Banking on the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, Sanjay Mehrotra-led Micron Technology, Inc. MU outperformed Wall Street’s darling NVIDIA Corporation NVDA last year (+239.1% vs +38.8%). Can Micron repeat the feat, or will this year see NVIDIA having the upper hand? Let’s find out.
Micron’s high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips excel at handling large volumes of data while minimizing power consumption. Currently, these HBM chips are in short supply due to the AI infrastructure surge, which is fueling high demand and contributing significantly to Micron’s recent strong performance.
Micron reported revenues of $13.64 billion in first-quarter fiscal 2026, up 56.8% year over year, according to investors.micron.com. This exceeded analysts’ expectations of roughly $12.88 billion, reinforcing confidence that demand for Micron’s products remains strong.
All of Micron’s business segments saw revenue growth in the fiscal first quarter, including its core cloud memory business unit. This robust revenue performance helped Micron post non-GAAP net income of $5.48 billion, or $4.78 per share, above analysts’ projections of $3.94.
Additionally, fueled by AI-driven demand for HBM chips, Micron expects even stronger results for second-quarter fiscal 2026, with revenues of $18.3–$19.1 billion and earnings per share (EPS) of $8.22–$8.62. The company’s solid cash flow of $3.9 billion in the fiscal first quarter also provides Micron with the funds to support growth initiatives.
Strong demand for the CUDA software platform and cutting-edge Blackwell chips has driven NVIDIA’s recent quarterly performance. NVIDIA’s revenues for the third-quarter fiscal 2026 came in at $57 billion, up 62% year over year and 22% sequentially, according to investor.nvidia.com.
NVIDIA’s founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, said that “Blackwell sales are off the charts, and cloud GPUs are sold out”. The company remains optimistic about future growth, projecting fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 revenues around $65 billion, with a plus or minus 2% margin.
Furthermore, the company anticipates continued profitability growth as the Trump administration has approved NVIDIA to sell H200 AI chips to select customers in China. Benefiting from a competitive edge in the AI hardware market and a likely increase in global data center capital expenditures, NVIDIA is well-positioned for growth in 2026, with Jensen Huang at the helm.
No doubt, Micron is set to thrive in 2026, driven by higher demand for its HBM chips. Similarly, NVIDIA is set to expand, fueled by soaring Blackwell chip demand, record cloud GPU sales and a rise in global data center investments.