After the surprise decision to abandon its Crucial consumer brand and go fully “all-in” on AI infrastructure, Micron released its Q1 Fiscal 2026 earnings report (period ending November 2025).
The numbers were historic—but the message was blunt: memory supply will remain structurally constrained well into 2026 and beyond.
📈 Record-Breaking Financial Performance #
AI data centers are consuming memory at an unprecedented rate, pushing Micron’s financials to all-time highs:
- Revenue: $13.64 billion, up 57% year-over-year
- Profit: $5.24 billion GAAP net income, a 231% YoY increase
- Stock Performance: Shares surged 168% during 2025
Micron’s growth is no longer cyclical—it is now directly tied to the expansion of AI infrastructure worldwide.
🧠 The HBM Gold Rush #
High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) has become the structural foundation of Micron’s business.
- Market Forecast: Micron now expects the global HBM market to reach $100 billion by 2028, hitting that milestone two years earlier than previously projected.
- Historic Comparison: The HBM market alone in 2028 is projected to be larger than the entire global DRAM market in 2024.
This shift marks a fundamental redefinition of what “memory demand” means in the AI era.
🏭 Supply Expansion Still Isn’t Enough #
Despite massive capital investments, Micron admits it cannot close the widening supply gap.
| Facility | Status | Estimated Output Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Boise, Idaho (Fab 1) | Under construction | First wafers in early 2027 |
| Boise, Idaho (Fab 2) | Planning stage | 2028 |
| Clay, New York | Groundbreaking | Early 2026, full capacity by 2030 |
Reality Check:
CEO Sanjay Mehrotra acknowledged “disappointment” that even with these expansions, Micron expects to meet only 50–66% of core customer demand over the next several years.
As a result, hyperscalers and AI chip vendors are now signing unprecedented multi-year binding supply agreements to secure future HBM allocations.
🛑 The Strategic Sacrifice: Ending Crucial #
In December 2025, Micron officially ended the Crucial brand, closing a 29-year chapter in consumer memory and storage.
- Why It Had to Go:
A modern AI server can consume over 1TB of HBM, compared to roughly 128GB in traditional servers. - Resource Reallocation:
Every wafer diverted to consumer SSDs or DIMMs is a wafer not available for high-margin AI customers. - Market Impact:
Micron’s exit leaves a significant gap in the DIY PC and gaming markets, likely pushing consumer RAM and SSD prices higher as competition thins.
🔮 Outlook: A New Kind of Memory Company #
Micron is now one of only three companies worldwide capable of manufacturing advanced HBM for leading AI accelerators from NVIDIA and AMD.
- HBM4 Timeline: Production remains on track for Q2 2026
- Business Transformation:
Micron has effectively shifted from a broad consumer-focused memory vendor into a specialized AI infrastructure supplier
🏁 Conclusion #
Micron’s message is clear:
Even with historic profits and aggressive fab expansion, memory supply will remain the limiting factor of AI growth.
In the AI era, memory is no longer a commodity—it is the bottleneck, the leverage point, and the ultimate strategic asset.