Apple has approached the Trump administration seeking approval to buy memory chips from CXMT, according to a CNBC report citing the Financial Times. The request would let the iPhone maker source chips from a Chinese supplier that currently sits on a United States government blacklist, turning what is normally a routine purchasing decision into one that needs a political green light first.
CXMT is described in the report as China's leading state-backed maker of DRAM, the type of memory used widely across computers and phones. It is on the Pentagon's blacklist over what the report calls alleged links to the People's Liberation Army, which is why a company such as Apple would need to clear its plans with Washington before going ahead with any purchases from the firm.
According to the report, the motivation behind the approach is straightforward and comes down to cost pressure. The move follows Apple's recent decision to raise prices on its MacBooks and iPads, and the report notes that the company's shares fell by more than six percent after those increases, a drop it describes as the worst since April of last year.
The report sets out how Apple has traditionally bought its memory. It has relied on the global memory leaders, named as Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix, but the worldwide boom in artificial intelligence has tightened supply. With hyperscalers pouring billions into data centres and driving up demand for memory, the report says Apple now finds itself squeezed by a shortage of these components.
Being on the Pentagon's list does not, the report stresses, automatically ban American companies from doing business with the Chinese firms named on it. For a company like Apple, however, it does carry political risk, including the possibility that it could face stricter export controls later on, which could in turn disrupt supplies further down the line.
The report frames the episode as a sign of how the memory crunch has taken on a tangible geopolitical dimension. Turning to suppliers such as CXMT could help Apple diversify its sources and lower its costs at a moment when it has been passing higher prices on to customers, but the report is clear that such a step would not come without the political risks it lays out.