Apple wants to buy cheap memory chips from China to ease a shortage. That shortage is already pushing up the price of its gadgets. A bipartisan group of US senators has just told Tim Cook not to.
The senators wrote to Cook, urging Apple to drop any plan to buy Chinese memory. The two suppliers are ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC). Their chips would leave the world’s most valuable company reliant on a US adversary for critical parts, Bloomberg reported.
The letter was led by Indiana Republican Jim Banks and New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, an unusually cross-party pairing. Both CXMT and YMTC sit on a recently updated Pentagon list of firms believed to support China’s military. YMTC is also on a US Commerce Department trade blacklist.
“This short-sighted move would be a mistake,” the senators wrote. It would leave Apple “dependent on critical supplies from a firm the United States government has formally designated as a Chinese military company.”
Why Apple is even considering it
The context is a brutal squeeze on memory. Prices have soared on unprecedented demand from AI chipmakers such as Nvidia. In June, Apple raised prices across its Macs, iPads, home devices and the Vision Pro, blaming the shortage.
Cheaper Chinese memory would help. Apple has spent months lobbying Washington for clearance. It has sought the blessing of senior Trump officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and has been testing CXMT’s chips for its China-market devices.
CXMT is at the centre of it, fresh off a blockbuster Shanghai IPO. It is not named in US export regulations, though it runs advanced chipmaking facilities. YMTC is more clearly restricted. Apple’s earlier attempt to use it, in 2022, collapsed under Washington’s opposition.
The China-only loophole, and the jobs
Apple’s pitch is that the Chinese memory would only go into devices sold in China. The senators do not buy it. Once a part clears Apple’s qualification, they wrote, “extending it worldwide is a single procurement decision away.”
They also punctured the savings argument, citing analysis that CXMT’s pricing is sometimes higher than its rivals’. And they asked what Apple has handed over to qualify the chips, given US rules that require a licence to send technical blueprints to Chinese factories.
There is a home-state interest, too. Many of the signers come from states where Micron and SK Hynix are spending billions on new memory plants. Micron alone plans $250bn across New York, Idaho and Virginia. Cheap Chinese memory, the senators fear, could undercut those Chips-Act-backed projects.
An awkward moment
The timing is delicate. Apple this week became only the second company to reach a $5tn valuation, and Cook has cultivated a close relationship with President Trump. The row also lands weeks before a planned Trump-Xi summit in the US, where chip export controls are on the agenda.
The senators want Apple to commit by 21 August to keep CXMT and YMTC memory out of its products entirely. Apple did not immediately comment. For now, it is caught between a shortage it cannot fix quickly and a Washington that will not let it take the cheap way out.
