Micron sees memory supply tightening through 2028, names humanoid robots as next DRAM driver

Micron Technology expects the global memory shortage to deepen rather than ease, and has for the first time put a concrete figure on the memory content of humanoid robots. The US manufacturer presented fourth-quarter results for its 2026 financial year on 30 September, reporting record revenue of $54.23 billion, according to pcgameshardware.de.

Supply and demand will be "significantly tighter" in 2027 and 2028 than in 2026, the company said, adding that it cannot foresee when the market will balance again. Competitor SK Hynix now expects the bottleneck to persist until the end of 2030.

Physical AI named as the next demand driver

In its prepared remarks for the earnings call, Micron tied humanoid robots to a specific memory requirement for the first time. The calculation starts with autonomous driving: vehicles at Level 4 and above typically carry more than 200 GiB of DRAM plus several terabytes of SSD storage, according to the company, which expects comparable content in humanoid robots.

By the end of the decade, physical AI — artificial intelligence in robots and autonomous vehicles — could become a significant driver of DRAM and NAND demand, Micron said. Several customers in the segment are already testing samples of the coming generation, and the company's press release confirms that sampling of LPDDR6 from its 1-gamma (1γ) node has begun for this market. A condensed version of the statement circulated via market strategist Shay Boloor on X.

The arithmetic and its limits

A well-equipped gaming PC runs on 32 GiB of RAM today, so a single robot on Micron's own numbers matches the memory of just over six such machines. One million humanoid robots would tie up at least 200 million GiB of DRAM, as much as sits in 6.25 million gaming PCs.

Those volumes depend on an uncertain timeline. Morgan Stanley forecasts more than one billion humanoid robots in use by 2050, roughly 930 million of them in industry and commerce — an installed base, not annual shipments, a distinction blurred in several reports on Micron's comments — and expects only slow adoption until the mid-2030s. Micron's end-of-decade horizon therefore rests mainly on autonomous driving, and robotics has practically no bearing on memory prices over the next two years, where the data centre remains the pacesetter. For Micron the robot answers a different question: who buys the memory if hyperscaler AI spending flattens.

Committed output, prices and margins

More than 75 per cent of production for financial year 2027 is already contracted, and 26 multi-year supply agreements cover more than 35 per cent of expected revenue through 2030, with some customers asking for guarantees beyond that. A large share of rising capital spending is going into new cleanroom space due to come on stream from the end of 2028; until it produces, no surplus can emerge that would push prices down appreciably.

Micron's DRAM selling prices rose almost 20 per cent quarter on quarter in the period just ended and NAND prices around 30 per cent. In German retail, a Kingston Fury Beast kit with 32 GiB of DDR5-6000 CL30 was listed from €549 in the PCGH price comparison on 31 August against €114 in mid-September 2025, erasing 20 years of falling RAM prices. The Mobile and Client unit posted a 90 per cent gross margin in the fourth quarter, seven percentage points above the cloud business, which includes HBM for AI accelerators.