Chinese semiconductor companies posted record revenue last year, helped by a surge in AI demand, a shortage of memory chip supply and U.S. export curbs, CNBC reported on Thursday. Growth is also expected this year.

SMIC, China’s biggest semiconductor foundry, posted record 2025 revenue of $9.3 billion, up 16 percent from a year earlier.

LSEG analyst estimates show 2026 revenue could exceed $11 billion.

Hua Hong posted record fourth-quarter revenue of $659.9 million. It forecast next-quarter revenue of $650 million to $660 million.

Moore Threads, which aims to compete with Nvidia, is expected to post 2025 revenue of 1.45 billion to 1.52 billion yuan, up 231 percent to 247 percent from a year earlier, or about $209.8 million.

Paul Triolo (폴 트리올로), a partner at Albright Stonebridge Group, said demand has risen in areas such as electric vehicles and AI data centres amid U.S. export curbs, accelerating a push for self-reliance in semiconductor technology.

Chinese companies are also growing in memory. Major Chinese memory company CXMT posted 2025 revenue that rose 130 percent from a year earlier and exceeded 55 billion yuan, or $8 billion, Bloomberg News reported.

Phelix Lee (펠릭스 리), a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said that blocking high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, exports to China has made CXMT the only domestic alternative. He said even HBM2 and HBM2e, despite lagging in performance, are receiving a strong response in the Chinese market.

HBM2 and HBM2e are technologies that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix began producing around 2016. CXMT is expected to start producing HBM3 this year. Despite record revenue, Chinese semiconductor companies still lag U.S., South Korean, European and Taiwanese companies in technical capability. SMIC and Hua Hong have been unable to secure ASML’s most advanced equipment because of export curbs and have not reached the stage of mass producing the world’s most advanced chips, CNBC said.