Micron has overtaken the giants of American technology on the one measure that captures who is really winning from the artificial intelligence boom.
The memory chipmaker posted a gross margin of 84.9% in its latest quarter, comfortably ahead of Meta's 81.9% and Nvidia's 75%, making it the most profitable major US technology company on that basis.
The figure climbed from 74.9% in the prior period and just 39% a year earlier, a transformation that sent the shares up around 15% on Wednesday and underlined how quickly the economics of the chip industry have shifted in memory makers' favour.
The driver is the AI infrastructure buildout, which has created insatiable demand for high-bandwidth memory, the specialised chips that sit alongside AI accelerators in data centres.
With a small group of suppliers unable to keep pace, prices have soared and Micron has been able to set profitability records almost as fast as customers can snap up its chips. The company reported its data centre business as the standout, with sales there climbing more than sevenfold, and it told investors that supply was likely to remain tight beyond 2027.
The result fits a broader pattern of an AI-driven chip cycle lifting the whole supply chain. Qualcomm shares also rose about 15% after the company nearly doubled its forecast for non-handset revenue in the 2029 financial year to $40 billion, from $22 billion, and unveiled its Dragonfly C1000 data-centre processor.
Meta is slated to begin using that chip when it enters production in 2028, the next scheduled milestone for the sector. South Korea's SK Hynix added to the momentum, with its shares rising as much as 11% after it filed for a Nasdaq listing of depositary receipts that could be worth up to $29.4 billion.
The macro and geopolitical backdrop is rather less clean. US crude futures slipped below $70 a barrel after at least 20 oil tankers were left stranded in the Persian Gulf, even as 35 million barrels have exited the Strait of Hormuz since the United States and Iran agreed to reopen the lane.
President Donald Trump said Iran had told him there would be no tolls or charges for passage, a claim echoed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, though Iranian officials rejected the US terms. In Washington, the White House has requested $87.6 billion in supplemental funding, a demand that met immediate opposition from Democrats.
For now, the contrast is stark. The same memory shortage squeezing device makers and consumers is delivering historic profits to the companies at the top of the chain, with Micron the clearest winner of all.
