Micron Builds $9.3 Billion AI Memory Plant in Hiroshima

Micron Technology has begun expanding its manufacturing plant in Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan, investing approximately 1.5 trillion yen, or nearly $9.3 billion. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on July 4, 2026, and the new line will produce HBM memory, a key component in today's AI chips.

The ceremony was attended by representatives of Japan's economic authorities, the US consul general, and local governors. Fujita Corporation is the general contractor for the first phase of the expansion, covering roughly 280,000 square meters. Installation of production equipment is set to begin in late 2028, with the first memory shipments from the new line planned for summer 2028.

Hiroshima is not a random location for Micron. It was there that the company produced its first-ever HBM memory wafer, the technology that today forms the core of AI accelerators made by, among others, Nvidia. The plant expansion aims to increase production capacity in response to the structural memory shortage caused by surging demand for chips used to train and run AI models.

Government Support

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry confirmed it will provide a subsidy of up to 500 billion yen for the investment. Combined with earlier support for Micron, the Japanese government has now committed around 775 billion yen to the development of the Hiroshima plant. This is part of a broader strategy by Tokyo, which is trying to rebuild its domestic semiconductor manufacturing base by attracting foreign technology leaders in areas where Japanese companies can no longer quickly regain global competitiveness on their own.

Micron remains the only DRAM manufacturer operating in Japan, making it a natural partner for the government's semiconductor sector revival program. For Tokyo, this is also part of a geopolitical rivalry over control of the supply chain for components critical to AI development, in which Japan wants to play a bigger role than it has over the past two decades.

Racing SK Hynix

Micron is still catching up to South Korea's SK Hynix in the HBM memory segment, the market's current leader and Nvidia's main supplier. The company says HBM4 memory is already in mass production and shipping to customers, while work on HBM4E, the next generation, is expected to bring the product to market in 2027. The Hiroshima plant expansion is meant to give Micron the additional production scale it needs to regain share in this segment.

Micron's first-ever HBM production wafer, the memory at the heart of artificial intelligence, was made right here, in Hiroshima - Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of Micron Technology

Results Driven by AI

The AI memory boom is translating directly into Micron's financial results. The company's stock has risen nearly 700 percent over the past year, and gross margin reached 84.9 percent last quarter. Revenue guidance for the next fiscal quarter is about $50 billion, with gross margin around 86 percent. The Hiroshima investment is part of Micron's global capacity expansion program worth more than $200 billion, which also includes the United States, Singapore, and Taiwan.

For readers in Poland, the most tangible effect of this investment race is prices. Demand for memory driven by AI data centers has already pushed DRAM prices up by hundreds of percent, hitting carmakers and consumer electronics manufacturers. New production capacity, like that being built in Hiroshima, is in theory meant to ease this shortage, but only from 2028, when the plant actually begins production.

Until then, the memory market will remain tight, and electronics manufacturers, from laptops to cars with driver-assistance systems, will have to contend with higher component costs. Micron's investment also shows that the scale of money flowing into AI infrastructure is shifting from data centers and models themselves toward the entire supply chain, including memory plants built to last decades.

Sources: Japan Backs Micron AI Memory Push in Hiroshima (upi.com), Micron Breaks Ground on $9 Billion Plant Expansion in Japan (energynewsbeat.co), Micron's $9.3 Billion Japan Plant Fuels AI Memory Race (coinalertnews.com), Micron Breaks Ground on Hiroshima Cleanroom to Support Advanced Memory for AI (jp.micron.com).