Micron Technology, the largest U.S. manufacturer of memory chips, is accelerating efforts to expand production capacity amid the most severe supply shortage the memory industry has faced in over 40 years. These tiny silicon chips store and transmit data, powering everything from smartphones and automotive computers to laptops and data centers.

At its headquarters in Boise, Micron is spending $50 billion to more than double the size of its 450-acre campus, including the construction of two new chip fabrication plants. The first wafers from the initial plant are expected to be produced by mid-2027, manufacturing DRAM—a type of memory used to create high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips that are increasingly critical for advanced artificial intelligence computing. Both facilities are scheduled to be operational by the end of 2028.

But that's not all. Near Syracuse, the company has broken ground on a $100 billion fab complex, marking the largest private investment in New York State's history. Late last year, Micron also announced a $9.6 billion investment in a fabrication plant in Hiroshima, Japan. Meanwhile, competitor SK Hynix revealed plans in January to build a $13 billion plant in South Korea, in addition to a $4 billion manufacturing complex under construction in Indiana.

This manufacturing surge is driven by the AI boom. As large language models grow more complex and companies like OpenAI, Oracle, xAI, and Anthropic announce ambitious plans for trillion-dollar data centers, demand for memory chips has far outstripped supply.

Scott Gatzemeier, Vice President in charge of Micron's $200 billion U.S. expansion, stated, "In my 28 years here, I've never seen anything as disruptive as AI. When we shift from training to inference, the amount of data required skyrockets, and we simply don’t have enough cleanroom capacity to meet demand. We realized we have a massive problem."

The supply shortage has created a gold rush for memory chip makers like Micron and its top rivals SK Hynix and Samsung. Since last April, Micron's stock price has surged more than fivefold, reaching around $414, bringing the company's market capitalization close to $500 billion.