SANTA CLARA, California, March 10, 2026, 07:27 PDT
Applied Materials on Tuesday announced a partnership with Micron Technology aimed at building out next-gen memory for AI systems at its EPIC research hub in Silicon Valley. The move marks another step by the chip-equipment giant into segments boosted by artificial intelligence demand. Shares of Applied climbed roughly 1.9% in early U.S. trading; Micron was up 4.3%.
Why does it matter? AI servers are soaking up more memory chips, and that’s turning up the pressure on customers to buy chipmaking gear and packaging. Last month, Applied said DRAM had become its fastest-growing segment in 2026. Back in December, Reuters flagged that memory shortages were hitting the market as tech companies chased down supply.
High-bandwidth memory, or HBM, refers to stacked DRAM that sits next to AI processors, pushing data at high speed. Applied said it’s teaming up with the other company on DRAM, HBM, and NAND flash — a storage memory variant — as well as advanced packaging to bring chips and memory closer together inside a single module. The work stretches across sites in California and Boise, Idaho.
Chief Executive Gary Dickerson described the relationship between Applied Materials and Micron as a “long-standing partnership” focused on developing higher-performance, more energy-efficient memory chips. Micron’s Sanjay Mehrotra, the company’s CEO, said memory and storage serve as “essential enablers of AI,” adding the collaboration establishes a “lab-to-fab pipeline” in the U.S. Investing.com
The partnership hands Applied a key ally as the EPIC Center nears its debut this year. Back in 2023, Reuters said the project’s early blueprint called for up to $4 billion in spending and aimed to shave almost a third off the lag between research and manufacturing. Applied’s latest figure? The site now stands as a $5 billion investment in the U.S.
Micron isn’t waiting around. Back in June, the company announced plans to ramp up its U.S. spending to $200 billion. That package covers a new cutting-edge memory fab in Boise, plus $50 billion earmarked for R&D. The goal: get 40% of its DRAM output coming from U.S. soil.
The entire memory sector has stayed under pressure. Back in December, Reuters noted that prices in certain memory segments had already more than doubled since February 2025. Samsung Electronics, for its part, said in February that robust demand for memory chips looks set to last through 2027.
After Applied released its February outlook, Morningstar’s William Kerwin called AI infrastructure demand “immense” while noting that supply was “scarce.” That update didn’t just lift Applied—the news sent Lam Research and KLA shares climbing, too. Reuters
But there’s risk in the move. Just last month, Applied settled U.S. charges over illegal exports to China’s SMIC, agreeing to pay $252 million. The company has also warned that tougher U.S. restrictions could shave roughly $600 million from its fiscal 2026 revenue, though a rebound in memory demand should soften some of that blow.
