China’s leading memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) has sued the US Defence Department over its designation as a “Chinese military company”, arguing that the decision was arbitrary and violated its due-process rights.
In a lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, CXMT said it had no affiliation with the Chinese military and that its DRAM chips were designed, produced and sold for civilian and commercial use.
The Pentagon first designated CXMT under the Biden administration in January 2025, and the Trump administration retained the company on the list in a June update. The designation can trigger restrictions on US government contracts and has, according to CXMT, caused reputational and commercial harm.
CXMT is seeking to overturn the designation and have its name removed from the list. The company said it had spent more than a year providing information to the Pentagon in an effort to challenge the decision.
The chipmaker also alleged that the Defence Department published a notice in February stating that CXMT would be removed from the list, but withdrew it on the same day. It said the department subsequently failed to adequately explain its decision to retain the designation.
Reuters reported that the lawsuit names Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Deputy Defence Secretary Steve Feinberg and Assistant Secretary of Defence for Industrial Base Policy Michael Cadenazzi, along with the Department of Defence, as defendants.
The Pentagon declined to comment, citing its policy of not commenting on pending or ongoing litigation.
CXMT is China’s largest producer of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips, which are widely used in smartphones, personal computers, servers and other electronic devices.
The case follows legal challenges by other Chinese companies facing similar designations. Alibaba sued the US government in June over its inclusion on the list, while Xiaomi secured its removal in 2021 after filing a lawsuit.
