Changxin Xinqiao

History

2023: Raising $1.99 billion in investment from the Chinese State Fund

On October 31, 2023, it became known about investments in the chip company Changxin Xinqiao. The investor was a fund with state participation of the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund (in China it is called the "Big Fund"), the investment amounted to 14.56 billion yuan ($1.99 billion).

Changxin Xinqiao was founded in 2021 in the city of Hefei. After the transaction, the share of China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund in the capital of the company amounted to 33.15%.

It became known about investments in Changxin Xinqiao

The company has applied to build a 12-inch plate chip factory. There are no specifics on the project in the public domain, but in June 2023, one of the project contractors said that this is the first plant for the mass production of chips with a type of DRAM memory (Dynamic Random Access Memory).

Changxin Xinqiao's capital increase by the Grand Fund is part of a larger capital expansion that began with investments from Changxin Xinan Hefei Xinyi funds, which invested 10.4 billion yuan and 14 billion yuan, respectively. These funds are also indirectly related to the state, in particular to the leadership of Anhui Province, where Changxin Xinqiao is located.

The Grand Fund was founded in 2014 as a way to accelerate the development of the semiconductor industry in China. Chinese chipmakers are believed to be lagging behind the United States, Taiwan and South Korea. The organization has already raised 138 billion yuan in the first round of investments and 204 billion yuan in the second. In the next round of investments, the fund plans to raise about $40 billion. It is believed to be a response to the US Commerce Department's new bans on chip sales to China.

In addition to investing in Changxin Xinqiao, the Grand Fund also invested 13 billion yuan in Yangtze Memory Technologies, which is China's only company in the global NAND flash memory market. The company fell under US sanctions in 2022, as there were fears that YMTC would give American technology to Huawei.^[1]

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