Micron Technology Inc. (MU) and SK Hynix shares rose in trading on Thursday after Alphabet increased its capital expenditure guidance for 2026, easing investor concerns that spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure could slow.
Micron shares gained 3.3% in the session, while SK Hynix’s American Depositary Receipts advanced 6.2%.
The rally followed Alphabet’s quarterly earnings, during which the Google parent raised its expected 2026 capital expenditure range to between $195 billion and $205 billion, above its previous guidance of $180 billion to $190 billion.
The revised outlook also topped analysts’ expectations of about $188 billion, according to Visible Alpha.
Alphabet raises AI infrastructure spending outlook
Alphabet’s updated spending guidance provided reassurance for investors who had become concerned that demand for AI hardware, including memory chips, could soften after months of heavy investment by large technology companies.
During the company’s earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi said Alphabet now expects to spend between $195 billion and $205 billion in capital expenditures during 2026.
“The increase in the range is primarily due to an acceleration in the delivery of capacity to meet growing demand,” Ashkenazi said.
She also reaffirmed the company’s commitment to expanding AI infrastructure.
“We’re still in a supply-constrained environment,” she said. “I think we’ve said this now for multiple quarters in a row, and we are seeing very strong demand both from external cloud customers as well as across the business.”
Alphabet attributed the higher spending to continued expansion of data center capacity required to support growing AI workloads and cloud demand.
The announcement helped lift sentiment across memory chip makers after Micron shares had fallen nearly 9% over the past month, while SK Hynix’s Seoul-listed shares had declined by almost a quarter over the same period.
Tesla highlights Micron’s role in AI supply chain
Micron also received unexpected attention during Tesla’s second-quarter earnings call after Chief Executive Elon Musk publicly thanked the company for supplying memory chips.
“I’d actually also like to thank Micron for giving us memory allocation,” Musk said before adding that memory pricing has become “pretty insane” as demand continues to surge.
Later in the call, Musk also acknowledged Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung Electronics.
“I think things are going really well on the chip front. Yeah. Again, I’d like to thank TSMC and Samsung, and Micron for their support,” he said.
The comments highlighted the growing importance of advanced memory alongside AI processors as companies expand investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Memory demand remains central to AI expansion
Tesla’s remarks came as Musk discussed the company’s plans to build Terafab, a semiconductor development facility intended to accelerate production of custom AI chips for projects including Optimus.
According to Musk, the facility would combine logic, memory, lithography mask development, packaging and testing in one location to shorten chip development cycles.
His comments underscored that access to advanced memory has become a critical requirement for AI systems, which require large amounts of high-speed memory to train and deploy increasingly sophisticated models.
Tesla stock, however, fell 13% on Thursday as adjusted earnings fell short of expectations.
For investors, Alphabet’s increased capital spending plans and Tesla’s comments reinforced expectations that demand for memory chips could remain strong as AI infrastructure investments continue across the technology industry.
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