Wuhan planning 800 billion RMB (~$110B) domestic memory chip manufacturing facility for DRAM/HBM production, advancing China's chip self-sufficiency.

On July 27, Changxin Technology officially listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Science and Technology Innovation Board. The opening price was 49.5 yuan, surging 471.59% from the issue price of 8.66 yuan.

It surpassed Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to become the "King of A-Share Market Cap"; it also exceeded Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation to top the "King of Science and Technology Innovation Board." It even left Intel far behind.

Investors who won new share lottery draws also made a killing, with profits exceeding 20,000 yuan per sign-up. Yet amid the euphoria, some veteran investors worry whether the "China National Petroleum curse" will resurface.

In 2007, CNPC's opening price on its first day of listing was 48.6 yuan, with market cap briefly exceeding 8 trillion yuan, followed by a continuous decline, failing to return to its issue price for over a decade. Changxin Technology opened at 49.5 yuan with a market cap of 3.3 trillion yuan.

But beyond baseless worries, many have started calculating: who will be next to succeed Changxin Technology as the next "wealth-creation king"?

According to the prospectus, Changxin Technology had 60 institutional shareholders before its listing, ranging from local state-owned capital and national-level industrial funds to industrial capital, forming a star-studded institutional shareholder lineup. Hefei State-Owned Assets, as the major shareholder, invested 14.4 billion yuan a decade ago, and its current holding market value is approaching 1 trillion yuan. Internet giants like Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, and Meituan are quietly lurking in the shareholder list.

Based on the first-day opening price, Alibaba's ecosystem, holding approximately 5%, has a holding market value close to 150 billion yuan. Early on, Alibaba's ecosystem invested approximately 7.6 billion yuan in Changxin, with current unrealized gains reaching 1870%.

Among private equity funds, Liang Wenfeng captured the largest share, with his affiliated Ningbo Huanfang Quantitative and Zhejiang Jiuzhang Assets collectively allocated 20.2497 million shares, totaling around 175 million yuan. By this calculation, Liang Wenfeng's floating gains from the IPO reached 827 million yuan.

The prospectus shows the company implemented two rounds of employee stock ownership plans. The first round granted shares at 1.05 yuan per share, covering 3,596 individuals; the second round granted shares at only 0.108 yuan per share, covering 3,164 individuals. Based on the issue price of 8.66 yuan, the first round's floating gains exceed 8 times, while the second round's reach 80 times. If calculated based on the opening price of 49.5 yuan on the first day of listing, the second round's floating gains exceed 450 times.

Chairman Zhu Yiming committed to distributing his 768 million held shares, free of charge, to current employees after 36 months of listing and within ten years. Valued at approximately 66.5 billion yuan at the issue price, it exceeds 38 billion yuan at the opening price. No additional issuance, no dilution, pure personal transfer—regarded as the largest-scale individual equity incentive in A-share history. With 19,298 employees at the end of 2025, on average, each employee corresponds to over 1 million yuan in equity market value.

Of course, some departed with regret. In December 2024, Biguiyuan Venture Capital's affiliate transferred its 1.56% stake at 2.22 yuan per share—only one-quarter of the issue price and 4.5% of the opening price, resulting in over 40 billion yuan in losses.

On May 19, 2026, Yangtze Memory formally launched IPO guidance and filing, with CITIC Securities and CITIC Construction Investment jointly serving as guidance institutions, deploying a record-sized team of 31 people combined. Based on a guidance period of at least three months, it is expected to complete guidance verification by August at the earliest and formally submit application materials to the Science and Technology Innovation Board.

Yangtze Memory and Changxin Technology are known as the domestic storage "twin stars." However, their tracks are completely different—Changxin produces DRAM (memory), while Yangtze produces 3D NAND (flash storage). One handles temporary memory for data, the other handles permanent storage.

The company has achieved mass production of 232-layer and above 3D NAND; 294-layer products began mass production in 2025, and 300-layer products are scheduled for 2026, with yield rates exceeding 90%. Its self-developed Xtacking (Crystal Stack) architecture has broken through overseas technology monopolies.

According to research institutions, Yangtze Memory's revenue for the first three quarters of 2025 was approximately 32.08 billion yuan, a year-over-year increase of 97.8%; Q1 2026 revenue exceeded 20 billion yuan, doubling year-over-year. Global NAND market share increased from 8.1% in Q3 2025 to 13% in Q1 2026, with impressive growth rates.

From financing and shareholding perspectives, Yangtze Memory has no controlling shareholder, with major shareholders including Hubei Changsheng Development (26.54%), Wuhan Xinfly Technology (25.35%), and National IC Investment Fund periods one and two (combined approximately 23%). State-owned assets penetration holds over 58%, mirroring Changxin Technology's local state capital plus National Fund structure.

In terms of valuation, Yangtze Memory ranked 32nd in the Hurun "2026 Global Unicorn List" with a valuation of 150 billion yuan. According to predictions widely circulated in the industry as reported by Yangtze Daily, its market value after listing is expected to reach 500 billion to 800 billion yuan, possibly even approaching 1 trillion yuan.

The DRAM market size in 2025 was approximately $150.5 billion, dominated by over 90% by Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron. The NAND market size in 2025 was approximately $55.7 billion, roughly one-third of DRAM's size. This means Yangtze Memory's theoretical market-cap ceiling is lower than Changxin Technology's. Yet from a competitive landscape perspective, Changxin Technology is the world's fourth-largest DRAM manufacturer, with still-notable gaps versus the top three. Yangtze Memory's global market share has reached 13%, on par with Micron and Western Digital, with the gap rapidly narrowing.

Current performance is nonetheless explosively impressive. Changxin Technology's H1 2026 revenue is projected at 110–120 billion yuan, with net profit attributable to mother company of 50–57 billion yuan. Yangtze Memory's Q1 revenue exceeded 20 billion yuan, with growth rates matching Changxin Technology's.

The capital market's "storage premium" has opened. Changxin Technology, with its 3.3-trillion-yuan opening market cap, set the pace for the domestic-substitution market. Yangtze Memory, also part of the domestic-substitution plus AI compute core narrative, will similarly be pulled by this anchor point.

While the "domestic substitution" story is compelling, don't forget that memory chips represent a typically strong cyclical industry. Changxin Technology now holds a 3.3-trillion-yuan market cap, yet posted a 16.3-billion-yuan loss in 2023, reaching daily earnings of 300 million yuan by 2026. Capital that didn't dare invest in Changxin Technology back then now watches trillion-yuan returns with regret; engineers who acquired equity at low prices back then have seen their net worth skyrocket.