At the turn of the century, investors might have considered the idea of a company reaching a $1 trillion market capitalization quite far-fetched.
Today, there are more than a dozen companies making this claim, including the artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant. NVIDIA It now trades with a market capitalization of more than $5 trillion. Unless valuations pull back sharply as AI hits a major roadblock, more companies are poised to surpass trillion-dollar market caps.
Did Nvidia miss out in 2009? This rare signal flashes again.In 2009, a “double down” signal appeared for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same “Total Conviction” signal is flashing for a company that is 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue “
In fact, one just did. Meet This Pick-and-Shovel AI Stock That Just Joined Metaplatforms, teslaand Broadcom in the billion dollar club.
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Understanding Micron’s role in AI
What an incredible career the computer memory company Micron technology(NASDAQ:MU) has been on. The stock is up more than 227% this year and more than 867% last year (as of May 28).
The big reason Micron and some other related stocks have risen is because of the tremendous demand for memory, which has become a big part of the AI story. Chipmakers like Nvidia need memory to sit directly in their graphics processing units (GPUs), which are key to training large language models. Memory is needed to feed the GPUs with data.
As Nvidia and other chipmakers have built more advanced GPUs and scaled GPU clusters, they need more memory to process data faster. There are different types of memory, but Micron makes a type called dynamic random access memory (DRAM), which was commonly used in older technologies such as computers and cell phones.
However, more recently, Micron has been developing a more complex memory product called high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which essentially stacks multiple DRAM chips. This is better for GPUs because it reduces the distance data must travel to reach them.
In March, Micron announced that it had designed a new HBM model called HBM4 with 36 gigabytes of 12-Gi memory, made specifically for Nvidia’s Vera Rubin GPU platform.
According to market research company Counterpoint, Micron held 23% of the global DRAM market share by revenue at the end of 2025, behind only Samsung (36%) and SK Hynix (32%). In the global HBM market, Micron had a 21% market share at the end of last year, still behind SK Hynix (57%) and Samsung (22%).
However, Micron’s share had more than doubled from just 9% at the end of 2024.
Demand is through the roof right now
On Micron’s second-quarter earnings call for its fiscal 2026 year in March, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra told Wall Street analysts in prepared remarks that data center demand for DRAM and NAND flash memory, which Micron also manufactures, is expected to reach 50% of the industry’s total addressable market for the first time this year.
Additionally, Mehrotra said demand for both DRAM and NAND this year is expected to be limited by supply. This year’s DRAM shipments are expected to grow in the 20th percentile, slightly above Micron’s previous outlook.
USB Analyst Timothy Arcuri recently surprised the market by more than tripling his price target on Micron from $535 per share to $1,625, the highest on Wall Street. The stock is currently trading around $900.
In a research note, Acuri said he and his team expect DRAM supply to remain limited until at least mid-2028, and NAND supply to remain limited until late 2027.
“We believe the market will begin to put a more ‘normal’ multiple on the stock and (Micron) will continue to appreciate further as more details emerge about the structural changes that AI has driven across the memory complex,” Arcuri said.
How Investors Should Play Stocks
Micron currently trades at about 42.5 times trailing earnings, above its 10-year average of about 22 times.
However, AI wasn’t around a decade ago like it is now, and Micron and other memory vendors had probably never experienced this kind of demand. It’s a new day for this subsector, so the stock should be trading at a multiple above its 10-year average.
That said, Micron trades at nearly double its normal multiple and is tied to AI trading, making it vulnerable if AI-related capital expenditures slow.
That’s why I wouldn’t necessarily make Micron a major position. I think investors can own it, but it’s probably a good idea right now to start with a smaller position and slowly build it through dollar-cost averaging.
Should You Buy Micron Technology Stock Right Now?
Before you buy Micron Technology stock, consider this:
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Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool positions and recommends Broadcom, Meta Platforms, Micron Technology, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Meet this pick-and-shovel AI stock that just joined Meta, Tesla and Broadcom as the newest member of the trillion-dollar club originally published by The Motley Fool
