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Apple Tests Chinese Memory Chips As Supply Crunch Pushes PC Giants Toward CXMT

Zero Rss
6 days 22 hours ago
Apple Tests Chinese Memory Chips As Supply Crunch Pushes PC Giants Toward CXMT

After months of lobbying the Trump administration for clearance to purchase Chinese memory chips, Apple appears to be nearing the point where it can tap China's domestic chip market. The push follows what the iPhone maker has described as "unsustainable" pricing from the memory "cartel," namely SK Hynix, Samsung, Micron, and SanDisk, whose production has been soaked up by unprecedented demand from hyperscalers. 

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday morning that Apple is closer than ever to using memory chips from CXMT, a Chinese company that the Pentagon has put on a blacklist because of alleged connections to the People's Liberation Army.

Apple is currently testing CXMT memory chips across its product portfolio, including iPhones and MacBooks, according to the report.

The report continued:

Apple has held early talks with CXMT about supplying components with the goal of using them in some devices sold in China, the people said. Apple hopes to win the White House's blessing to do business with the Chinese company.

Apple is raising prices on its products globally, blaming the rising cost of memory chips because of high demand from AI companies. Getting access to Chinese supplies could help the iPhone maker ease its crunch.

As we've covered, the iPhone maker has been waging a lobbying campaign to secure the White House's blessing in order to ease the financial pressure from soaring memory chip prices. A recent FT report said that Apple approached the Commerce Department earlier this summer about procuring Chinese memory chips. 

Apple is not barred from buying chips from China's DDR giant CXMT or from YMTC, another Chinese memory chipmaker that focuses on NAND memory. YMTC has been aggressively growing its market share, has caught up with SanDisk, and is set to become the world's third-largest maker of flash memory as soon as this quarter.

However, US rules prevent Apple from ordering customized chips from CXMT but permit it to purchase off-the-shelf components and negotiate prices. 

The WSJ noted that other device companies are seeking CXMT supplies:

Laptop makers HP and Acer have started using memory chips from CXMT in devices sold outside the U.S. to alleviate some of the memory supply strain, people familiar with the matter said.

We expanded on this last week:

Any agreement Apple inks with CXMT would risk immediate political resistance in Washington, where policymakers fear U.S. orders could strengthen CXMT. Its chip tech trails that of Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron, while its production capacity is largely committed for this year.

However, CXMT is rapidly gaining ground. Its second-quarter revenue increased more than eightfold from the same quarter one year ago, lifting its global DRAM market share to 7%. CXMT completed a successful IPO last month (read note).

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 11:05
Tyler Durden

Fauci held in contempt: Letters to the Editor — Aug. 10, 2026

NY Post
6 days 22 hours ago
The Issue: Dr. Anthony Fauci held in contempt of Congress after his Senate hearing. I am dumbfounded by how Dr. Anthony Fauci got away with pleading the Fifth Amendment 111 times and, if found guilty of contempt, he only faces one year in jail and a $100,000 fine (“Save Science,” Glenn Harlan Reynolds, PostOpinion, Aug....
Post readers

Cheer Boy George for backing Jews over haters — even as it costs him his career

NY Post
6 days 22 hours ago
Sometimes, bravery is found in unexpected places. The recording artist known as Boy George was so moved by an exhibition in London dedicated to the Jews slaughtered, tortured, sexually assaulted and abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, at the Nova Music Festival in Israel — “The Moment Music Stood Still” — he recorded the hauntingly beautiful...
Andrea Peyser

UN Sounds Alarm As Iran Steps Up Executions To Silence Dissent

Zero Rss
6 days 23 hours ago
UN Sounds Alarm As Iran Steps Up Executions To Silence Dissent

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

The United Nations human rights chief has expressed alarm over a sharp increase in executions and death sentences in Iran, warning that authorities are using capital punishment to intimidate the population and suppress dissent.

“I am alarmed by the rise in executions and death sentences issued in Iran since March, and that capital punishment continues to be used to instill fear among the population and suppress dissent,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in an Aug. 5 statement. source

Türk said that since March 19, at least 56 people have been executed on national security-related charges, including 27 in cases connected to protests earlier this year.

More than 100 others face possible execution on similar charges, while executions for drug-related offenses are also continuing at what he described as an “alarming rate.”

He raised concerns about alleged torture, forced confessions, closed-door proceedings, and the rapid execution of some defendants following their arrests.

“Persistent lack of fair trial and due process guarantees are deeply troubling,” he said.

Confessions were allegedly obtained through torture and other forms of ill-treatment, while several executions were reportedly carried out in public. Some defendants were executed only weeks after being arrested, according to Türk.

In one case, 12 defendants were sentenced to death following a single closed-door hearing lasting three hours, he said.

Separately, an independent United Nations fact-finding mission in July urged Iran to halt the executions of 10 men who participated in protests in Isfahan. It also condemned the July 19 executions of two other men sentenced in the same case.

In a statement, the mission called on Iran “to immediately halt all executions, including those of individuals convicted in connection with the protests, and establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view to its abolition for all crimes.”

Protests and War

The increase in executions has unfolded since the United States and Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran in late February, following widespread anti-government protests in the country that began amid soaring inflation, economic hardship, and shortages.

The clampdown by the Iranian regime left thousands dead and thousands more detained, according to the United Nations, while Iranian authorities imposed an internet blackout that lasted for months.

Dr. Marjan Haghighi, an Iranian-Australian health professional and human rights advocate, said the increase appeared intended to discourage further opposition to the ruling regime in Iran in the wake of the January protests.

“Following those protests, I believe the authorities shifted from suppressing demonstrations in the streets to using executions to instill fear throughout society,” Haghighi told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

“Every new execution sends another message to society that dissent may carry the ultimate price,” she said.

Haghighi said Iran’s strict censorship makes independent reporting difficult and that many executions are never publicly announced.

“The true number of executions is significantly higher than what the world sees,” Haghighi said.

Iranian officials have previously rejected international criticism of the country’s human rights record while defending the use of capital punishment as lawful under Iranian law and necessary to protect public security.

Iran’s diplomatic mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

People wade in the water with cargo ships at anchor in the background, in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, on June 30, 2026. Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP

The surge in executions is taking place as the U.S.–Iran war is into its sixth month and Washington maintains military and economic pressure on Tehran.

President Donald Trump said on Aug. 6 that he believed the conflict would end soon, telling reporters that Iran could not sustain it much longer.

Trump said negotiations over reopening the Strait of Hormuz were progressing, although Iranian officials have denied that they are negotiating directly with Washington.

The United States has maintained its naval blockade of Iranian ports in order to compel Tehran to come to the table and agree to a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

Classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson said in recent commentary for The Epoch Times that Tehran appeared to be alternating between talks and attacks to delay a settlement and outlast the Trump administration politically.

Hanson opined that the shifting public negotiations obscured the mounting pressure inside Iran from the blockade, frozen assets, damaged infrastructure, and falling export revenue.

While critics contend that Washington risks becoming bogged down in a prolonged conflict, Hanson said the underlying conditions suggested that “Iran is running out of time.”

Trump has repeatedly said that months of U.S. strikes have decimated Iran’s military and that Tehran’s only remaining leverage is its ability to menace commercial shipping in Hormuz with naval mines and fast boats.

The U.S. president has threatened Iran with a vastly more intense and destructive wave of strikes if Tehran does not agree to a deal that would both reopen the strait and ensure that the regime never acquires nuclear weapons.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 10:30
Tyler Durden

Turkish FM Affirms Defense Pact With Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Is Same As NATO's Article 5

Zero Rss
6 days 23 hours ago
Turkish FM Affirms Defense Pact With Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Is Same As NATO's Article 5

World leaders have been reacting to the Friday signing of a major defense agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan in the Saudi city of Makkah among their heads of state. It seeks to strengthen joint deterrence and expanding defense cooperation, the Saudi Press Agency said.

As we reported, it essentially a NATO-style agreement for the 'Muslim world' - given that it stipulates and formalizes that an armed attack on any of the countries will be treated as an attack against all of them.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has on Saturday affirmed this in very clear terms - in case there were any doubts among pundits - describing that is indeed technically the same as NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense agreement.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, via Reuters

He told state Anadolu news agency that a committee of ministers similar to that within NATO would be formed to undergird the new alliance, with the establishment of general secretariat based in Saudi Arabia. This will be the tripartite pact's version of Brussels, it seems.

What's more is that "Egypt could potentially join the pact once certain technical matters are resolved," Fidan added.

Some are already seeing in this a kind of 'counter-Abraham accords' but which goes much further, given the military implications.

Will Washington ultimately back it and give its blessing? 

Al Jazeera has provided the following commentary saying that the US will be okay with it so long as it does not become 'anti-Israeli' in its intent:

David Des Roches, an associate professor at the National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, has described the defence pact signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan as a good move that will be welcomed by the US.

“So long as it doesn’t metastasize into some sort of malign anti-Israel thing, which I think is a very remote possibility, I think it’s positive,” he told Al Jazeera.

The alliance would benefit from Turkiye and Pakistan’s robust defence industries, “a more advanced one in the case of Turkey, less advanced, more machine-age in the case of Pakistan”, he said.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, could help finance its two allies. “In both countries, the capacity exceeds their ability to pay for it, and they can’t really maintain national defence industries without a market,” said Des Roches.

The analyst added: "So there’s money, there’s markets, and there’s the possibility for advanced training and education. From an American perspective, if our partners have increased capacity, that's burden sharing. And that’s been the aim of successive American administrations since, really, the end of World War II."

But in the context of the US war on Iran, Iranian forces have attacked Saudi Arabia multiple times. If this happens again, would Pakistan and Turkey really directly intervene against Iran in an Article 5 fashion? 

This scenario is highly doubtful, and Turkey and Iran even share a border which has long been fraught with tensions of its own, especially related to the Kurdish issue.

The USA claims to have made the agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey, and considers it as it's own achievement. https://t.co/1Ga9txAwGe

— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) August 8, 2026

One thing is certain: this is definitely a Saudi move away from the Abraham Accords which Trump has long pushed for and not toward it. Turkey and Pakistan want to see a clearer divide between Israel and the Saudis and so are only too happy to present it that way.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 09:55
Tyler Durden

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