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The largest U.S. maker of memory chips is rushing to add manufacturing capacity to avert the biggest supply crunch the memory industry has seen in more than 40 years.
The WSJ’s Robbie Whelan writes that Micron Technology is spending $200 billion to expand its ability to make the tiny slices of silicon that store and transfer data and help power everything from smartphones to data centers.
Demand for memory chips is outpacing capacity as large language models become more complex and companies such as OpenAI, Oracle and Anthropic spend trillions of dollars building data centers. Processors designed by companies including Nvidia, Google, Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices require more and faster memory chips for both training the models and responding to users’ queries.
Micron executives say buyers are seeking out multiyear purchasing contracts to ensure supply and avoid dramatic price increases.
To meet the demand, Micron is spending $50 billion to more than double the size of its 450-acre campus in Boise, Idaho, including building two new chip factories. The company just broke ground in Syracuse, N.Y., on a $100 billion fab complex and is planning a $9.6 billion fab investment in Hiroshima, Japan.
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