Shares of China’s largest memory chip maker have soared nearly 470% as they made their debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s high-tech Star Market.

The rise has lifted the stock valuation of ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) to around 3.3 trillion yuan ($487bn; £365bn), making it mainland China’s most valuable listed company.

The spectacular debut comes despite a sharp sell-off in technology stocks around the world this month.

CXMT makes dynamic random access memory (Dram) chips that power AI data centers, mobile phones, PCs, tablets and other devices.

The company, founded in 2016 by Chairman Zhu Yiming, is headquartered in Hefei, Anhui Province, east China.

The company has said it plans to use most of the proceeds from the initial public offering (IPO) to boost memory chip production and conduct more research and development.

the stellar Its IPO performance will offer some comfort to Chinese financial officials, who have been implementing measures to help stem a stock market crash that wiped out more than $1.5 trillion in recent weeks.

Analysts said the jump was also due to demand for shares far outstripping supply.

“The reason for the extraordinary bounce this morning is that only 7% of shares are available to trade,” Anna Macdonald, director of investment strategy at Hargreaves Lansdown, told the BBC’s Today programme.

It also highlights Chinese investors’ strong appetite for a local chipmaker, as the Beijing government presses ahead with plans to make its tech industry self-sufficient.

South Korean tech giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix and US-based Micron dominate the Dram market, with the three companies accounting for around 90% of global production.

Earlier this month, SK Hynix raised $26.5bn (£19.8bn) in its share offering in New York, marking the largest ever listing by a foreign company in the US.

The company, a key supplier to artificial intelligence chip giant Nvidia, said it had sold 177.9 million American depositary shares for $149 each.

The shares rose as much as 17% Friday on their first day of trading on the Nasdaq, but have since given up some of that gain.

SK Hynix saw its market value surpass $1 trillion in its home country in May, driven by booming demand for AI chips.

Prices for memory, once an affordable component used to build devices, have more than doubled in recent months and continue to rise.

Some big tech companies have raised the price of popular devices, such as tablets and video game consoles, to address rising component costs.

Ellie Wong, an analyst at technology research firm TrendForce, told Reuters, external Such price increases were expected to continue until the end of 2027.

“Amid persistent supply shortages, many customers are looking to diversify their memory supplier base, which should significantly benefit CXMT and create more business opportunities,” he said.