Stocks in Chinese memory-chip giant CXMT jumped 466% in their debut, making it the country’s most valuable publicly listed firm and underscoring investors’ appetite for the companies underpinning the AI boom.
CXMT has recently emerged as Beijing’s best hope of challenging foreign producers of memory chips, a key component in smartphones and AI servers, Bloomberg reported.
The broader shortage has lifted chip companies worldwide — Micron reported a 15-fold increase in quarterly profits last month — while forcing retailers to hike prices for cars and mobile phones, among others.
Though some analysts see the stock surges as overblown, others believe the furor is justified given forecasts that the memory crunch could last years.
