Industry 2026-08-10

AI took all the memory, so Apple is testing chips from a company on the Pentagon's blacklist

Apple is testing DRAM memory chips from ChangXin Memory Technologies, the state-backed Chinese manufacturer known as CXMT, across its product lines including iPhones and MacBooks, according to a Wall Street Journal report picked up over the weekend. The testing is confined to devices destined for the Chinese market, and Apple is reported to be seeking White House approval before it could use the chips commercially. Nothing has been confirmed as adopted. The reason is the memory shortage that AI data centre buying has created: memory prices have risen far enough that Tim Cook cited chip costs when Apple raised prices two months ago. CXMT is not an obvious substitute. One analyst puts it two to three generations behind SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron, though the company took roughly seven per cent of global DRAM revenue in the second quarter and listed in Shanghai in July, where it is now among the more valuable companies on the mainland market. The politics are worse than the technology. CXMT sits on the US Defense Department's list of Chinese military companies, and on 29 July a bipartisan group of senators urged Apple to rule out its chips outright. Reporting also suggests Apple's approach began partly as leverage in price talks with existing suppliers, and that CXMT declined to cut its prices anyway.

Why it mattersTwo days ago the story was that the world's memory output for 2027 has already been bought, mostly by AI data centres. This is what that looks like when it reaches a company that makes things you can hold. Apple is the most supply-chain-disciplined manufacturer on earth, it ships hundreds of millions of devices a year, and it is now testing parts from a blacklisted state-backed supplier that its own government has told it to avoid — because the alternative is paying whatever the three incumbent memory makers ask, and passing that on. The price rise already happened. The wider point is that the AI build-out is no longer a separate industry with its own economics. It is bidding against phones, laptops, cars and games consoles for the same physical parts, and when it wins, the effects show up in ordinary supply chains and in what ordinary hardware costs. Apple's discomfort here is the clearest sign yet of how far that pressure now reaches.

✓ Verified · 4 sources

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AI took all the memory, so Apple is testing chips from a company on the Pentagon's blacklist

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