From a 2023 Ultimatum to $1.17 Trillion: How Micron’s HBM Bet Reshaped the Memory Pecking Order

Micron hits $1.17T market cap after unveiling HBM4 and winning Nvidia’s Vera-Rubin deal, with sold-out HBM capacity and record revenue growth.

Three years ago, Nvidia chief Jensen Huang told Micron management to step up its high-bandwidth memory development for AI chips. That single conversation has blossomed into a $1.17?trillion market?cap milestone. On Tuesday, Micron shares touched an intraday high of €914.20, delivering a near?966% gain since June?2025 and making the memory maker the newest member of the trillion?dollar club.

The catalyst for the latest leg higher came from COMPUTEX?2026 in Taipei, where Micron rolled out its most ambitious AI?memory portfolio yet. The flagship HBM4 module packs 36?GB of capacity and delivers 2.6 times the throughput of its predecessor when running large language models. For data?centre servers, the company also introduced a 256?GB DDR5 RDIMM with a transfer rate of 9,200?MT/s — 40% faster than current parts. On the storage front, a 245?TB SSD (the 6600?ION) slashes rack space by 82% and cuts power consumption in half, while the new 256?GB SOCAMM2 module requires only one?third the power and footprint of conventional RDIMMs.

Huang himself confirmed on 1?June at GTC Taipei that Nvidia’s Vera?Rubin AI platform is entering full production, with Micron officially named as the HBM4 supplier. First shipments to AWS, Google Cloud, Azure and Oracle are slated for the summer of 2026. That seal of approval validates a strategy Micron began accelerating after Huang’s 2023 push. Today SK?Hynix still commands 60?70% of the HBM market and Samsung another 25?30%, but Micron is the only US pure?play in this strategically vital segment — and its entire HBM capacity for the rest of the year is already sold out.

The numbers behind the rally are staggering. In the fiscal first quarter ended in November, Micron’s revenue jumped 56.6% year on year to $13.64?billion, with the cloud?memory unit generating a 66% operating margin. For the fiscal second quarter management has guided for $18.7?billion in sales at a gross margin of roughly 68%. Analysts now expect fiscal third?quarter earnings of $19.29 per share on revenue of $33.9?billion, numbers that will be released on 24?June. Industry data from TrendForce shows global DRAM revenue hit a record $97?billion in the first calendar quarter, and contract prices for standard DRAM are forecast to climb 58?63% in the second quarter. The broader HBM market is projected to reach $100?billion by 2028, and Micron is positioned to capture a growing share thanks to its pricing power in a sold?out market.

Wall Street has responded with a wide range of price targets. Raymond James rates the stock at $1,100 (Outperform), DA Davidson at $1,500 (Buy), UBS at $1,625, and Susquehanna at $1,750 (Positive). UBS raised its target recently, citing the demand dynamic. Yet the share price already sits more than 200% above its 200?day moving average, and the annualised 30?day volatility has surged to nearly 89%. With a P/E multiple of 48.9, some analysts are warning that the valuation has overshot fair value, even after adjusting for the exceptional demand environment.

That tension between the fundamental story and technical froth will come to a head on 24?June, when Micron reports its fiscal third?quarter numbers. The company’s ability to convert its sold?out HBM pipeline, expanding product stack and Nvidia?backed roadmap into another beat will determine whether the trillion?dollar market cap holds — or whether the overheating signals prove prescient.