Micron Technology briefly crossed the $1 trillion market capitalization threshold on May 26, after an 18% single-day surge triggered by a UBS upgrade. That makes it the third memory chip maker to hit the milestone this month, joining Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix in a club that, until very recently, was reserved for the likes of Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia.
The catalyst is high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, the technology that sits next to the GPU and shuttles data at extraordinary speeds. Every AI data center being built by hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon needs massive quantities of it, and only three companies can manufacture it at scale.
Samsung was first through the door, crossing $1 trillion earlier in May. SK Hynix was close behind, with its market cap estimated between $942B and $966B around mid-May. Then Micron leapfrogged into the club after UBS raised its price target to $1,625, reframing the company not as a cyclical memory stock but as a structural beneficiary of the AI buildout.
SK Hynix has been the most dramatic mover, with shares soaring more than 200% year-to-date through mid-May, following a 274% increase in 2025.
Together, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron control approximately 90% of the global memory chip market. AI developers and cloud providers started locking in long-term supply contracts back in 2025, trying to secure future production capacity before competitors could grab it.
Micron’s next quarterly earnings report, scheduled for June 2026, will be a critical data point. Analysts are expected to zero in on production capacity expansion plans and whether the company can deliver enough HBM to justify a $1 trillion price tag. There’s also a geopolitical dimension: if SK Hynix sustains its trillion-dollar valuation, South Korea would become the first country outside the United States to host multiple trillion-dollar public companies.