Xiaomi’s CEO, Lei Jun, revealed that the development of the XRING 01 chipset was a decade-long effort, marking a major milestone for the company’s in-house technology. Announced officially earlier this week, the XRING 01 is set to launch later this month, though detailed specifications remain under wraps.
Lei Jun highlighted that Xiaomi invested over $14.5 billion (105 billion yuan) in R&D over the past five years, a significant portion of which contributed to this chipset’s creation. In 2025 alone, Xiaomi has poured more than $4.1 billion (30 billion yuan) into research and development.
To develop the XRING 01, Xiaomi assembled a team of around 1,000 employees led by a former Qualcomm senior director who reports directly to Lei Jun. This move reflects Xiaomi’s goal to reduce dependence on competitors like Qualcomm and MediaTek by building its own core technologies.
The CEO noted that the journey wasn’t easy, citing 2019 as a particularly challenging year, but Xiaomi’s resilience helped it reach this point in its 15-year history.
Rumors suggest that the XRING 01 is fabricated using TSMC’s older 4nm process and utilizes ARM’s older CPU designs rather than fully in-house cores.
This custom chipset will give Xiaomi greater control over hardware and software integration, aiming to differentiate the company from others in the industry by focusing on core technology innovation.
