{"slug": "china-s-memory-chipmakers-are-racing-to-break-the-korean-stranglehold-on-ai", "title": "China's memory chipmakers are racing to break the Korean stranglehold on AI infrastructure", "summary": "China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is racing to break the South Korean stranglehold on AI memory chips as DRAM spot prices jumped nearly 700% in a year and data centers are on track to consume about 70% of memory chips made in 2026, according to Bloomberg and Tom's Hardware. CXMT, the world's fourth-largest DRAM producer with an 8% share in 2026 and an expected $85 billion valuation, is allocating only about 2% of its capacity to high-bandwidth memory (HBM) but plans to increase that to 55,000 wafers per month by end of 2027, while Samsung has already begun mass production of HBM4.", "body_md": "*AI has turned memory from a background component into a choke point, and China's CXMT is trying to use that shortage to force its way into a market still controlled by Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron.*\n\nThe memory chip has become one of the most fought-over parts in technology. You can see why in the price chart. Bloomberg reported in March 2026 that some DRAM spot prices had jumped nearly 700% in a year as AI companies bought up supply through long-term deals. TrendForce said conventional DRAM contract prices rose 58% to 63% in the second quarter of 2026, then expected another 13% to 18% increase in the third quarter. That is not normal cyclicality. That is stress.\n\nThe squeeze starts inside the data center. Tom's Hardware, citing a Wall Street Journal report and industry analysts, said data centers were on track to consume about 70% of memory chips made in 2026. You don't need a complicated theory after that. If AI servers take the chips, PC makers, phone brands, automakers and gaming hardware companies wait longer and pay more.\n\nSK Hynix has been blunt about it. Reuters reported on July 10, 2026 that chief executive Kwak Noh-jung expects 2027 to be the worst year for supply and sees customer demand exceeding capacity beyond 2030. That is a remarkable thing for the world's leading HBM supplier to say in public. It tells you this isn't a one-quarter inventory problem.\n\n## China steps into the shortage\n\nInto that gap step ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies. CXMT is the more important name here because it makes DRAM, the short-term memory that sits at the center of the AI server crunch. MarketWatch recently described CXMT as the world's fourth-largest DRAM producer, with an 8% share in 2026 and an expected multibillion-dollar Shanghai listing. Barron's reported that CXMT reached a 7.7% global DRAM share in 2025 and is preparing a listing that could value it at roughly $85 billion. The numbers are moving.\n\nThose numbers matter because China has spent years trying to reduce its dependence on foreign semiconductors, and memory is one of the places where that effort is starting to look real. CXMT was founded in Hefei in 2016, backed by local government money and helped by engineering talent that moved through the global memory industry. It still lacks access to extreme ultraviolet lithography, but it has pushed deep ultraviolet tools further than many rivals expected.\n\nDon't overread it.\n\nHBM is a harder product than commodity DRAM. It isn't enough to make the memory die. You have to stack it, connect it, cool it, qualify it with customers and ship it at a yield that doesn't destroy the economics. Chosun Biz, citing SemiAnalysis estimates, reported that only about 5,000 of CXMT's roughly 265,000 monthly wafers were allocated to HBM at the end of 2025, less than 2% of capacity. SemiAnalysis expects that to rise to about 30,000 wafers a month by the end of 2026 and 55,000 by the end of 2027.\n\nThat is progress, but it isn't parity. Samsung announced in February 2026 that it had begun mass production and commercial shipment of HBM4, and Yonhap reported that Samsung had passed Nvidia's quality certification for HBM4 shipments. Samsung later said it had begun shipping 12-layer HBM4E samples to major customers in May. CXMT is still trying to make HBM3 work at scale. The frontier has moved.\n\n## The real pressure is bargaining power\n\nThe useful question isn't whether CXMT beats Samsung next quarter. It won't. The better question is whether Chinese AI companies gain a domestic fallback that changes how they buy memory.\n\nByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent - along with every other large Chinese buyer - need AI infrastructure while US export controls limit access to the best foreign chips. If CXMT can supply second-tier but usable HBM for domestic accelerators, those customers stop being purely distressed buyers. That changes negotiations at the margin. It also gives Beijing something more valuable than a press release: a practical path around part of the supply chain choke point.\n\nFor the Korean and American incumbents, the outcome cuts both ways. Less Chinese demand for their HBM could free supply for US and European hyperscalers. It could also remove a large captive customer base just as the big three spend heavily on new capacity. Micron is the most exposed American name because it trails SK Hynix and Samsung in HBM but is trying to catch up into the same boom.\n\nFrankly, the AI infrastructure story has focused too much on GPUs. Memory is the quieter constraint. If you can't get enough HBM, you can't run the system you planned - no matter how much compute you've bought. A rack full of bandwidth-starved accelerators is not a strategy; it is expensive waiting.\n\nChina's memory ramp is current, serious and still limited. CXMT can change the shape of commodity DRAM faster than it can break Korea's hold on leading-edge HBM. For now, that means the shortage remains the main story. China's challenge is no longer imaginary, but neither is the gap it still has to close.\n\n**Also read:** [China's AI cobots are no longer science fiction and millions of factory workers are about to find out](https://startupfortune.com/chinas-ai-cobots-are-no-longer-science-fiction-and-millions-of-factory-workers-are-about-to-find-out/) • [Singapore tightens cybersecurity rules for critical infrastructure after China-linked hack hit all four major telcos](https://startupfortune.com/singapore-tightens-cybersecurity-rules-for-critical-infrastructure-after-china-linked-hack-hit-all-four-major-telcos/) • [Higgsfield AI tells creators they own their videos but quietly claims a perpetual worldwide license to train on them](https://startupfortune.com/higgsfield-ai-tells-creators-they-own-their-videos-but-quietly-claims-a-perpetual-worldwide-license-to-train-on-them/)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/china-s-memory-chipmakers-are-racing-to-break-the-korean-stranglehold-on-ai", "canonical_source": "https://startupfortune.com/chinas-memory-chipmakers-are-racing-to-break-the-korean-stranglehold-on-ai-infrastructure/", "published_at": "2026-07-24 07:04:55+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-24 07:22:46.989119+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-chips", "ai-infrastructure", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["ChangXin Memory Technologies", "Samsung", "SK Hynix", "Micron", "Nvidia", "ByteDance", "Alibaba", "Tencent"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/china-s-memory-chipmakers-are-racing-to-break-the-korean-stranglehold-on-ai", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/china-s-memory-chipmakers-are-racing-to-break-the-korean-stranglehold-on-ai.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/china-s-memory-chipmakers-are-racing-to-break-the-korean-stranglehold-on-ai.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/china-s-memory-chipmakers-are-racing-to-break-the-korean-stranglehold-on-ai.jsonld"}}