Micron Technology shares shot up 12% this week after the company proved that the AI boom is still going strong. The chipmaker, which builds memory for everything from laptops to massive AI servers, didn’t just meet expectations—it crushed them.
During a call with investors, management explained that data centers are hungry for more storage and speed. The company now expects the high-bandwidth memory market to reach $100 billion by 2028. Because demand is so high, Micron plans to spend $20 billion on new equipment and factories to keep up, which is a big jump from its previous plan of $18 billion.
The company’s business chief, Sumit Sadana, put it this way: they are “more than sold out.” He told analysts that they have more orders than they can actually fill right now. This shortage isn’t going away anytime soon, and the company expects demand to outpace supply for the foreseeable future.
The financial numbers tell the real story. Micron reported $13.64 billion in revenue for the first quarter, easily beating the $12.84 billion analysts predicted. Their profit per share also came in well above Wall Street’s expectations. Looking ahead, the company expects to pull in nearly $19 billion next quarter, which is billions more than experts originally thought.
Analysts are calling this a historic moment for the American semiconductor industry. Experts at Morgan Stanley noted that, besides Nvidia, they haven’t seen a chip company beat expectations by this much in a very long time. They believe memory chips will be the biggest winners of the AI trend over the next year.
Other banks are also jumping on board. JPMorgan raised its price target for the stock, and Bank of America upgraded the shares to a “buy.” Investors are finally realizing that while companies like Nvidia make the brains for AI, Micron provides the essential memory those brains need to function.
