China’s CXMT gets pledge of support as provincial party chief vows chip-industry expansion

Three weeks into his tenure as Anhui provincial party secretary, Li Lecheng carried out an on-site inspection at China’s home-grown memory chip giant ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) on Wednesday, pledging to grow integrated circuits (ICs) as an emerging pillar industry.

During the visit to the company’s headquarters in the provincial capital Hefei, Li urged CXMT to further refine its product portfolio and actively expand into domestic and overseas markets. He emphasised home-grown innovation, pressing the firm to accelerate launches of new technologies and products.

According to a photo published by Anhui News on Thursday, CXMT chairman Zhu Yiming took part in the tour and briefed Li on the firm’s products.

Over the weekend, CXMT reported key progress on a new memory-cell architecture designed to raise memory density – an innovation also pursued by rivals including South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Cao Kanyu, the firm’s president, said in a statement that a new server memory product based on the advance would roll out by the end of this year.

Semiconductor manufacturing and artificial intelligence hardware have emerged as the focal points of China-US strategic rivalry, fuelling a persistent tug of war over supply chains, technological bottlenecks and market access.

During a symposium held after the tour, Li – previously head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology – pledged full support for CXMT to further scale up and strengthen its operations.

In the first half of 2026, CXMT’s revenue soared 874 per cent from a year earlier to 150.3 billion yuan (US$22.5 billion), according to its filings released in late August. Its net income attributable to parent shareholders saw an even sharper jump, rocketing 3,428 per cent year on year to 77.6 billion yuan for the six-month period.

Li said that Anhui would leverage CXMT’s role as an industrial supply chain leader to attract more upstream and downstream partners and bolster its IC sector. The province would strive to foster world-class advanced manufacturing clusters, he added.

Founded in 2016, CXMT has been a top priority for previous Anhui provincial party secretaries. Li’s predecessor Liang Yanshun visited the firm in July 2024.

The so-called “Hefei model” is now being replicated by many cities across China. Under the framework, Hefei began backing promising yet loss-making enterprises in 2008, pouring capital into strategic industries and rolling out incentives to attract hi-tech players.

Besides CXMT, Hefei now hosts a raft of corporate stars including electric vehicle (EV) maker Nio.

Official data showed the city produced roughly one out of every 12 EVs manufactured nationwide last year, with its annual production capacity standing at about 1.37 million units.