After surging 62% this year, Micron faces a major earnings test tonight.

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The memory shortage triggered by AI chip demand is putting Micron Technology under the spotlight.

Micron Technology will announce its fiscal 2026 Q2 results after the U.S. market closes on Wednesday, and analysts expect its revenue to increase by as much as 148% year-over-year.

The memory chip manufacturer’s stock has already surged about 62% so far this year, making it the only company among the ten largest U.S. tech firms by market capitalization to post a gain this year. Its market value has risen to $520 billion, surpassing Oracle’s $445 billion.

The immediate reason for the memory chip shortage is a procurement race among tech giants competing for AI computing power. According to LSEG data, analysts estimate that Micron’s average DRAM price for the second quarter rose by nearly 32% quarter-over-quarter; this price surge has begun to spread to the PC and smartphone markets, prompting industry research bodies to lower forecasts for end-device shipments.

Supply-Demand Imbalance Boosts Performance Expectations

The acceleration of AI infrastructure construction is the core driving force behind the current memory shortage. On Monday at the company’s GTC conference, Jensen Huang noted that he expects order volumes for Blackwell and Vera Rubin GPUs to reach $1 trillion before 2027.

Cloud service giants Amazon and Google are also continually raising their capital expenditure forecasts, as their data centers require large racks of Nvidia GPUs equipped with memory chips.

According to RBC analyst estimates in a research report, the amount of DRAM required by Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL72 system is about three times that of the Grace Blackwell GB300 NVL72 rack, and each Rubin Ultra GPU will be equipped with 1TB of HBM4e high-performance memory, also more than three times that of a single Rubin GPU.

Micron had already stated in December last year that its 2026 production capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) has been fully sold out. This week, Choi Tae-won, chairman of Micron competitor SK Hynix’s parent company, said at Nvidia’s GTC conference that the current memory shortage will last four to five years.

Looking ahead to Q3, analyst consensus compiled by StreetAccount shows that Micron’s adjusted gross margin will exceed 71%, with revenue expected to reach $23.8 billion, a year-over-year increase of nearly 156%.

Production Expansion Plans Still Take Time to Materialize

Facing surging demand, Micron has launched multiple capacity expansion plans, but the tangible increase in supply still requires more time.

In January this year, Micron held a groundbreaking ceremony in upstate New York, planning to build up to four wafer fabs at the location. In February, the company opened a packaging and testing plant in India to process memory wafers into finished products.

In a CNBC interview this January, Micron’s CEO defined memory as a strategic asset in the AI era. “Memory is the core enabler of AI,” he said. “It is a strategic asset today, not just a component in the system. Like your brain, you need more memory, you need faster memory.”

Micron will hold an analyst conference call at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time, where investors will focus on the company’s guidance for subsequent quarters and the latest progress of HBM capacity expansion.

Price Surge Weighs on PC and Smartphone Markets

The pricing pressure brought about by tight memory supply has spread down the industry chain. According to a February report by TrendForce, a market analysis agency, this quarter’s PC DRAM contract prices have “risen sharply.” RBC analysts, citing TrendForce data, expect mixed DRAM prices in Q1 2026 to rise by 80% to 85%.

Market research firm IDC cut its PC shipment forecasts last week, now projecting PC shipments to drop 11.3% this year— significantly worse than its predicted 2.4% decline last November; smartphone shipments are also expected to fall by 12.9%. IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani stated: “The memory shortage will last beyond 2027.”

At Dell’s earnings call in February, COO Jeff Clarke also warned analysts about this pressure. He said that over the past six months DRAM costs have risen 5.5 times, while NAND flash costs have increased by four times. “We are working closely with our memory partners to stay as flexible and agile as possible.”

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