Apple Lobbies US Government to Buy Memory Chips From Blacklisted Chinese Maker CXMT

Apple has been quietly lobbying the United States government for permission to source memory chips from ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), China's largest DRAM manufacturer, according to a Financial Times report published on June 27, 2026. The move is one of the clearest signs yet that the worsening global memory shortage has reached even the world's most profitable consumer electronics company.

People familiar with the talks said Apple first approached the Commerce Department more than a month ago and has since pressed its case with officials across the White House and Washington. The company is not legally barred from buying from CXMT today. The supplier appears on the Pentagon's so-called 1260H list, a register of firms the Defense Department believes are tied to the Chinese military, but that designation restricts Defense Department contracting rather than commercial deals between private companies.

What Apple is seeking is certainty. According to the report, the company wants a guarantee that CXMT will not later be added to the Commerce Department's Entity List, a far stricter designation that would force any American buyer to obtain a licence before purchasing its products. Apple appears unwilling to build a supply chain dependency that a single regulatory decision could unwind.

The lobbying campaign is unfolding against a backdrop of severe cost pressure. On June 25, 2026, Apple raised prices across nearly its entire Mac, iPad, Vision Pro and home device lineup, with increases ranging from 100 to 500 dollars per product. The 13-inch MacBook Air climbed from 1,099 to 1,299 dollars, the 16-inch MacBook Pro rose from 2,499 to 2,999 dollars, and the entry-level MacBook Neo went from 599 to 699 dollars. The iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods were spared for now. Apple shares fell more than 6 percent on the day of the announcement, their worst single-day drop since April 2025.

The root cause is a reallocation of global memory production toward artificial intelligence. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron control the vast majority of DRAM output, and all three have shifted wafer capacity toward high-bandwidth memory used inside AI data centers, where margins are far higher than for the commodity memory found in phones, laptops and tablets. Industry trackers estimate that AI data centers will absorb roughly 70 percent of the memory chips produced worldwide in 2026. Contract DRAM prices jumped close to 98 percent in the first quarter of 2026 and are set to climb a further 58 to 63 percent in the current quarter, according to TrendForce. By Apple's own account, memory and storage now cost about four times what they did three quarters ago.

Chief executive Tim Cook described the situation as a hundred-year flood and said the price increases had become unavoidable. The strain has already shown up in Apple's margins, which the company has guided lower for the June quarter, and it has slowed the rollout of new hardware. John Ternus is due to take over as chief executive on September 1, inheriting a crisis that analysts expect to persist well into 2027 and possibly beyond.

CXMT has emerged as a potential relief valve because it has been supplying memory to Western brands at prices that undercut the three dominant manufacturers. Its position on the 1260H list, however, makes it a politically sensitive choice for a company as visible as Apple. That list has had a turbulent recent history. The Pentagon briefly removed CXMT and fellow Chinese chipmaker YMTC in February before reversing the decision after pushback from China hawks in Congress. Both were restored in a June update that expanded the list to 188 entities, adding Alibaba, Baidu and BYD among others.

The plan is already drawing opposition in Washington. John Moolenaar, chairman of the House committee on China, warned that partnering with a Chinese military-linked company would be a grave mistake and stressed that the United States should not rely on foreign supply chains for something as critical as DRAM. Apple declined to comment on the discussions, and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

As of late June 2026, no decision has been reached. Apple continues to source its memory from Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix while it waits for clarity from the administration. The outcome will signal how far Washington is willing to bend its security posture to ease a shortage that is now reshaping pricing across the entire consumer electronics market.