In the latest sign of the booming artificial intelligence arms race, American semiconductor maker Micron Technology surpassed $1 trillion in market value last Tuesday, joining Samsung as one of the few memory chip companies to reach the milestone.
The rally cemented Micron, the largest U.S. memory chipmaker, as one of the standout winners of the AI boom.
Micron shares surged after brokerage firm UBS raised its price target on the stock from $535 to $1,625, the highest among the 46 brokerages covering the company. Shares climbed as much as 19.3% earlier in the session, according to LSEG data.
The milestone underscores the increasingly important role memory chips play in AI infrastructure. It also reflects a broader shift among investors, who are looking beyond graphics processor makers for companies positioned to benefit from Big Tech’s massive spending on data centers and artificial intelligence.
“The need for pure memory has increased rapidly over very short periods of time, and clearly, Micron sits at the center of it,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth.
“Today’s crossing of the $1 trillion mark for Micron is just an exclamation point on the story of the massive amount of demand needed to run data centers in this AI revolution.”
Samsung Electronics of South Korea has already crossed the $1 trillion threshold, while SK Hynix is also approaching the mark.
Micron’s rise, however, gives the United States a major contender in a memory chip market that has historically been dominated by Asian manufacturers.
While Nvidia produces the powerful processors used to train and run AI models, Micron specializes in the memory chips required to store and rapidly move the enormous amounts of data those systems consume.
Samsung shares also surged last week after the company avoided a strike with its South Korean labor union, although a union representing electronics workers has asked a South Korean court to block a vote on the agreement.
Any significant production disruption at one of the world’s largest chipmakers could put additional pressure on semiconductor prices at a time when AI-related demand is already straining supply.
Micron, long regarded as one of the semiconductor industry’s most cyclical companies, has seen its shares rise roughly eightfold over the past 12 months.
Strong earnings, constrained supply and soaring demand for advanced memory have all strengthened the company’s pricing power.
Prices have also been pushed higher by growing demand for high-performance memory and by technology companies committing billions of dollars to long-term data center expansion as competition in artificial intelligence intensifies.
Micron has said its entire 2026 supply of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, is already sold out, highlighting just how far demand is outpacing available capacity. The company’s next-generation HBM4 products have also entered production.
Micron’s entry into the exclusive $1 trillion club marks a dramatic reversal from the post-pandemic period, when memory chipmakers struggled with excess supply and weakening demand for smartphones and personal computers.
Micron has emerged as one of the market’s biggest winners this year, yet its valuation remains relatively modest compared with broader equity indexes.
The stock trades at roughly 8.42 times expected earnings over the next 12 months, compared with about 22.15 times earnings for the S&P 500 and 26.23 times for the Nasdaq.
Another major beneficiary of the AI memory boom has been American semiconductor company Sandisk.
Sandisk shares have climbed roughly 4,000% over the past 12 months and about 570% this year alone. The NAND flash memory specialist has risen from an initial trading price near $36 to a closing price of approximately $1,761 per share on June 1.
The company began trading independently in February 2025 after being spun off from Western Digital.
Sandisk reported extraordinary fiscal third-quarter results for the period ending April 3, 2026, with revenue rising 97% from the previous quarter and 251% year-over-year to $5.95 billion.
Profitability grew even faster.
The company’s non-GAAP adjusted margin reached 78.4%, up from 51.1% in the previous quarter and just 22.5% one year earlier.
Adjusted earnings reached $23.41 per share, far above the company’s own previous projection of $12 to $14.
The acceleration reflects Sandisk’s decision to redirect more of its available supply toward higher-value AI infrastructure customers.
Management is formalizing that strategy through what it calls New Business Models, or NBMs—multi-year supply agreements backed by firm financial guarantees.
Sandisk ended the third quarter with three signed NBM agreements and has since added two more, bringing the total to five.
The three agreements signed during the quarter carried approximately $42 billion in remaining performance obligations, while the five agreements together included more than $11 billion in financial guarantees.
In practical terms, customers gain something close to guaranteed long-term supply, while Sandisk receives much greater visibility into future demand.
That model could help reduce some of the volatility that has historically defined the NAND flash memory business.
Memory markets have traditionally been highly cyclical, and long-term supply contracts have often unraveled during downturns. Sandisk is betting that its new contract structure will make this cycle different.
There are still risks.
The agreements include variable pricing components, meaning declines in spot market prices could eventually weigh on financial results. Competition from companies including Samsung and SK Hynix could also pressure margins and market share.
Sandisk is structurally a very different company than it was a year ago, with a greater concentration in data centers, stronger cash generation and substantially more long-term customer commitments.
But despite the transformation reflected in its soaring stock price, investors remain exposed to one familiar risk from the old Sandisk: the inherently cyclical nature of the memory chip business.
