The Survivor
Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp., a Wuhan-based memory chip maker, was placed on a U.S. trade blacklist at the end of 2022, and the Biden administration's export controls on semiconductors cut off its access to critical chipmaking tools from America. The company had been a rising challenger to Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. Sanctions and export controls failed to contain its rise, and it is now riding the AI boom to a record IPO.
Why it matters: It shows how export controls and the Entity List have constrained, but not halted, the expansion of China's semiconductor national champions.