The company's shares soared by 470% in its market debut, as the AI boom drives chip demand.

Shares in China's biggest memory chip maker have surged by more than 470% as they made their debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's tech-heavy Star Market. The surge has pushed ChangXin Memory Technologies' (CXMT) stock market valuation to around 3.3 trillion yuan ($487.3bn; £364.9bn), making it the most valuable listed company in mainland China. The spectacular debut comes despite a sharp selloff in technology stocks around the world this month. CXMT manufactures dynamic random-access memory (Dram) chips that power artificial intelligence (AI) data centres, mobile phones, PCs, tablets and other devices. The firm, which was founded in 2016 by Chairman Zhu Yiming, is headquartered in Hefei, Anhui Province in eastern China. The company has said it plans to use most of the proceeds from the initial public offering (IPO) to boost production of memory chips and carry out more research and developments. The stellar performance of its IPO will offer some comfort to Chinese financial officials, who have been rolling out measures to help curb a stock market slump that wiped out more than $1.5tn in recent weeks. Analysts said the jump was also being driven by demand for the shares far outstripping supply.