View of iPhones at a store in Shanghai on August 5, 2026 Photo: VCG

After media reports saying that US tech firm Apple has been testing memory chips from Chinese chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) across product lines including iPhones and MacBooks, Chinese experts said on Monday that Apple may seek to adopt memory chips from CXMT to control rising costs for its electronic devices despite obstruction by some US politicians.

If the report is true, the move would not only underscore the technological leap and rising global competitiveness of China's semiconductor sector, but also demonstrate that deeper supply‑chain integration among multinationals is an irreversible trend, experts noted.

Apple has held early talks with CXMT about supplying components with the goal of using them in some devices sold in China, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. "Apple hopes to win the White House's blessing to do business with the Chinese company," the report stated.

Laptop makers HP and Acer have begun using memory chips from CXMT in devices sold outside the US to alleviate ongoing memory supply strain, people familiar with the matter said, according to the report.

Both companies didn't reply when reached by the Global Times on Monday for comment.

"Amid a sizable global memory supply crunch, Apple is forced to widen its supplier base to contain rising costs. Thus, despite heavy US political pressure, it is highly likely to adopt CXMT chips," Ma Jihua, a veteran technology industry analyst, told the Global Times on Monday.

In June, Apple raised iPad and MacBook prices, saying it could no longer shield customers from soaring memory and storage chip costs driven by the AI industry's datacenter buildout, Reuters reported. 

Against this backdrop, CXMT has emerged as a potential counterweight to these cost pressures. The company's shares closed up 465.82 percent on its July 27 market debut, giving it a market capitalization of over 3.2 trillion yuan ($471.2 billion), becoming one of the world's largest producers of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and the most valuable listed company on the A-share market.

"Represented by CXMT, a batch of Chinese hard-tech firms constantly focus on innovations in recent years. Their product performance and supply capacity are steadily approaching international advanced levels, attracting an increasing number of market-driven multinationals to actively embed themselves in China's supply chains," Bao Jianyun, dean and professor of the Department of International Politics at the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Monday.

China's exports of integrated circuits (ICs) reached $216.02 billion in the first seven months of 2026, up 99.5 percent year-on-year, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs (GAC) on Friday.

Prompted by the rapid development of integrated circuit technologies and the need to better meet market demands, China recently issued revised regulations on the protection of IC layout-designs. Scheduled to take effect on October 15 this year, the regulation aims to strengthen the protection and application of layout-designs and improve registration and management systems by elevating proven practices into regulations, while also aligning with relevant laws and international treaties.

These institutional upgrades, paired with policies to boost domestic demand and improve market access, are reinforcing China's appeal as a stable anchor for global semiconductor investment.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are evaluating chipmaking equipment from China's Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment for possible use at their Chinese factories, three people familiar with the matter ‌said, as the South Korean firms hedge against the risk of tighter US export controls, Reuters reported on August 5.

"If these reports are true, the trend once again shows that it's an irreversible historical tide for multinationals to expand cooperation with Chinese firms according to market principles. The US side's political attempt to build 'small yard, high fence' and push 'decoupling' is doomed," Bao said.

The rise of Chinese-made memory chips and recent tech innovations - including Unitree Robotics' humanoid robots and Moonshot's Kimi K3 - underscore that unilateral US sanctions cannot prevent Chinese technological iteration, nor can protectionism block open cooperation, the expert said.