MU
Not your average chip cycle
Goldman Sachs just basically told the memory-chip crowd: don’t pack up the party hats yet. In a Sunday note, the bank said the AI-driven shortage in DRAM, NAND, and HBM should stay tight through 2027 and into 2028 — which is Wall Street-speak for “pricing power may keep doing cartwheels.”
For investors, that matters because memory has traditionally been the semiconductor world’s drama queen: huge booms, then brutal busts, repeat. Goldman’s argument is that this time is different, thanks to AI infrastructure, HBM gobbling up wafer capacity, and customers signing longer-term contracts instead of playing pricing chicken every quarter.
Why this could keep running
Goldman’s thesis is basically a supply-and-demand story with a silicon twist:
- AI servers are now a monster demand engine for memory
- HBM takes way more wafer capacity than old-school DRAM
- Long-term contracts, prepayments, and penalties make the revenue picture less roller-coaster, more treadmill
The bank now sees DRAM prices rising more than 300% year over year in 2026, with NAND up more than 250%. That’s not a typo — it’s the kind of setup that can make even grizzled chip investors stop doomscrolling.
Micron gets a seat at the buffet
Micron didn’t get a fresh company-specific upgrade here, but it absolutely gets the halo effect. If Goldman’s shortage call is right, Micron and peers like SanDisk could enjoy a longer stretch of strong margins and fewer supply-side headaches than the market has historically priced in.
The bigger takeaway: investors still seem to be treating memory like a boom-bust commodity that’s one bad quarter away from a faceplant. Goldman’s saying the script may have changed. If so, the whole group could deserve a higher multiple — and not just for a quarter or two.
Big picture: if AI keeps chewing through memory like a teenager at an all-you-can-eat buffet, the “memory cycle” might turn into a multi-year supercycle instead of the usual one-and-done pop.