Micron makes massive move as supercycle ramps

Core Viewpoint - Micron Technology is experiencing a significant surge in demand for memory products driven by artificial intelligence, leading to a 45% increase in its stock price over the past month, with expectations for continued growth as supply from new fabs will take time to ramp up [1] Group 1: Demand and Market Dynamics - Memory demand has increased sharply as hyperscalers like Amazon, Google Cloud, and Microsoft's Azure invest heavily in data centers to support AI workloads, with an estimated $394 billion to be spent by hyperscalers in 2025 and another $527 billion in 2026 [2] - Micron's CEO, Sanjay Mehrotra, indicated that the demand forecast for memory and storage is driven by customers' AI data center buildout plans, and the industry supply will remain significantly short of demand for the foreseeable future [4] Group 2: Supply Challenges - Micron is currently sold out of its high-bandwidth memory, which is specifically suited for AI applications, and has ceased its consumer memory business to focus resources on meeting AI demand [3] - The company is facing a supply bottleneck and plans to invest $20 billion this year, including initial payments for a new $100 billion memory fab in New York [5] Group 3: Industry Context - The U.S. share of semiconductor production capacity has decreased from 37% in 1990 to below 10% currently, with the CHIPS Act providing funding to support U.S. semiconductor fabs [7] - Micron, along with Samsung and SK Hynix, accounts for 90% of the global DRAM market, with Micron being the only major memory manufacturer based in the U.S., producing approximately 2% of global DRAM as of 2023 [8]