CXMT IPO to reboot China's memory biz

Chinese memory giant ChangXin Memory Technologies' STAR Market listing is expected to become a landmark fundraising deal for China's semiconductor industry, as the country's leading DRAM maker draws coordinated support from State capital, industrial investors and financial institutions to bolster the entire memory chip supply chain.

Opening subscriptions for its IPO on Thursday, CXMT set out to raise nearly 58 billion yuan ($8.55 billion), based on its issue price and the number of shares issued. The deal is expected to become the largest A-share IPO of 2026, with total proceeds likely to rise to 66.6 billion yuan if the over-allotment option is fully exercised.

The fundraising scale is far above the company's original plan. At the final issue price of 8.66 yuan per share, actual proceeds would be about 96 percent higher than the 29.5 billion yuan planned in its prospectus.

According to the prospectus, the IPO proceeds will mainly be used to expand production capacity and support technology upgrades. The funds will go into areas including current DRAM technology upgrades, forward-looking research and development, and technological renovation of its memory wafer mass-production lines.

"As China's leading DRAM company, CXMT's listing will help enhance the overall competitiveness of the country's semiconductor industry and drive the development of upstream and downstream supply chains," said Guo Tao, an individual angel investor and expert in AI.

Guo added that the model of capital coordination serves as an effective path for China to make more breakthroughs in hard technology, as CXMT's shareholder structure reflects a mix of State capital, industrial investors and diversified ownership, covering a majority of the key players in China's semiconductor landscape.

Among industrial investors, internet giants such as Alibaba and Tencent, consumer electronics companies such as Midea, Xiaomi and TCL, and domestic memory chip company GigaDevice have all taken stakes in CXMT, better bonding the entire supply chain through combining shareholding with business cooperation.

"Such industrial capital brings market demand and application scenarios, helping hard technology companies better connect with the market," Guo noted, adding that State-owned capital, on the other hand, provides long-term funding support and policy resources, while financial capital broadens financing channels and improves corporate liquidity.

"The complementary strengths of different types of capital can meet the needs of hard technology enterprises at different stages of development," he said.

DRAM, or dynamic random-access memory, is a semiconductor-based memory primarily used as the main working memory in computers, servers, and consumer electronics. It is favored for its high speed, low cost, and high capacity, and therefore a key component of digital computing infrastructure in the AI era.

CXMT, founded in 2016 and based in Hefei, Anhui province, is China's largest and most advanced integrated DRAM company. With a full layout covering R&D and manufacturing, it ranks first domestically and fourth globally in DRAM capacity and market share.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, CXMT's share of global DRAM sales rose to 7.67 percent, just behind SK Hynix at 34.48 percent, Samsung at 33.96 percent and Micron Technology at 23.41 percent, data from market intelligence platform Omdia showed.

"As the increasing demand from AI computing infrastructure and automotive storage is expected to keep the global DRAM market strong, the procurement demand for server-side memory will further support the release of CXMT's production capacity," said Yuan Shuai, deputy secretary-general of the Z-Park Internet of Things Industry Alliance.