Apple CXMT plan: Lutnick says no to Chinese memory

Apple wants CXMT and YMTC memory for products sold abroad

How the Apple CXMT request came to light

Date	Event
June 2026	Apple raises prices on several products and asks the Trump administration whether buying from Chinese memory makers would be acceptable
June 28	TechPowerUp relays a Financial Times report that Apple is in talks with the US government to clear CXMT
July 8	MacRumors, citing the FT, reports that Apple is testing CXMT DRAM with no commercial commitment
July 24	The Wall Street Journal reports that the request covers products sold anywhere outside the US

Apple is asking the Trump administration to let it use memory from CXMT and YMTC, two Chinese chipmakers, in products sold outside the US. It is making the request during a memory shortage that had already pushed Apple to raise prices. Reports since late June have filled in the details, and no supply deal with either company has been announced.

Apple's request covers products sold anywhere outside the US

Apple wants approval to put the chips in products for every market outside the US, not only in devices for China, the Wall Street Journal reported on July 24, 2026. The Journal said Tim Cook and other senior executives pitched the idea to President Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The request looked narrower in earlier coverage. A July 8 MacRumors report, citing Bloomberg, said Cook's pitch was to use Chinese memory in devices for the Chinese market. The Journal's report about two weeks later described a broader request covering every market except the US.

Strictly speaking, Apple does not need Washington's permission. 9to5Mac noted on July 29 that no law requires government approval for Apple to buy from either company, though doing so without the administration's support could carry a political cost. MacRumors, citing the Financial Times, also reported that Apple was testing CXMT's DRAM and leading a lobbying push among US tech companies for Washington's approval.

Pentagon lists CXMT and YMTC, and YMTC is on the Entity List

Both chipmakers appear on the Pentagon's Section 1260H list of Chinese military companies, and YMTC is on the Commerce Department's Entity List as well. They make different kinds of memory: CXMT mostly produces DRAM, the fast working memory apps use while running, and YMTC concentrates on NAND flash, the storage that keeps the operating system and files when the power is off.

Both are still on the list after the Defense Department's June 2026 update. MacRumors notes that the label mainly restricts defense contracting and does not usually block ordinary commercial purchases, and eWeek makes the same point.

The Entity List governs what can be shipped to YMTC. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security added YMTC on Dec. 15, 2022, and from the next day any item covered by US export rules needed a license to go to YMTC, with applications denied by default.

CXMT is already a major supplier. MacRumors ranks it fourth among DRAM makers after Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, with about 11% of global DRAM wafer capacity in 2025 and a projected 15% by 2028.

AI data centers are absorbing memory supply

Micron quarterly revenue, a year apart

Fiscal Q3 2026 ended on May 28, 2026. Revenue was more than four times the same quarter a year earlier.

$B02040

$9.30BFiscal Q3 2025

$41.46BFiscal Q3 2026

AI data centers are soaking up memory supply, eWeek reports, and Micron's fiscal third quarter shows how much: revenue of $41.46 billion, up from $9.30 billion a year earlier. Micron reported the quarter on June 24, 2026, with CEO Sanjay Mehrotra crediting the record to memory's strategic value in the AI era. The same AI build-out has tightened memory supply and raised component costs, according to eWeek, and PrimeXBT says it has sent DRAM and NAND prices sharply higher.

Micron's business-unit table puts about 63% of that jump in data centers. Its Cloud Memory and Core Data Center units together brought in about $25.3 billion in the quarter, compared with about $4.9 billion a year before.

According to eWeek, Apple has also looked at Intel and Samsung manufacturing to give itself more flexibility in chip supply. The same rush for AI hardware runs through other recent deals, such as AMD Anthropic Deal: Up to 2GW MI450 and $5B Stake and OpenAI Jalapeno Chip: Inference Benchmarks 2026.

Apple raised prices before the plan surfaced

The memory shortage led Apple to raise prices on several products in June 2026, before its talks about Chinese suppliers were public. Shortly before the increases, Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal that the US should rethink its restrictions on certain Chinese suppliers, saying "everything needs to be on the table" and "we should look at all supply."

Every iPhone, Mac and iPad contains memory chips, so a tighter memory market shows up in what Apple devices cost. One more supplier could give Apple extra capacity and more bargaining power with Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, according to eWeek.

Micron is lobbying against Apple's Chinese memory plan

Micron, the only large US memory chipmaker, is pressing the administration to turn Apple's plan down, the Wall Street Journal reported on July 24. CXMT makes DRAM just as Micron does, so approval would put one of Micron's direct competitors into Apple's supply chain.

Micron warns of a repeat of what happened to US steel

Letting Chinese memory makers sell to US tech companies could gut the US memory industry, Micron executives including CEO Sanjay Mehrotra told Lutnick and other officials, according to the Journal. They likened the risk to China's role in the decline of US steel and manufacturing plants. Since Micron's argument applies to devices sold anywhere, keeping the chips out of US-market products would not address it.

Seven senators made much the same argument later in their letter to Apple. Beijing, they wrote, had used this approach in many supply chains before, including steel, batteries and shipbuilding.

Micron offers domestic plants as its alternative

Micron's fix for the shortage is to make more memory in the US. It says it can help by speeding up construction of domestic plants and raising its US investment, according to the Journal. PrimeXBT counts Micron among the three makers of leading-edge DRAM, with Samsung and SK Hynix, and notes the substantial CHIPS Act funding it has received to grow US capacity.

Micron is not a neutral party here. CXMT is its DRAM competitor, and the data-center demand that squeezed memory supply also delivered Micron's record fiscal Q3 2026 revenue shown in the chart above.

Senators and Lutnick have pushed back since July

How Washington responded to the Apple CXMT plan

Date	Event
July 24	The White House tells the Journal only that it will seek investment and economic relief while safeguarding national security
July 29	Bloomberg reports a bipartisan Senate letter urging Apple to drop the plan
July 30	The Senate Foreign Relations Committee publishes the letter
Aug. 14	The Journal reports Lutnick saying the administration is "not in favor"
Aug. 21	The senators' deadline for Apple's answers

The opposition has grown since late July, from Micron to the Senate and then to the Commerce Secretary himself. On July 24 the White House gave the Journal a statement that took no position, and three weeks later Lutnick's remarks put the administration on record against the plan.

A bipartisan Senate letter set an Aug. 21 deadline

Seven senators from both parties asked Tim Cook to commit to keeping CXMT and YMTC memory out of every Apple product sold anywhere, and to reply by Aug. 21, 2026. Bloomberg reported the letter on July 29, as relayed by 9to5Mac, and said it was led by Republican Jim Banks of Indiana and Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee published it on July 30, with Jeanne Shaheen, Mike Crapo, Andy Kim, Jim Risch and Pete Ricketts also signing.

The senators called the plan short-sighted and said a limit to devices sold in China could not be expected to hold, because once a part is approved for Apple production, one more purchasing decision could take it worldwide. They also asked what product details Apple had shared, or would share, with the suppliers while testing their chips. The letter recalls that Apple evaluated YMTC NAND for the iPhone in 2022 and dropped it after congressional scrutiny.

Bloomberg's account, as passed on by 9to5Mac, says the senators also warned that other companies might follow Apple's lead. That, in their view, could weaken domestic memory production and planned investments in Indiana, Idaho, New York and Virginia.

Lutnick said on Aug. 14 the administration is not in favor

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told the Wall Street Journal, in an interview reported on Aug. 14, 2026, that the administration is "not in favor" of Apple using Chinese memory. He spoke after touring an Apple manufacturing site in Houston and said he had told Apple so "plainly."

The memory problem needs fixes other than US companies buying Chinese chips, Lutnick added. In the same report, Apple COO Sabih Khan said memory involves little customization, which 9to5Mac read as leaving room for off-the-shelf Chinese chips. Custom parts would be another matter, 9to5Mac says, since sharing product information with CXMT or YMTC falls under US export controls and needs a Commerce Department license.

Apple CXMT plan: still unapproved, suppliers look inward

Nothing has been approved or bought as of Sept. 29, 2026, and Apple has not publicly answered the senators, whose deadline was Aug. 21. Apple asked to use CXMT and YMTC memory, and Micron, the senators and Lutnick have each opposed it. The next move belongs to Apple and Washington, and to the two Chinese suppliers as well.

No approval or purchase has been reported as of Sept. 29

eWeek wrote on Aug. 2 that the available reporting did not show CXMT or YMTC chips in any Apple product on sale, and no supply deal has been announced since. Until Apple confirms a production decision, eWeek added, the two are possible suppliers rather than confirmed ones. Apple has not said publicly whether it made the commitment the senators requested.

For federal buyers, one date is already set. Section 5949 of the fiscal 2023 defense authorization law will bar federal agencies from buying products that use CXMT or YMTC chips starting in December 2027, as the senators' letter points out. A proposed federal purchasing rule describes how that ban would apply, eWeek says, with the details depending on the final rule, statutory exceptions and waivers.

The Chinese suppliers have their own priorities

Industry insiders cited by BigGo Finance say CXMT and YMTC are putting demand inside China ahead of Apple. In their view the two treat Apple's supply chain as a test of product quality, and a Taiwan-based industry report from Aug. 26, also cited by BigGo, says neither plans to supply Apple at scale. BigGo reports that both are focused on domestic demand from AI servers and cloud computing, and that they aim to lift China's memory self-sufficiency above 50% between late 2027 and 2028.

Both are raising money of their own, too. CXMT raised 29.5 billion yuan (about $4.4 billion) in its listing on Shanghai's STAR Market, and YMTC was preparing an even bigger IPO, according to BigGo. China AI Chips: Ding Xuexiang's Reported Warning covers Beijing's broader push for Chinese companies to buy homegrown chips.