US export control policy toward Chinese semiconductor firms is in flux after a revised Pentagon Section 1260H document reportedly no longer listed ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation. The document, which identifies Chinese companies with alleged military or communist party ties, briefly appeared with the memory and storage makers absent before the updated list was removed from public view. At the same time, a new Reuters report indicates that Alibaba and Baidu have been added to the latest edition of the US administration’s trade blacklist, spotlighting their role in unprecedented large-scale purchases of Artificial Intelligence focused computing hardware, predominantly from NVIDIA.
Section 1260H designations have become a key signal of Washington’s concerns over Chinese corporate links to national defense. The previous inclusion of Hefei, Anhui-based CXMT triggered confusion because the company is known primarily for consumer-grade memory products rather than overtly military-focused offerings. Recent reporting from Nikkei Asia described how major PC brands ASUS, Acer, Dell, and HP have been evaluating CXMT DDR5 and DDR4 memory lines for their systems. The apparent removal of CXMT and YMTC from the Pentagon list could lower perceived risk for Western original equipment manufacturers seeking alternative memory and storage sources, particularly as other mainstream vendors scale back production in China.
The shift comes as CXMT accelerates its technological roadmap and deepens high profile partnerships that may invite renewed scrutiny. CXMT’s recent advancement into mass production of HBM3 is expected to significantly boost its status within China’s domestic chip ecosystem and make it a more competitive supplier for data center and high performance computing markets. At the same time, reports of collaboration between CXMT and Huawei on memory components for the next generation Ascend 950 Artificial Intelligence accelerator could heighten US concerns about the use of advanced Chinese memory in Artificial Intelligence and supercomputing infrastructure. While the Pentagon list fluctuation hints at a nuanced recalibration rather than a clear easing of policy, YMTC is still described as remaining under close watch by the US Commerce Department, which views the company as a potential threat to regional supply chain stability.
