The market capitalization of Micron Technology surpassed $1 trillion for the first time on Tuesday, marking a significant milestone that solidified the largest memory chipmaker in the United States as one of the notable beneficiaries of the AI boom.
According to LSEG data, brokerage UBS raised its price objective on the stock to $1,625 from $535 on Tuesday, making it the highest of the 46 brokerages tracking the business. Micron’s shares were recently up 18% at $886.6, a record high.
The milestone, which highlights memory chips’ crucial position in AI infrastructure, also represents a larger change in the AI industry as investors look for businesses that can profit from Big Tech’s enormous spending plans, after first crowding into graphics processor manufacturers.
The biggest memory chip manufacturer in the world, Samsung Electronics, is based in South Korea and has already reached the $1 trillion milestone. SK Hynix is also getting close.
Micron primarily manufactures memory chips, which are used to store and transfer data, while Nvidia produces the potent processors needed to train and execute AI models.
The company’s growth makes the United States a formidable competitor in the memory-chip race, which has so far been dominated by Asia.
Long regarded as one of the most cyclical brands in the semiconductor business, Micron’s shares have increased more than eightfold in the past 12 months due to excellent earnings and supply chain bottlenecks that have given it pricing leverage.
Customers are committing to longer-term data center expenditures as tech companies race toward artificial general intelligence. This has led to a rapid spike in demand for sophisticated memory and storage, creating a shortage and driving up prices.
According to Micron, all of its 2026 high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chip inventory has already been sold out, indicating how much demand is exceeding supply. Its upcoming HBM4 products are now in production.
Regulatory filings show that the company was one of the largest institutional favorites in the first quarter of the year.
Rockefeller Capital Management and Schroders were among the approximately 2,440 institutions that revealed fresh interests in the company.
The admission into the elite club represents a dramatic recovery from the post-pandemic period, when memory chipmakers struggled with a glut of supplies as demand for smartphones and personal computers declined as a result of decades-high inflation.
Micron is currently trading at 8.42 times projected earnings for the next 12 months, while the benchmark S&P 500 index is at 22.15 and the Nasdaq 100 is at 26.23.
