CXMT, China's largest chipmaker by output and certainly by market value thanks to its blowout IPO pricing one week ago, which saw its stock surge more than 7x from its offering price of 8.66 yuan per share, is considering building a second memory-chip plant in Beijing ​and is in financing talks with a tech manufacturing hub backed by the local government, Reuters reported citing source familiar.

The move ‌comes as CXMT, which is currently the world's 4th largest maker of DRAM memory but has ambitions to become the world's largest, seeks to boost production amid a global chip shortage driven by debf-funded AI infrastructure spending. It highlights intensifying competition among Chinese local governments to attract CXMT, as the memory chipmaker pursues a major expansion following its $8.6 billion IPO last month, the largest mainland Chinese semiconductor listing on record.

Reuters previously reported that CXMT was building new plants in Shanghai and Hefei and was in ​discussions with authorities elsewhere about another facility.

Those projects, when fully operational, could double its capacity to more than 600,000 wafers per month. The new Beijing ​12-inch plant would be built in Yizhuang, about 20 km (12 miles) southeast of central Beijing, where CXMT already operates a ⁠fab producing dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips. CXMT currently operates two 12-inch DRAM ​fabs in Hefei and one in Beijing, each with capacity of about 100,000 wafers per month, the Reuters sources said.

CXMT is seeking at least 60 million yuan ($8.9 ​million) in support from the development zone's governing body, also known as the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, and other state-owned tech companies have also expressed interest in participating ​in the financing, they said.

The talks are at an early stage and the size and structure of any funding package could change, the sources said. It was not immediately clear whether the funding would come directly from the development zone's administrative authority or through its investment vehicles.

Reuters adds that the planned capacity and total ​investment for the proposed fab were not immediately known. Building a fab that can produce leading-edge DRAM chips usually costs more than $10 billion. 

The discussions began before CXMT's stock market debut last week, which provided ‌the company ⁠with fresh capital for an expansion drive during a memory-chip upcycle fueled by demand from AI infrastructure, data centres and consumer electronics. 

The company has become a key pillar of Beijing’s drive to build a self-sufficient chip industry and narrow the gap with the U.S. in strategic technologies such as AI amid a fierce tech rivalry between the two superpowers.

Although CXMT is the world's fourth-largest DRAM producer, it remains far smaller than Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron whose combined global ​market share approached 90% in the ​first quarter, according to data from ⁠Counterpoint Research.

Within China, however, CXMT's growing dominance has enabled it to raise prices for customers such as Huawei, Reuters reported last month. 

CXMT has been in the news over the past couple of months due to reports that have suggested that Apple is interested in buying the firm's memory chips. The global memory shortage has affected the Cupertino, California-based consumer electronics giant's supply chain as it has been unable to secure supplies without having to face price hikes.

Yet, as wccftech reports, others have suggested that CXMT's ability to target the global memory market is limited, as the firm has to primarily meet the needs of China's domestic memory market. US sanctions on China, which limit its ability to procure high-end chips and manufacturing equipment, have come at a time when Beijing is aiming towards semiconductor self-sufficiency despite the capital and knowledge-intensive nature of the industry. 

Today's report follows one that surfaced last week and claimed that CXMT was making progress with its LPDDR6 memory chips. These are among the latest in the world, and the sources suggested that the Chinese firm was eager to target the gap left by Samsung and Micron. The two are focused on making high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, and CXMT hopes to utilize the gap they've left to establish itself as a player in the global memory market. The sector is currently dominated by the two firms plus Korea's SK hynix, which control the vast majority of the market share.

The company's rise has been closely linked to the "Hefei model," under which the capital of Anhui province has used state funding to ​nurture strategic technology companies... because as we said a year ago, it is only a matter of time before the AI arms race is directly funded by the governments of China and the US directly. 

Beijing and Shanghai have also provided CXMT with funding and other support, as the cities seek a larger share of the economic and strategic benefits generated by the company's growth. 

CXMT's Beijing-based fab, operated by Changxin Jidian, was founded in 2020 and received funding from E-Town Capital, a state-backed investment arm of the Yizhuang development zone, and its ⁠affiliate Beijing ​E-Town Technology, according to corporate records.

The Beijing development area is a manufacturing base for technology and ​chip companies, including contract chipmaker SMIC, chip equipment maker Naura Technology and smartphone and electric-vehicle maker Xiaomi. 

The area is also positioning itself as a hub for robotics and AI. Last year, it hosted what organisers ​described as the world's first humanoid robot half-marathon, part of an effort to promote and test embodied-AI technologies.

News of China's aggressive push to boost memory output is one of the reasons for the weakness in memory and chip stocks in early trading, and also slammed Korea's Kospi which slumped 5% with Samsung / Hynix both tumbling -9%. 

Additionally, the market is again focused on Chinese open-source model releases, with BABA +4% on new Qwen model this weekend as well as DeepSeek V4 Flash model launched Friday. 

As reported earlier, BABA’s latest Qwen 3.8 Max Model was released overnight (stock closed +7% in HK) - a 2.4t parameter model (smaller than Kimi K3 @ 2.8t ) but looks relatively comparable on benchmarks (I.e. broadly Opus + level) and will go open-weight release next week.

The model is also far cheaper: API tokens are priced at $2/m input & $6/m output (cheaper than Kimi K3 @ $3/M input & $15/M ⁠output)...  & 80% cheaper than current GPT flagship 5.6 Sol's output tokens.

The marketing campaign has been well received showing Qwen as an “always on workmate” that completes tasks while people go to the beach, fish & play tennis. 

Over the weekend, Goldman revised up its aggregate China model ARR estimates, now forecasting to reach US$13bn by year-end 2026 (prior: US$10bn) on higher demand /faster ramp.