Xiaomi has started mass production of its first in-house mobile chip, the Xring O1, according to founder Lei Jun.

The chip will debut in the upcoming Xiaomi 15S Pro smartphone and Xiaomi Pad 7 Ultra.

Lei revealed the news via a post on Weibo, ahead of the official launch event scheduled for May 22, 2025.

Xiaomi has invested 13.5 billion yuan (US$1.87 billion) to develop the Xring O1 chip.

The company plans to spend at least 50 billion yuan (US$6.9 billion) on chip design over the next decade.

🔗 Source: Reuters

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Vertical integration follows Apple’s playbook amid fierce competition

Xiaomi’s $1.87 billion investment in the Xring O1 represents a strategic shift toward greater vertical integration, following a path similar to Apple’s successful silicon strategy.

The company has historically relied on Qualcomm chips for its flagship devices while focusing on competitive pricing, but this in-house development signals a fundamental change in approach 1.

This shift comes as the smartphone market has matured. Xiaomi grew from selling 18.7 million phones in 2013 to becoming the fifth-largest global smartphone vendor just three years after its founding 2.

The Xring O1’s competitive benchmarks, with multi-core scores around 9,000 that rival Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite, demonstrate the technical viability of this strategy 3.

Designing proprietary chips enables tighter hardware-software integration and product differentiation in a market where component access has become increasingly commoditized and competitive advantages harder to maintain.

2️⃣ Strategic tech self-sufficiency amid geopolitical pressures

The $6.9 billion decade-long chip investment comes against a backdrop of escalating US-China tensions that have threatened Chinese companies’ access to advanced semiconductors.

This massive commitment represents more than just product improvement. It’s an insurance policy against supply chain disruptions, with CEO Lei Jun assembling a team of 2,500 developers to work on chip design 4.