Micron Hits $1 Trillion With Dizzying Speed

Micron has become the 12th American company to hit $1 trillion in valuation, and it did so with dizzying speed. The Boise-based memory chip maker topped that valuation Tuesday after its stock jumped more than 19%, capping an 80% gain over the past month as investors pile into anything tied to the AI hardware boom, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company reached the milestone a mere 48 days after crossing $500 billion. For comparison, AI darling Nvidia took 490 days to make the same leap.

Micron, founded in 1978 with backing from Idaho potato magnates like JR Simplot, has evolved from making basic memory chips to supplying high-bandwidth memory for data centers—a sweet spot in what analysts describe as the worst memory shortage in decades. "Micron for years was considered just a commodity play. They make very basic, fairly simple things," Michael Rosen, chief investment officer at Angeles Investments, tells the Journal. But now, "Micron is the poster child," Rosen says.

• The Motley Fool notes that Micron recently signed its first-ever five-year Strategic Customer Agreement. That means it may be escaping the boom-and-bust cycle often seen in the semiconductor industry, in which companies expand production in response to high demand, then crash as the increased supply brings prices down sharply.