Micron Technology Inc has passed a valuation of US$1 trillion (A$1.4 trillion) for the first time after a surge in its stock price.
Shares in the United States computer chip maker (NASDAQ: MU) hit a record high of $916.80 before closing at $895.88 on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST), up $144.88 or 19.29% on the day and capitalising the company at $1.01 trillion.
The rise was helped by an upgrade from broker UBS, which raised its price target to $1,625 from $535 per share, the highest among the 46 brokerages covering the company, according to LSEG data.
It also reflects a shift in investor focus among stocks leveraged to the boom in artificial intelligence (AI), with attention turning to companies like Micron that produce memory chips from those that produce graphics processing units like NVIDIA.
"The need for pure memory has increased rapidly over very short periods of time, and clearly, Micron sits at the centre of it," B. Riley Wealth chief market strategist Art Hogan was quoted as saying in a Reuters article.
"Today's crossing of the $1 trillion mark for Micron is just an exclamation point on the story of the massive amount of demand needed to run data centres in this AI revolution."
A total of 11 companies listed on U.S. exchanges are valued at more than $1 trillion, headed by Nvidia, which has a market capitalisation of $5.2 trillion and with technology stocks accounting for most of them.
Micron shares have risen 830% over the last 12 months because of unprecedented demand for its memory chips, which are vital for storing and moving huge amounts of data used in AI systems and which are driving its revenue and profits higher.
The recent strength has also been assisted by industrial action affecting production at Samsung, the world's largest memory chip maker.
Micron has said its 2026 output of high-bandwidth memory chips, which are important for AI data centres, has been sold out
UBS is forecasting continued strength in demand for computer memory.
