Overview
- Micron briefly crossed the $1 trillion mark after UBS on Tuesday more than tripled its price target, citing sold‑out HBM capacity through 2026 and triggering an outsized single‑day share gain.
- SK hynix topped $1 trillion on Wednesday as its stock jumped on record first‑quarter profits, strong HBM sales and index flows that pushed South Korea’s KOSPI to fresh highs.
- High‑bandwidth memory (HBM) is the immediate bottleneck for large AI models and only Micron, SK hynix and Samsung can make advanced HBM at scale, which has left supply largely allocated and pushed contract prices sharply higher.
- Producers are responding with product and capacity moves, including SK hynix’s iHBM thermal‑management technology, multi‑year supply deals with cloud providers and accelerated capex plans to expand HBM output.
- The surge has lifted corporate profits and worker payouts but also concentrated market risk, since the memory industry is historically cyclical and prices will depend on rivals’ yield gains, capacity ramps and upcoming earnings reviews.