Apple is reportedly testing banned Chinese memory chips for devices sold in China, and lobbying Washington to approve it

[Amber78]

The Financial Times reported this week that Apple has begun testing DRAM chips from China's state backed ChangXin Memory Technologies, known as CXMT, for devices intended to be sold within China, while simultaneously leading a lobbying effort among US tech companies to get the American government to approve broader use of CXMT's products. Apple has not committed to using the chips commercially and CXMT sits on the Pentagon's 1260H list of companies flagged for alleged links to the Chinese military

The business logic is straightforward even if the politics are not, memory prices have spiked sharply as AI data centre demand pulls production capacity away from consumer grade chips, forcing Apple into rare price increases of up to 20 percent on some Mac and iPad models. CXMT has grown from an obscure subsidised domestic chipmaker into the world's fourth largest DRAM producer, behind only Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, and is expected to keep expanding capacity as it prepares a major IPO in Shanghai

The political risk is real and has precedent, Apple explored Chinese memory suppliers back in 2022 and shelved the plan after objections from US lawmakers including then Senator Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State. This time Apple's pitch is narrower, limiting CXMT chips specifically to devices sold inside China rather than globally, which gives the administration an easier case to approve without appearing to weaken the broader US stance on Chinese chip suppliers

The bigger pattern this fits into is the one industry watchers keep flagging as the real risk, not this single sourcing decision but the broader precedent of heavily state subsidised Chinese manufacturing capacity expanding until it depresses global prices and squeezes established foreign competitors, the same pattern already observed in solar panels and electric vehicles

So the discussion. Is Apple's narrower pitch, limiting Chinese memory chips strictly to China market devices, a reasonable middle ground that lets the company manage a real supply crunch without meaningfully strengthening a state backed rival globally, or is that distinction a fig leaf that still legitimises and funds a company Washington has specifically flagged as a security concern? And does the AI boom's appetite for memory indirectly forcing consumer device makers into these politically fraught sourcing decisions get enough attention compared to the more visible AI chip stories?

Apple Begins Testing Controversial Chinese Memory Chipswww.macrumors.com