ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), China's homegrown DRAM maker, surpassed Tencent to become the country's most valuable company 17 days after its Shanghai IPO on July 27, 2026. CXMT's market cap reached $524 billion against Tencent's $511 billion. CXMT's own stock fell 1.2% on the day; the crossover occurred because Tencent dropped 5.3% after reporting a 176% surge in AI capex spending.
CXMT controlled 7.67% of global DRAM market share in 2025 and is now valued at roughly half of Micron ($1 trillion) and ~60% of SK Hynix ($880 billion). The company's IPO raised $8.6 billion with retail demand 212x oversubscribed. CXMT signed a $3 billion DRAM deal with Tencent in June and a $7 billion five-year agreement with ByteDance in July; server DRAM revenue jumped from 8.4% of sales (2024) to 26.5% (2025).
For practitioners: Tencent's AI spending spike demonstrates why supply matters more than demand right now—the buyer gets punished for capex while the supplier gets rewarded. CXMT's valuation reflects China's push for memory independence from U.S. export controls, but the company still lacks EUV tooling. At current valuations, analyst consensus is fragmented (Nomura bullish, Morningstar sees 3x overvaluation), a sign the market is pricing geopolitical bet, not fundamentals.