[News] Xiaomi Reportedly Forms 1,000-Strong Team for In-house Chip amid U.S. Scrutiny, with May Launch Ahead

While China’s tech behemoth Huawei is known for making strides for its Ascend AI chips to take on NVIDIA, another Chinese firm, Xiaomi, is rumored to have recruited Qin Muyun, a former Qualcomm senior director, and formed a 1000-employee team to develop its in-house “Xring” chipset, according to Wccftech.

Citing tipster Jukanlosreve, the report suggests that Xiaomi’s in-house chip “Xring” was first spotted as a working prototype in March, with a possible official launch in May. Notably, the team is operating independently to avoid U.S. scrutiny, especially after rumors emerged of a successful 3nm tape-out in 2024, raising fears of potential sanctions, the report adds.

Meanwhile, speculation around Xiaomi’s chip development team was addressed in an April report by EETime China. Citing the company’s response, the report noted that the division has long existed and is responsible for evaluating and customizing chip platforms for Xiaomi’s smartphones. It also confirmed that team lead Qin Muyun has been with the company since at least 2021.

Xiaomi’s In-house Chip Ambition

As many of China’s smartphone brands, such as Oppo and vivo, adopt processors from Qualcomm and MediaTek for their latest flagship products, Xiaomi seems to choose a different route. Bloomberg revealed in late 2024 that Xiaomi has been developing a self-designed mobile processor for future smartphones, which is expected to enter mass production in 2025.

As TechNews points out, it’s been years since Xiaomi launched its last in-house chip, the Surge S1, which was built on TSMC’s 28nm process back in 2017. Now, rumors suggest the upcoming Xring will use TSMC’s 4nm node and offer performance similar to the 2022 Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, though it’s expected to rely on standard Arm cores instead of Xiaomi’s custom designs, as per TechNews.

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(Photo credit: Xiaomi)