Xiaomi's 3nm Xring O1 in-house chip backed by $7 billion investment and 2,500 developers

Xiaomi turns 15 and in some days – on May 22, to be precise – the company will unveil several things, including the new Xiaomi 15S Pro smartphone, which should be an updated version of the Xiaomi 15 Pro.

Among these is the upcoming in-house Xiaomi Xring 01 chipset for mobile devices that we told you about just recently.

As a new report points out, Xiaomi is about to invest at least 50 billion yuan (approximately $6.9 billion when directly converted) over the next ten years to advance its in-house mobile chip development. As you may have noticed, the strategic importance of semiconductor technology just grows and grows among the Big Tech names in the industry.

According to co-founder Lei Jun, the company's long-term goal is to enhance its capabilities in core technologies, positioning itself as a serious player in the semiconductor space. In a post shared on China's Weibo platform, Lei announced that Xiaomi will officially unveil its first self-developed processor, the Xring O1 (it could be dubbed as "Xring 01", but we'll see about that), on May 22.



Xiaomi's chip initiative was launched in 2021 and has since accumulated over 13.5 billion yuan in spending. The company plans to allocate an additional 6 billion yuan toward R&D in 2024. Its in-house semiconductor team now consists of more than 2,500 specialists.

The Xring 01 is built using second-generation 3-nanometer process technology, though Xiaomi has not disclosed the manufacturer responsible for fabrication. The use of 3nm nodes effectively rules out China's largest chipmaker, SMIC, which remains limited to 7nm production due to ongoing US export restrictions. The lower the nm number, the more advanced, powerful and efficient the chip, generally speaking.

Up until now, Xiaomi has relied on processors from Qualcomm and MediaTek for its smartphones. But with the Xring 01, it appears to be following a strategy similar to Apple's – integrating chip design with its software to optimize performance across devices. That sounds like a logical step to me, but it all depends on how good the new Xring chip will be.

The move could give Xiaomi a domestic advantage over rival Huawei, which has been constrained by its own supply chain challenges and is unable to access chips more advanced than 7nm.

Lei's commitment to chip development reflects a broader push within China to reduce reliance on foreign technology, a key priority under President Xi Jinping's tech self-sufficiency agenda: and, as we all saw, international trade is not that reliable anymore.