Micron Technology shares climbed nearly 5% on Monday after the company announced a broad strategic deal with Anthropic covering chip design, long-term supply, and an equity investment. The agreement includes co-engineering memory and storage subsystems for AI training and inference, and gives Micron a seat alongside Samsung and SK hynix in Anthropic's Series H funding round.
What the deal covers
The multi-year supply guarantee covers high-bandwidth memory, DRAM, and solid-state drives — the components that keep AI models fed with data during both training and inference. Micron also uses Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, internally for engineering and coding work.
Stock rally and analyst targets
Micron's stock set an all-time high above $1,130 on June 18 and traded above that level at $1,192 on Monday ahead of the company's fiscal third-quarter earnings report due Wednesday. Deutsche Bank raised its price target for Micron to $1,500 from $1,000 on June 17; TD Cowen followed with a $1,500 target from $660, citing projected 2027 earnings per share of roughly $150. Both analysts expect the memory shortage to run well into 2028.
Not everyone on Wall Street is betting on Micron. Some strategists favor Nvidia instead, pointing to what they see as steadier exposure to AI infrastructure spending.
Anthropic's growth trajectory
Anthropic's run-rate revenue crossed $47 billion in May, and its latest fundraising round valued the company at $965 billion. The startup's rapid expansion has made it a magnet for chip suppliers eager to lock in long-term customers.
All eyes are now on Wednesday's earnings call. Investors will be listening for any update on the Anthropic partnership's near-term revenue contribution and for guidance on memory pricing through the rest of the year. The memory shortage forecast extends to 2028, but the question hanging over the stock is whether Micron can sustain its recent momentum against Nvidia's dominant position in the AI hardware market.
