MANY MINDEDPC makers reach for Chinese memory as AI drains the supply
HP, Asus and Acer have started using small quantities of DRAM from China's ChangXin Memory Technologies in selected budget notebooks sold outside the United States, according to Nikkei Asia. Several major PC makers completed validation of CXMT's DRAM in mid-2026 and have used the chips at small scale since, across a limited number of specific models.
The reason is supply, not preference. Manufacturing capacity across the memory industry has been redirected toward AI-related products, leaving fewer conventional DRAM chips for laptops, desktops and other consumer electronics, and pushing prices up. CXMT itself is prioritising Chinese customers, Huawei in particular, which leaves limited capacity for international PC makers even now that they are qualified to buy.
Memory price per terabyte is one of the cost curves this site tracks, and it is one of the most reliable downward curves in computing. It is currently going the wrong way, and the mechanism is worth being precise about: this is not a technology failure, it is an allocation shift. The same demand that is driving the price of AI inference down is bidding away the components that make ordinary computers cheap. Someone buying a laptop is now indirectly competing with a data centre.
The caveats are real on both sides. The volumes involved are small and confined to budget models in non-US markets, so this is an early indicator rather than a supply solution. US export controls remain in force, and CXMT still has to scale to meet the quality and volume requirements of large PC makers. No specific price figures appear in the accessible reporting.
Source: Nikkei Asia