Apple Inc. is lobbying the Trump administration for federal permission to purchase memory chips from ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc. (CXMT), a prominent Chinese semiconductor firm currently blacklisted by the U.S. government, according to a report by The Financial Times.
The tech giant approached the Commerce Department more than a month ago and has engaged White House officials and Washington allies to secure the necessary licenses. Apple’s aggressive lobbying push highlights the intense operational pressure facing major U.S. hardware developers as soaring component costs, driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure boom, collide with strict national security regulations.
CXMT, China’s leading dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) manufacturer, was designated as a Chinese military company by the Department of Defense under the Biden administration. Last year, an interagency committee approved its addition to the Commerce Department’s Entity List, which blocks U.S. corporations from conducting unauthorized business with the firm unless granted a government waiver.
Apple’s sudden interest in the blacklisted supplier stems from a severe global memory shortage.
The explosion of generative AI has forced top semiconductor manufacturers, including Micron Technology Inc., Samsung Electronics, and SK Hynix, to shift production capacity toward high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for data centers. This pivot has starved the consumer electronics supply chain of mainstream commodity memory, giving suppliers unprecedented pricing leverage.
The financial toll on Apple has already manifested. The iPhone maker recently instituted a roughly 20% price hike on several MacBook and iPad models, stating it could no longer absorb the escalating component costs. The announcement triggered Apple’s largest single-day stock decline in over a year, intensifying pressure on CEO Tim Cook to find cheaper alternative supply channels.
Industry analysts note a historical irony in Apple’s predicament. During the previous semiconductor downturn, Apple used its immense purchasing power to demand rock-bottom prices from chipmakers. This aggressive squeezing discouraged suppliers from investing in new manufacturing capacity, leaving the market completely unprepared for the subsequent AI demand shock.
“Apple is hoping by opening new supplies, in this case from China, they can both increase supply and decrease their cost, which will improve their margins,” tech analyst Jack Gold said in an email. “Raising their prices significantly is not a popular thing to do to their customer base, given they are already the high-priced compute supplier. So, this is really about giving Apple some additional supply chain options that they hope will benefit them in both supply and price.”
“Now the question is, are the Chinese chips as good (or at least good enough) in both performance and quality, and should the U.S. allow them to sell chips here to compete with Micron and the two Korean companies (Samsung and SK Hynix)?”
While Apple’s request is aimed at mitigating its own supply chain costs, it faces steep political hurdles. In 2022, Apple abandoned plans to source memory chips from Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp., another blacklisted Chinese firm, following severe backlash and warnings of legislative retaliation from members of Congress. CXMT carries identical geopolitical baggage, meaning any waiver would spark intense congressional scrutiny.
For Wall Street, the competitive fallout may be isolated. While Micron investors initially feared that an Apple-CXMT partnership would erode domestic pricing power, analysts emphasize that CXMT only produces conventional DRAM. The Chinese manufacturer lacks the capability to produce the premium HBM chips driving the record profitability of American chipmakers.
Apple, CXMT, and the White House had no comment on The Financial Times report.
