption is still likely to be selective and politically contested, especially in the U.S. 

On July 30, a group of U.S. lawmakers led by Indiana Republican Jim Banks and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer penned a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, urging him to abandon any efforts to buy chips from ‘blacklisted’ Chinese semiconductor........

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