Xiaomi announced that over the next 10 years she plans to invest at least 50 billion yuan (about $6.9 billion) in the improvement of her own mobile processors. Information was confirmed by Lei Jun's co-founder in a post on the Weibo platform for which reference Bloomberg.
The company announced the launch of its first first deal — Xring O1 — on 22 May 2025. Work on the chip began in 2021, and now more than 2500 specialists are involved. The combined effort so far has exceeded 13.5 million yuan. In 2025, the company plans to allocate another 6 billion yuan for investigation and development.
3 nm technology and technological independency ambitions
Lei Jun reported that the Xring O1 chip was based on the second generation of 3-nanometer technology. The company does not disclose which foundry is liable for its production, but the usage of this technology excludes the share of Chinese SMIC, which is inactive operating at 7 nm due to US export restrictions.
To date, Xiaomi has mainly utilized chips produced by Qualcomma and MediaTek. The fresh strategy is to separate the company from external suppliers, imitating the Apple model, which designs its own systems closely integrated with software.
Strategic importance for China
Xiaomi is part of the Chinese authorities' efforts to accomplish technological self-sufficiency in the advanced semiconductor sector. president Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed that the improvement of national competences in this area is crucial to the economical competitiveness of the state.
