My wild speculation: this may have something to with the incoming resumption of gallium export bans to the US, which were suspended in Nov. 2025 and set to resume in five months on 26 Nov. 2026 ().Used for fiber optic transceiver I saw?
Indium is used in a lot of electronics though it'd argue one of its most important uses is being paired with gallium to create IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide). A key material in transparent display tech like OLED and capacitive touch displays.
More recently IGZO is a key ingredient in 3D DRAM, which allows for capacitor-less designs and Multilevel Cells (MLC).
- - Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2024
- - Trendforce, 2026
Given CXMT and YMTC are expected to start ramping up production soon, and the rollout of 东数西算 (East Data, West Compute), it wouldn't surprise me if this was part of a medium-term roadmap to ensure China had sufficient access to leading edge DRAM.