".....which puts the company in competition with Qualcomm and MediaTek and, in a sense, follows in Apple's footsteps "
The last part ,lacking additional information, not Apple only is in the game of making their own chipset you know. Currently it's two OEMs thus Apple and Samsung.
In a few weeks, Xiaomi is expected to unveil not only the Xiaomi 17 Max and the Smart Band 10 Pro, but also set a new course for upcoming foldables and ARM chips. Concrete leaks from HyperOS now point to major improvements and new features for the ARM SoC potentially called the Xring O3, which is likely to be used in the Mix Fold 5, also known as the Xiaomi 17 Fold.