Apple has been lobbying US officials for assurances that it can buy memory chips from ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), China's most advanced DRAM maker, the Financial Times reported, as relayed by The Verge. The move underscores how badly the AI-driven memory crunch is squeezing even the world's most valuable companies.

What Apple is asking for

Apple is not currently barred from buying CXMT's chips. According to the FT report, carried by Bloomberg and Fortune, it is seeking something more specific: a guarantee that CXMT will not be added to the Commerce Department's Entity List — a stricter blacklist that would force US firms to obtain individual licenses before dealing with the company. In other words, Apple wants predictability before it commits to a new supplier that regulation could later cut off.

The urgency is financial. Prices for the everyday DRAM used in phones and computers have surged as the three dominant memory makers — Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron — divert capacity to the far more profitable high-bandwidth memory that AI data centers demand. On June 25, Apple raised prices across its Mac, iPad and home-device lines by $100 to $500 per product, citing component costs. newsparlor has reported separately on the broader memory shortage, which analysts expect to persist into 2027 or beyond.

What CXMT is — and why it's sensitive

CXMT, based in Hefei, is central to China's push for chip self-sufficiency and has been scaling production of exactly the consumer-grade memory the established makers have deprioritized. But it sits on the Pentagon's so-called Section 1260H list of firms assessed to have ties to the Chinese military — a designation that carries reputational and procurement risk but does not by itself ban commercial sales.

A Commerce Department interagency committee had moved to put CXMT on the harder-hitting Entity List, but the White House paused new controls while broader trade talks with Beijing — including over rare-earth exports — were under way, according to reporting on the delay. That pause has left CXMT in a grey zone: legal to buy from, but shadowed by the prospect of restriction.

A policy collision

Apple's request lands on a long-running fault line in US technology policy. Export controls on Chinese chipmakers are meant to slow Beijing's military-industrial advance — but the same rules, or even the threat of them, can disrupt the supply chains of the American firms they are meant to protect.

The political resistance is real. Representative John Moolenaar, the Republican who chairs the House committee on China, warned that any commercial tie between Apple and a military-linked Chinese manufacturer would be "a serious mistake," arguing it would deepen US reliance on Chinese technology just as policymakers try to reduce it.

What happens next

The outcome will hinge on how the administration weighs Apple's supply problem against its goal of limiting China's access to US technology. Approval would likely draw bipartisan criticism and set a precedent other manufacturers could invoke; a refusal would leave Apple absorbing higher costs and raising consumer prices while losing the argument in Washington. Apple has not commented publicly, and the Commerce Department has not confirmed the discussions. For now, the broader pause on new China tech controls remains in place — and so does the memory shortage driving the request.