TL;DR
Tsinghua Unigroup collapsed from over-expansion, but its subsidiary YMTC has surged on rising memory prices and could top a trillion yuan in market value—a classic case of 'Tsinghua stumbles, Wuhan feasts.'
YMTC, China's largest NAND memory maker, has filed for an IPO on the STAR Market. In the first quarter alone, it posted revenue of 47 billion yuan and net profit of 33.4 billion yuan—more than double its full-year 2025 profit. By revenue, it ranks sixth globally in NAND.
Few would guess that this company once belonged to Tsinghua Unigroup. The author interned there in the summers of 1998 and 1999, when Unigroup was a star among China's university-affiliated enterprises.
1. Expansion too fast, a self-inflicted downfall
Unigroup expanded too aggressively and went bankrupt in 2022. Tsinghua Holdings exited, YMTC was spun off, and Hubei Science & Technology Investment took over the shares.
The same year, Zhao Weiguo, the chairman who had built YMTC, was taken away. In 2025 he was sentenced to death, likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
2. Wuhan emerges as the big winner
YMTC's current shareholders include Hubei SASAC, Wuhan SASAC, the East Lake High-tech Zone management committee, and the Big Fund phases I and II. After listing, its market value could exceed one trillion yuan.
Had Unigroup not gone bankrupt, YMTC alone could have placed it near the top of A-share market value rankings. But there is no 'what if.'
The author's take: Tsinghua stumbled, and Wuhan feasted. A company's aggressive expansion ended up being another city's windfall.
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