CXMT will supply Xiaomi’s September foldable as it sues the Pentagon over a military-company list
China’s biggest memory chipmaker, CXMT, said Saturday it will supply its newest phone memory chips for Xiaomi’s 18 Fold, a folding phone due in September. On Friday the company posted first-half revenue of 150.3 billion yuan ($22.36 billion), up 874% from a year earlier, in its first earnings since listing, and sued the Pentagon in Washington.
Reuters has ChangXin Memory Technologies starting mass production of LPDDR6 for the 18 Fold, less than a year after it mass-produced LPDDR5. Xiaomi confirmed the plan on Weibo. Xiaomi said this week the foldable is expected to use a new version of its in-house 3-nanometre processor, Xring O3, which would support LPDDR6.
Phones need a chip that holds working memory while you use the thing. That chip is DRAM. LPDDR6 is the newest version of it for mobile devices. CXMT is China’s top maker of that memory. Xiaomi is putting it in a foldable.
The Pentagon keeps a list of companies it says aid China’s military. Being on it can restrict US government contracting and damage a reputation. CXMT wants off. It filed August 28 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
The complaint, as The Straits Times reports it, says “CXMT is not affiliated with the Chinese military” and that it “designs, produces, and sells its DRAM chips for civilian and commercial use, not for military use.” Defendants include Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Deputy Defence Secretary Steve Feinberg, and Assistant Secretary of Defence for Industrial Base Policy Michael Cadenazzi. The Pentagon declined to comment. There is no ruling.
Biden’s Pentagon put CXMT on the list in January 2025. The company says it spent more than a year sending information and asking to come off. It says the Pentagon published a notice in February 2026 that it would be removed, then withdrew the notice later the same day, and relisted the company in June without adequately explaining the change. The Trump administration kept CXMT on the list in a June update. “None of these determinations is supported by the factual record, by applicable law, or by reasoned decision-making.”
CXMT told Reuters that since January 2025 it has “continuously suffered reputational and commercial harm,” and that it is suing to protect its business interests. It hopes to enter the US market in the long term. Alibaba sued over a similar list in June. Xiaomi got itself removed in 2021 by filing suit.
The company asking a DC judge to treat it as a civilian DRAM vendor put its newest civilian DRAM in a Xiaomi foldable the next morning.
I would start with the notice they pulled the same day.