Micron Technology and SK Hynix shares were climbing early Tuesday. The market looks to have rediscovered its appetite for memory-chip stocks ahead of Big Tech earnings which are expected to signal heavy spending on artificial-intelligence hardware.

Micron shares were up 6.8% in premarket trading, while SK Hynix's American depositary receipts were gaining 7.2%. In South Korea, SK Hynix shares closed up 4.1%.

Technology earnings season kicks off with Google-parent Alphabet on Wednesday and investors look to be confident tech companies will raise AI investment, increasing the demand for high-bandwidth memory and other components.

"Autonomous and self-learning AI agents dramatically multiply the sheer volume of compute power required. In our estimates, more than 90% of AI activity will be performed by AI agents by 2030," wrote Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi, global head of equities for UBS Wealth Management, in a research note. "We see this pullback as a buying opportunity for leading-edge chip and semiconductor capital equipment stocks."

However, shareholders will be attentive to any signs of software or hardware improvements which could reduce the need for memory.

For example, Google was reported on Monday to be working on a new chip which would run AI more efficiently by hardwiring elements of its models directly into the silicon, reducing the need for data transfers -- and therefore the requirement for high-bandwidth memory -- , according to technology-focused news outlet The Information.

Alphabet didn't respond to Barron's request for comment on the report. The new chip is reportedly targeted for 2028 for deployment and it's not clear to what extent Alphabet would use it in comparison with other AI chips.

"Memory demand has been questioned recently with reported technological and process breakthroughs reducing memory demand -- but we are yet to see this in reality," wrote J.P. Morgan analyst Mixo Das in a research note. "The supply of memory equity should not be conflated with supply of physical memory."