Chinese memory chip giant ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) forecast a net income of up to US$19.8 billion for the first nine months of 2026, marking a dramatic swing from a loss a year ago, as the domestic champion cashed in on artificial intelligence-driven demand while aggressively challenging global rivals including Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

Meanwhile, Zhu Yiming, chairman of the Hefei-based memory giant, proposed to buy back 1 billion (US$149.56 million) to 2 billion yuan of shares over 12 months, pending board or shareholder approval, to fund employee incentive plans or reduce registered capital.

CXMT projected the preliminary net income to range between 131 billion yuan and 132.5 billion yuan from January to September, compared with a net loss of 5.3 billion yuan in the same period last year, according to a stock exchange disclosure on Friday.

Its revenue in the period was expected to reach 265 billion to 270 billion yuan, marking a 742 per cent surge compared with the 32 billion yuan at the same time last year.

That implies a third-quarter net income of 53.4 billion to 54.9 billion yuan, following its 77.6 billion yuan net income recorded in the first half of 2026. Sales in the third quarter could come in at between 114.7 billion and 119.7 billion yuan, posting a surge of up to 620 per cent compared to the same period last year.

The company’s stock surged as much as 614 per cent to a peak of 61.8 yuan in August from its initial public offering price of 8.66 yuan in July, before paring gains to close at 45.02 yuan on Friday.

The massive surge in preliminary sales and profit was fuelled by surging demand for AI computing power since the second half of 2025 which resulted in a supply shortage and sharp price increases in the global dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) industry, CXMT said in the document filed with the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

“The company has been steadily advancing its capacity expansion, product research and development, and process technology improvement, which further boosted per-wafer output and capacity utilisation,” CXMT said. “The company’s economies of scale have continued to materialise.”CXMT’s blockbuster earnings come as the Chinese chip giant is under the global spotlight after revealing key progress on a new type of cell architecture to boost memory density.

The company announced last week a plan to roll out a new server-memory product based on the “4F square” design, which enabled higher storage density by fitting more cells onto a single chip. The plan posed new challenges to global competitors, including Samsung and SK Hynix, which are all pursuing similar technology.

CXMT said it expected to release a new generation of DDR5 enterprise-grade server memory incorporating the advanced technology by the end of the year.

Amid intensifying competition from China and broader market headwinds, a sector-wide market rout has hit global memory suppliers including Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Micron Technology, SanDisk, Kioxia and CXMT in the past week, erasing hundreds of billions of dollars in market value from the industry leaders in total.

“The recent significant correction in the memory players’ share prices could imply that the market may have underestimated both the capacity ramp-up and potential for technology breakthrough from China,” Goldman Sachs analysts led by Giuni Lee wrote in a research note on Friday.

However, Lee noted that the market may have overestimated China’s memory advancements, given “the considerable time it would take to complete customer qualifications and then achieve mass production at high yield levels, as well as narrow the gap in advanced DRAM technology such as high bandwidth memory”.