Exclusive-China's CXMT wins $3 billion memory supply deal with Tencent, sources say

June 29 (Reuters) - Chinese representation chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) has signed a semipermanent proviso statement with Tencent Holdings worthy much than 20 cardinal yuan ($2.94 billion) up of its blockbuster banal marketplace debut, according to 3 radical with cognition of the matter.

The statement covers respective ‌years of DRAM spot proviso for servers, the radical said, speaking connected information of anonymity arsenic the details are private. Two of the ‌sources said the woody spans up to 3 years, portion the 3rd said it covers up to 5 years.

DRAM, oregon dynamic random-access memory, is simply a captious constituent for servers that powerfulness unreality ​computing, databases and AI workloads. Modern information centres request DRAM to tally applications without bottlenecking, making semipermanent proviso contracts a precedence for companies amid a prolonged planetary shortage that has led to soaring representation spot costs.

Further details of the woody were not instantly clear, including whether it includes CXMT's high-bandwidth representation (HBM), an indispensable constituent successful high-performance AI chips.

CXMT and Tencent didn't instantly respond to requests for comment.

Founded successful 2016 with authorities backing, CXMT leads China's strategical propulsion to physique a foothold successful a planetary DRAM ‌market dominated by South Korean and U.S. companies.

The antecedently unreported ⁠deal comes astatine a captious juncture for CXMT, which received support from the Shanghai Stock Exchange successful May for an archetypal nationalist offering connected the STAR Market that aims to rise 29.5 cardinal yuan, mounting it up to beryllium 1 of ⁠mainland China's largest listings successful years.

The size of the committedness from 1 of China's biggest net companies represents a large endorsement of the Hefei-based firm, which has agelong been viewed arsenic a technological laggard compared with planetary leaders Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

CXMT is besides successful discussions with different large Chinese net companies connected akin collaborations, 2 ​additional ​sources said. It counts Tencent, Alibaba Cloud, ByteDance, Lenovo and Xiaomi arsenic large customers, according ​to its IPO prospectus.

EXPLOSIVE GROWTH

The Tencent woody reflects a broader ‌shift successful China's exertion proviso chain, arsenic home net giants scramble for representation spot proviso amid a planetary shortage.

DRAM declaration prices surged astir 95% quarter-on-quarter successful the archetypal 4th of 2026, according to UBS, with the concern slope forecasting the representation upcycle to proceed until astatine slightest precocious 2027. The planetary representation marketplace could scope $786 cardinal this twelvemonth and $1.2 trillion successful 2027, UBS estimates.