Meet Zhu Yiming, the billionaire behind China's largest memory-chip maker taking on global giants

When ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), China's largest maker of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips, launched Asia's largest initial public offering of 2026 on July 15, it propelled founder Zhu's mission to build a homegrown memory-chip giant into the global spotlight.

The Shanghai listing, priced to raise 57.9 billion yuan (US$8.5 billion) and valuing CXMT at about $85 billion, marked a milestone for Zhu, who reportedly vowed in 2018 not to draw a salary until the company turned a profit, which it did last year.

Long before founding CXMT, Zhu believed China could become a major force in the global memory-chip industry. More than two decades ago, while working as an engineer in Silicon Valley with little more than a chip design, he predicted that the industry's center of gravity would eventually shift from the U.S. to Japan, then South Korea, and ultimately to China.

In a 2004 email to investors, Zhu wrote: "It is time for China to play [a] role in this industry," according to the South China Morning Post.

His ambition was equally clear: "To be the biggest memory designer and maker in China."

Zhu Yiming, founder of China's largest memory-chip maker CXMT. Photo courtesy of CXMT

A graduate of Tsinghua University, one of China's leading universities, Zhu studied physics before becoming fascinated by semiconductors. Instead of taking tutoring jobs like many classmates, he worked as a programmer and was earning about 300,000 yuan a year by the late 1990s, when China's average annual income was about 10,000 yuan, according to Tsinghua's alumni magazine.

As his software projects increasingly involved hardware, he became interested in integrated circuits, a field in which China relied heavily on foreign suppliers. He later earned a graduate degree from Stony Brook University in New York and remained in the U.S., working for several technology companies, including memory-chip developer Monolithic System Technologies.

By 2004, Zhu had decided to launch his own business. With support from Li Jun, a fellow Tsinghua alumnus, Zhu was introduced to venture capitalist Hsun K Chou, who invested $100,000 and rented him a garage at a low cost. Working with engineer Shu Qingming, Zhu founded semiconductor design start-up GigaDevice and turned his chip design into a functioning memory-chip prototype.

The following year, he raised another $920,000 from a group of Tsinghua alumni and moved GigaDevice to Beijing. The semiconductor design company later grew into one of China's leading chip designers and went public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in August 2016.

That same year, Zhu partnered with the Hefei government in eastern China to launch the project that became CXMT. Unlike GigaDevice, which designed chips while outsourcing manufacturing, CXMT sought to manufacture its own memory chips, requiring multibillion-dollar investments in fabrication plants and years of process development.

In 2018, Zhu stepped away from GigaDevice to focus entirely on the new company and made his pledge to forgo a salary until it became profitable. CXMT produced its first self-developed mainstream DRAM chip in 2019, giving mainland China its first meaningful foothold in a market long dominated by overseas manufacturers.

Years of losses and billions of dollars in government support followed. "The company has benefited from very generous government support, which is the sole reason it could enter the hugely capital intensive memory industry," Chris Miller, a professor at Tufts University and author of "Chip War," told The New York Times.

The company's fortunes changed as artificial intelligence fueled a global memory-chip boom that drove up prices and demand for advanced memory products.

According to its prospectus, first-quarter revenue surged 719% year on year to 50.8 billion yuan. Reuters reported that first-half revenue is expected to reach between 110 billion and 120 billion yuan, nearly double the company's full-year 2025 revenue of 61.8 billion yuan. The recovery also attracted Apple, which has reportedly tested CXMT's chips for devices sold in China.

Despite its rapid growth, CXMT remains behind global leaders in high-bandwidth memory, an advanced type of memory used in AI accelerators.

The global DRAM market is still dominated by Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology. According to market research firm Counterpoint Research, CXMT became the world's fourth-largest DRAM supplier and increased its global market share to about 8% in the first quarter of 2026 from 3% a year earlier.

The company must continue investing heavily in manufacturing technology while coping with the industry's cyclical downturns and tightening U.S.-led restrictions on China's access to advanced semiconductor equipment.

The engineer who once handled technology development, fundraising and customer acquisition now leads a company that employed nearly 19,300 people at the end of 2025. He has a net worth of some $3.7 billion as of July 21, according to Forbes.

Looking back on GigaDevice's success in a recent interview with Tsinghua's alumni magazine, Zhu credited choosing the right market and the dedication of his employees. He also summed up the philosophy that has guided his career. "The most important thing in entrepreneurship is to stay alive."