Micron Technology briefly topped $1 trillion in market value for the first time on Tuesday, crowning a dizzying rally that has cemented the U.S.'s largest memory chipmaker as one of the standout winners of the AI boom.
Micron's shares were last up 17.4% at $881.6 after rising as much as 19.3% earlier in the session, with Tuesday's boost coming after brokerage UBS increased its price target on the stock to $1,625 from $535 - the highest among the 46 brokerages covering the company, according to LSEG data.
The milestone, which underscores memory chips' central role in AI infrastructure, also reflects a broader shift in the AI trade as investors seek out companies that can benefit from Big Tech's massive spending plans after initially crowding into makers of graphics processors.
"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." While Nvidia makes the powerful processors used to train and run AI models, Micron mainly produces memory chips used to store and move data.
The company's ascent gives the U.S.
a strong contender in a memory-chip race that has largely been led by Asia so far.
)
