China's Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) filed its IPO application with Shanghai's stock exchange on August 21, planning to raise at least 33 billion yuan ($4.9 billion) through a listing on the STAR Market. The move follows CXMT's blockbuster DRAM IPO last month, which raised nearly $10 billion, and positions YMTC to capitalize on the global AI-driven memory-chip shortage that has opened unprecedented opportunities for Chinese memory makers to compete globally.
YMTC is China's sole manufacturer of NAND flash chips and currently ranks as the world's third-largest NAND flash supplier, behind only Samsung and SK Hynix. The company has begun mass production of 267-layer 3D NAND built around its proprietary Xtacking 4.0 architecture, and is developing NAND beyond 300 layers. In Q2 2026, YMTC captured 14% of global NAND flash shipments, surpassing Kioxia and Micron for the first time, though it remains fifth in NAND revenue due to lower per-bit pricing. The IPO valuation could reach at least 1 trillion yuan ($148 billion) according to some estimates.
YMTC has planned $24 billion in total investment for three NAND production lines with combined capacity of about 300,000 wafers per month by 2026; the first two phases are currently operating at 160,000 wafers per month. However, the company faces headwinds: it has been on the U.S. Commerce Department's Entity List since 2022, limiting access to advanced lithographic tools, and its product mix is concentrated in consumer applications, with limited exposure to enterprise SSDs used in data centers, which now account for 48% of global NAND bits.
The listing timeline typically spans eight to 12 months from registration to debut on the STAR Market, suggesting a potential 2027 listing. For global AI infrastructure teams: YMTC's IPO signals that Chinese government policy is backing memory self-sufficiency while AI data-center demand is tightening supply globally. The broader trend of CXMT + YMTC going public simultaneously positions China's memory makers as serious long-term competitors to Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron in serving both domestic and international AI infrastructure buildouts.