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Micron is preparing to exit China’s data center memory market completely, report claims — Beijing banned company's chips from 'critical information infrastructure' in 2023
Micron is reportedly preparing to halt sales of server memory chips to data centers in mainland China, after its business there failed to recover from a 2023 cybersecurity ban. The move, reported by Reuters citing unnamed internal sources, has not been confirmed by Micron, but would mark a significant retrenchment from the world’s fastest-growing data center market.
According to the report, citing people familiar with the matter, Micron intends to cease shipments of its DRAM and other server-grade memory products to Chinese data centers, while continuing to supply the country’s automotive and smartphone sectors. The company would also continue to serve certain Chinese clients that operate data centers abroad, including Lenovo, the sources said. Micron declined to comment on the rumors but did acknowledge that the 2023 ban had impacted the division and that it “abides by applicable regulations where it does business.”
If true, the decision would highlight how little ground Micron has regained since Beijing’s 2023 ban on its products in “critical information infrastructure” — a policy the Cyberspace Administration of China justified on national security grounds. The ban effectively locked Micron out of many state-backed data center projects, forcing domestic and Korean suppliers to fill the void. At the time, the ruling was widely seen as a countermeasure against US export restrictions on advanced chips.
If the reports are true, Micron’s withdrawal from China’s data-center segment may allow Samsung and SK Hynix to further solidify their position in the Chinese server DRAM market, but recent US restrictions could make that difficult. Local players such as YMTC and CXMT have also expanded production under Beijing’s push for semiconductor self-sufficiency, though their technologies still lag in performance and yield. China’s data center investment linked to artificial intelligence surged to roughly 24.7 billion yuan ($3.4 billion) last year, according to Reuters.
Mainland China accounted for around 12% of Micron’s revenue last fiscal year, and most of its recent growth has come from AI infrastructure demand elsewhere. Micron has recently broken revenue records due largely in part due to a rebound in memory pricing and booming demand for HBM used in AI accelerators.
US export controls have already restricted Nvidia, Intel, and AMD from selling their most advanced processors into China, prompting each to develop scaled-back local variants. Micron’s apparent withdrawal would remove one more Western supplier from China’s high-end compute ecosystem, leaving the field increasingly dominated by South Korean and domestic vendors.
Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist. Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.
