Wall Street is going wild, shouting “Micron is the next Nvidia”! The AI memory shortage pushed Micron’s market value to briefly surpass Meta and Tesla.

U.S. memory giant Micron saw its market value once surpass Meta and Tesla during the AI-driven memory super cycle, leading Wall Street analysts to compare it to "the next Nvidia." However, investors are focusing on: how long will this AI memory shortage last? Can Micron break free from the memory industry's historical pattern of "boom and bust"?

(Previous context: Micron Q3 earnings preview: Gross margin of 81% far exceeds Nvidia! AI memory super cycle set to trigger 14% stock price volatility?)
(Background: AI consumes all memory capacity! Apple unable to withstand price hikes for MacBook and iPad, stock plunges over 5%)

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• HBM Supply Shortage: AI Consumes All the World's Memory
• Wall Street's Bet: Is This Time Really Different?
• Taiwan Supply Chain at the Forefront

U.S. memory chip giant Micron has reached a historic moment amid the AI frenzy, with its market value momentarily surpassing Meta and Tesla during intraday trading last Thursday, making it the hottest AI infrastructure stock on Wall Street. Although it fell back to roughly the same level as the two giants by Friday, the label "the next Nvidia" has been firmly attached to this memory company headquartered in Boise, Idaho.

The core driver behind Micron's surging stock price is just one thing: High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), a technology that is the lifeline of Nvidia GPUs. Without HBM, the computing power for AI training and inference cannot be realized.

HBM Supply Shortage: AI Consumes All the World's Memory

Currently, each Nvidia H200/B200 GPU requires 6-8 HBM stacks, and a single AI server consumes hundreds of gigabytes of high-bandwidth memory. As major cloud providers (AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure) and AI startups simultaneously expand computing power, global HBM production capacity is severely undersupplied.

Market research firm IDC points out that this memory shortage may extend until 2027, impacting not only AI servers but also spilling over into consumer electronics. Apple was recently forced to raise the prices of MacBook and iPad due to skyrocketing memory costs. Micron's CEO stated in the latest earnings call, "We are fundamentally transforming our business model," shifting from a commodity supplier constrained by cyclical fluctuations to a strategic partner locking in revenue through long-term supply contracts.

Wall Street's Bet: Is This Time Really Different?

Citigroup analyst Christopher Danely raised Micron's price target to $200, citing "unprecedented memory super cycle driven by AI demand." Evercore ISI analyst Mark Lipacis noted that Micron's strategic partnership agreement with Anthropic is a key turning point, as AI model developers directly bind long-term supply with memory manufacturers—a vertical integration model unprecedented in semiconductor industry history.

However, the historical lessons of the memory industry cannot be ignored: Over the past 30 years, the DRAM market has experienced at least five major boom-and-bust cycles, each time the "this time is different" narrative was eventually shattered by overcapacity. Samsung and SK Hynix are also expanding HBM production, and once supply catches up with market demand, price wars could quickly erode profits.

Taiwan Supply Chain at the Forefront

Micron has a massive investment presence in Taiwan, with its A3 plant in Houli, Taichung, and its Guishan plant in Taoyuan serving as key sites for advanced DRAM and HBM packaging. Last year, Micron significantly procured Taiwanese equipment and materials, driving benefits for the memory packaging and testing, substrate, and test interface supply chains.

SK Hynix has recently been reported to be planning a U.S. IPO to raise $29.4 billion for expanding HBM production, indicating that the AI memory race has extended from Asia to global capital markets. For Taiwanese investors, Micron's stock price trajectory is not only a barometer of AI demand but also directly impacts the order visibility of the Taiwan supply chain.