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,
