Apple may open global door for CXMT’s DRAM amid rising prices

Apple is pouring efforts to seek approval from US officials to purchase CXMT’s DRAM memory chips, opening global doors for the Chinese firm. Amid the ongoing price war on device components, the iPhone maker is trying to get help from one of its important sales markets – China. FinancialTimes is the first to note that Apple has initiated a campaign to grab permission from the White House to purchase efficient CXMT’s DRAM memory chips for global devices. The company has been trying this action for a month now. It started with the Commerce Department and is now targeting other US officials and allies in Washington. CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies) is a leading DRAM manufacturer in China. It supplies memory components used in phones, PCs, servers, and consumer electronics. Unlike Huawei and many other US-banned companies in China, CXMT hasn’t faced a full-sanction scenario. In other words, the company is not part of the entity list. However, it is still considered one of the risky Chinese firms in the Pentagon Office. Pentagon is the Department of the US Defense. It has flagged CXMT as risky and put the firm on the Chinese Military Company blacklist. As a result, the company can’t have ties or dealings with certain US-based government activities + firms. Last year, the US Commerce Department added CXMT to the list of Chinese chipmakers that it wanted to merge into the Entity List. However, the White House blocked the move as the authority was busy with intense negotiations for the trade war with China. Apple is not banned from purchasing chips from CXMT, though it can’t access components without the US authorities’ approval. As the memory chip shortage is becoming worse in the market, the iPhone maker sees the Chinese firm as a major support. But since Apple dealt with criticism in 2022 for buying YMTC memory chips for iPhone sales in China, the company wants to make a secure decision this time. A security expert at the Hudson Institute, Michael Sobolik, said: “It makes no sense for the administration to decouple America’s reliance on critical minerals from China, only to approve new dependencies in a field as critical as AI.”