[News] CXMT IPO Could Raise Up to RMB 66.6B; How Founder Zhu Yiming Built China’s DRAM Challenger

China’s leading memory maker CXMT is set to list on Shanghai’s STAR Market, drawing widespread market attention. The company has set its IPO price at RMB 8.66 per share and is scheduled to begin its online and offline share subscription on July 16. The company plans to issue 6.688 billion shares, representing approximately 10% of its enlarged share capital after the offering, with an over-allotment option included. According to TechNews, the market expects the IPO to raise up to RMB 66.6 billion, roughly double earlier estimates, potentially making it Asia’s largest IPO of the year.

Beyond the sheer scale of the IPO, the company’s founder, Zhu Yiming, has also drawn attention. After founding GigaDevice 20 years ago and taking the company public in Hong Kong this January, Zhu has now found success with his second startup.

From Silicon Valley to GigaDevice

Born in Yancheng, Jiangsu, Zhu Yiming studied physics at Tsinghua University before pursuing electronic engineering at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He later worked at iPolicy Networks and Monolithic System Technologies, gaining end-to-end experience in memory chip design and development.

While working in Silicon Valley, Zhu saw the global memory industry shift from the U.S. to Japan and South Korea, inspiring him to build a homegrown Chinese memory company. As the report highlights, he founded GigaDevice, which developed China’s first high-speed mobile memory chip and became a leading NOR Flash supplier before listing in Shanghai in 2016 and Hong Kong in January 2026.

Building CXMT

Also in 2016, Zhu partnered with the Hefei municipal government to invest approximately RMB 18 billion in a 12-inch wafer fab, establishing CXMT. In 2018, Zhu stepped down as GigaDevice’s general manager to lead CXMT as CEO, pledging not to take a salary until the company became profitable, the report notes. Despite CXMT accumulating more than RMB 36.6 billion in losses by the end of 2025, he kept that promise for eight years. In 2019, CXMT announced the volume production of its 8Gb DDR4 chip, China’s first domestically developed DRAM chip to reach mass production.

A Long-Awaited Turnaround

As memory demand continued to surge, CXMT turned profitable in the first quarter of 2026. Revenue reached RMB 50.8 billion, up 719% year over year, while net profit rose 1,688% to RMB 24.76 billion. The company expects first-half 2026 revenue to reach RMB 110–120 billion, with net profit projected at RMB 50–57 billion. CXMT has also become the world’s fourth-largest DRAM supplier by market share, trailing only Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron.

Zhu has reportedly pledged to distribute half of his post-listing stake in CXMT—worth an estimated RMB 20 billion—to employees, saying he wants the team to share in the company’s success. Meanwhile, the IPO is expected to provide CXMT with additional capital for advanced process, capacity expansion, and next-generation DRAM development, further strengthening its global competitiveness.

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(Photo credit: CXMT)