The DRAM memory industry is facing a profound structural transformation. The three largest chip manufacturers of memory on the planet, the South Korean companies SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, and the American Micron Technology, They have reallocated about 70% of its production lines high bandwidth memories (HBM by its name in English) to satisfy the currently insatiable demand of data centers specialized in artificial intelligence (AI).
The consequences of this movement did not take long to appear: standard DDR4 and DDR5 memories and their derivatives, which are the most used in the consumer segment, immediately began to become scarce. And its price skyrocketed. In fact, according to the consulting firm GartnerRAM has gone from representing 16% of the total cost of a laptop in 2026 to 23%. And it is possible that this escalation will continue to develop in the coming months. However, users can cling to the greatest stabilizing agent in the memory market today: the Chinese company CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies).
CXMT is already the fourth world manufacturer of DRAM memories
During 2025 and just two and a half months into 2026, CXMT has scaled its production capacity to reach a share in the global market for between 11 and 13%. These figures position this company as the fourth largest manufacturer of memory chips on the planet. However, the most interesting thing is that this company is acting as an escape valve that is allowing some of the main integrators in the consumer market, such as ASUS, HP or Acer, to get the memories they need for their mid-range laptops at competitive prices.
Little by little CXMT is managing to close the technological gap that separated it from Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron
All this sounds good, but we must not overlook that, in addition to price, performance matters. According to the Canadian laboratory TechInsightswhich enjoys a solid reputation for your analytical skills of hardware from China, CXMT’s 15nm architecture has reached a comparable maturity to that of its South Korean competitors. In practice this means that its D1z manufacturing process is allowing it to produce effective 8,000 MHz DDR5 chips on a large scale.
However, this is not all. just a month ago CXMT announced which had begun large-scale manufacturing of HBM3 memories, which has allowed it to break the iron control that SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology exercised over the market. At the moment its production of HBM3 chips is intended to satisfy the domestic demand of the Chinese market, but its mere presence indirectly contributes to alleviating the pressure that the demand for AI data centers is putting on the supply chain.
On the other hand, this Chinese company has confirmed that it is dedicating 20% of its production capacity to the manufacture of HBM3 memories, which has caused several large integrators to evaluate their chips. According to DigiTimesCXMT, thanks to its factories in Hefei and Beijing, is injecting into the market some 300,000 wafers monthly. Without them the cost of DRAM memory would most likely be even higher, which would definitely put it out of reach of the average user. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that CXMT and other companies manage to stabilize a market segment that has a very profound impact on users’ pockets.
Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings