NEW YORK, Feb 21, 2026, 11:02 EST — Market closed.
- Micron shares closed Friday higher, with traders keeping a close eye on AI-related demand for memory chips.
- CEO Sanjay Mehrotra flagged deeper investment in India as the company leans on advanced packaging and design work for DRAM and NAND.
- The next read-through for memory names could come from Nvidia’s earnings midweek.
Micron Technology, Inc. shares closed up 2.6% on Friday at $428.17, finishing the week on a firmer note as the chip sector steadied into the weekend. The iShares Semiconductor ETF rose about 1% in the session.
The move matters because memory has become one of the tightest links in the AI hardware chain. AI servers need DRAM — the high-speed “working memory” in computers — and also NAND, the flash storage used to hold large datasets, alongside newer high-bandwidth memory (HBM) built for advanced AI processors.
Micron finance chief Mark Murphy has said spending on data centres could reach nearly $800 billion in 2026, up from around $200 billion in 2024, putting pricing and supply discipline back at the centre of the trade for memory makers. (Reuters)
On Friday, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra told an India AI Summit audience the company is strengthening its manufacturing footprint in the country, calling the local team “phenomenal”. Micron is investing over $2.7 billion in an advanced packaging, assembly and test facility in Sanand, Gujarat, while building out research hubs in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, he said. (The Times of India)
Money is moving that way in public markets too. “When Meta says that it’s going to spend $100 billion, it’s going into these companies,” said Adam Patti, chief executive of VistaShares, describing the appeal of AI “infrastructure” plays beyond the biggest tech stocks. (Reuters)
Macro also nudged the tape into the weekend. U.S. data on Friday showed the personal consumption expenditures price index — the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge — running at 2.9% year-on-year in December, while core PCE (which strips out food and energy) was 3.0%. (Bureau of Economic Analysis)
Supply remains the other half of the story. The Verge reported this week that the bulk of global RAM production is concentrated among Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron, with prices for some memory components climbing sharply as AI demand strains capacity. (The Verge)
Still, memory is a cyclical business and the trade can turn fast. If capacity ramps quicker than expected, or if cloud customers slow orders after an early spending burst, pricing can soften and margins can compress in a hurry.
For Monday’s session, traders will be watching whether MU holds its latest gains and whether the broader semiconductor group keeps pace, especially around any chatter on DRAM, NAND and HBM contract pricing.
The next hard catalyst is Wednesday: Nvidia is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results on Feb. 25 at 2:00 p.m. PT, an event investors often use to triangulate AI server demand — and, by extension, the memory content that rides alongside each new wave of GPUs. (Nvidia)
