China's CXMT posts record revenue on AI boom ahead of IPO

ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), a Hefei-based memory chipmaker, is preparing for a potential listing on China’s STAR Market after people familiar with the matter said its 2025 revenue rose about 130% to more than 55 billion yuan (US$8 billion).

The people said the jump was driven by higher prices and tight supply for memory chips crucial to AI development and data centers.

They added that adjusted net income, excluding one-off items, is projected at about 3 billion yuan (US$434.6 million), though the figures are not final and could change in CXMT’s formal results due in April.

CXMT’s December prospectus said sales in the first three quarters nearly doubled to 32 billion yuan (US$4.6 billion), while net loss narrowed to about 5.3 billion yuan (US$767.9 million).

The company plans to invest about 30 billion yuan (US$4.3 billion) of IPO proceeds into technology upgrades and R&D.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

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Implications, context, and why it matters.

CXMT’s revenue jump tracks a hot memory market and a move into High Bandwidth Memory (HBM)

Sales have climbed as memory chips for AI and data centers get pricier and harder to source, people familiar with the matter said, while CXMT readies a potential STAR Market listing.
CXMT plans to shift about 20% of output, or roughly 60,000 wafers, to HBM3 (a high-performance memory used in advanced AI systems) 1.
That ramp comes as U.S. export controls limit China’s access to overseas HBM, which makes Samsung and SK hynix less dependable for high-end AI rollouts in China 1.
Government backing supports the buildout, and one analysis puts China’s chip subsidies above $150 billion over the past decade 2.

China’s AI push depends more on CXMT’s HBM rollout

More HBM output can squeeze capacity for commodity DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) like DDR5 and LPDDR5X, which may keep supply tight 1.
China’s AI hardware supply chain, including Huawei’s Ascend accelerators (AI chips designed to train and run AI models), runs into an HBM bottleneck that raises the value of local production 1.
HBM3 is hard to manufacture, and without extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography (a leading-edge chipmaking technique) CXMT may lean on multi-patterning (a method that uses multiple exposures to create fine features), which can cut yields and raise costs versus top rivals 1.
CXMT’s IPO plans include putting about 30 billion yuan from proceeds into technology upgrades and R&D (research and development), as laid out in its December prospectus.