Why Micron Rocketed to All-Time Highs Today

Core Insights - Micron Technology's shares surged nearly 9% to reach all-time highs, driven by increased demand for memory and storage due to AI projects [1] Company Developments - Micron is one of the few companies capable of producing DRAM and NAND flash memory at scale, with a significant demand boost from AI data centers, particularly OpenAI's Stargate project [2] - OpenAI has signed a major agreement with Samsung and SK Hynix to supply memory for the Stargate project, which could cost up to $500 billion [3] - The agreement involves supplying undiced wafers, potentially lowering costs for OpenAI, with peak demand estimated at 900,000 DRAM wafers per month, representing about 40% of the current DRAM market [4] Industry Trends - The memory industry has historically been cyclical, but the rise of AI has led to a surge in demand for high-bandwidth memory, requiring significantly more wafer capacity compared to traditional DRAM [7] - The demand from OpenAI's Stargate project is expected to benefit the three-company oligopoly in the memory market, which includes Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix [8]