# The memory chip crunch is paying off for this U.S. company > Source: > Published: 2026-06-24 21:30:55+00:00 The AI boom has fueled dozens of new startups and minted a new class of billionaires. It has also produced a serious shortage of memory chips — a critical component for compute-hungry AI models — which some predict could persist [through 2027](https://www.idc.com/resource-center/blog/global-memory-shortage-crisis-market-analysis-and-the-potential-impact-on-the-smartphone-and-pc-markets-in-2026/). This era of [RAMageddon](https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/30/as-tim-cook-steps-down-apple-hit-record-sales-but-a-chip-shortage-looms/) isn’t just a corporate problem. As demand spikes and squeezes supply, prices are rising and trickling down to consumers. Apple CEO Tim Cook warned just a week ago that [price increases](https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/17/ai-is-hurting-apple-in-more-ways-than-one-it-may-force-iphone-price-increases/) for its products are unavoidable. But amid this Mad Max-esque fight for memory chips, some companies are coming out ahead. Micron, the largest U.S. computer-memory chip maker — with a market cap of $1.2 trillion — is one of them. That hasn’t always been the case. The company’s shares were trading around $83 in early 2024 (with a market cap of about $91 billion) and closed today at $1,048.51. The company reported [third-quarter earnings](https://investors.micron.com/news-releases/news-release-details/micron-technology-inc-reports-record-results-third-quarter) after markets closed Wednesday, and the results sent shares soaring more than 13%. Revenue quadrupled to $41.45 billion compared with the same period a year ago. The company’s profit, meanwhile, rose from $1.88 billion to an incredible $28.2 billion year-over-year. The Idaho-based company also gave investors a positive outlook, forecasting fourth-quarter revenue of between $49 billion and $51 billion. The strong results arrive the same week Micron [inked a deal](https://investors.micron.com/news-releases/news-release-details/micron-and-anthropic-announce-strategic-agreement-scale-next) to supply AI lab Anthropic with memory and storage chips. Micron also disclosed that it participated in Anthropic’s Series H funding round, though it didn’t disclose how much it invested.