Tsinghua Unigroup went bankrupt due to reckless expansion, but its incubated company YMTC is now highly profitable and about to list, potentially reaching a trillion-yuan valuation.

Recently, YMTC, China's largest NAND memory maker, filed for listing on the STAR Market. In Q1 this year, revenue hit 47 billion yuan, net profit 33.4 billion, more than double the full-year 2025 profit. It ranks sixth globally by NAND revenue.

In 2016, Tsinghua Unigroup and the government jointly founded YMTC. Unigroup was once a top university-affiliated enterprise; the author interned there in 1998-99 developing banking software. But it expanded too fast and went bankrupt in 2022. Tsinghua Holdings exited, YMTC was spun off, Hubei Sci-Tech Investment took over. That year, chairman Zhao Weiguo was taken away; in 2025 he received a death sentence.

Now YMTC's main shareholders are Hubei SASAC, Wuhan SASAC, Donghu High-Tech Zone, and Big Fund I & II. After listing, its valuation could exceed one trillion yuan. Had Tsinghua Unigroup survived, just YMTC alone might rank among A-share top values. Tsinghua fell, Wuhan feasted?