CXMT: the unknown 10-year-old chip firm now world's #4 DRAM maker at $430B

deedydas · x · 2026-11-08

CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies), founded just 10 years ago in Hefei, is now the world's 32nd largest company and the #4 DRAM maker behind Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, with 10% global market share and a $430B valuation — briefly China's biggest company.
It's growing over 6x YoY, made $40B in the first nine months of this year at 50% gross margin. Surprisingly, two-thirds of its business is phone memory; AI compute is only a small part.
Founder Yiming Zhu did his PhD at Stony Brook after Tsinghua, worked in Silicon Valley semis, and returned to China in 2005.
Unusual funding story: the Hefei city government owns 37% after providing facilities and absorbing losses for a decade — a contrast to the US VC model.

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