Memory Chipmakers Surge in 2025: Can the Party Continue?!

The memory chip sector is experiencing a significant rally in 2025, driven by overwhelming demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure, which has created a "memory supercycle". Both Micron Technology (MU) and Western Digital (WDC) are major beneficiaries of this trend, with their stocks showing substantial gains due to surging DRAM, NAND, and hard disk drive (HDD) demand from data centers and hyperscalers.

The Micron rally has been driven by acute shortages in High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and data center demand. Micron is considered a "sold out" supplier for 2026 HBM supply. Demand for DRAM/NAND is expected to exceed supply through 2026. Micron shares have surged, with a rise of 250% in 2025 and the stock hit record highs on Monday. While the focus has been on demand for its HBM chips, Micron’s legacy DRAM and NAND have also been a bright spot as prices have risen significantly. Competitors, including South Korea's Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, have raised prices on fifth-generation high-bandwidth memory by nearly 20% for 2026 deliveries, DigiTimes reported. This comes as surging demand for AI accelerators continues to outpace supply. 

On its last earnings, Micron easily beat estimates on top-line Revenue and EPS, but the real spark was its blowout guidance. Micron sees 2Q EPS of $8.42 +/- 20c versus consensus of $4.71 and sees 2Q revenue $18.7B +/- $400M versus the expected consensus of $14.38B.

Western Digital (WDC) shares have gained nearly 300% this year as of yesterday’s closing price. The company's focus on its core hard disk drive business and separating its flash business has made it a "pure-play" favorite for investors. Hyperscalers like Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet (GOOGL) are driving high demand for WDC's high-capacity drives. WDC has successfully shifted to a "build-to-order" model, mitigating some of the previous boom-and-bust cycles. 

Rival in the space Seagate Technologies (STX) has rallied over 225% this year. Hard disk drives trace their origins to the 1950s, when they stored five megabytes of data and weighed more than 2,000 pounds. Today, personal computers have hard drives with up to two terabytes of storage and that weigh around 1.5 pounds or less. The companies that make them are focused on developing storage solutions that have become critical in training large language models, which requires massive amounts of data.

While the sector is historically cyclical based on demand and pricing, the sector has seen a major shift this year. High-bandwidth memory has become central to AI infrastructure buildouts, driving strong demand and tightening supply. Wall Street is still bullish on Seagate, Western Digital, and Micron, and they continue to raise their price targets in the sector. The question is whether this is a peak or if the sustained rally can continue…time will tell. 

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