During SpaceX’s (SPCX) Q2 2026 earnings call, held on August 4, 2026, entrepreneur Elon Musk made a landmark statement about the pace of expansion of computing capacity for artificial intelligence. With just five words, he pointed to memory as the main obstacle to the development of AI, immediately directing the market’s attention to manufacturers like Micron Technology.
What Musk’s statement revealed about artificial intelligence
Elon Musk stated that “the limiting factor currently is memory”, even surpassing power consumption and the availability of GPUs in the context of SpaceX’s AI infrastructure. This observation elevates the importance of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), a crucial component for advanced computing systems, to the center of discussions about the future of artificial intelligence.
Elon Musk’s view on supply and demand for memory chips
Musk detailed the memory restriction based on his own calculations about market dynamics. He explained that global memory production is increasing by about 20% per year. However, demand for these components, driven by the expansion of AI, is growing at a rate of 200% annually, perhaps even more.
Based on this imbalance, Musk predicted that:
- Memory production increases approximately 20% per year.
- The demand for memory grows around 200% annually.
- Memory chip prices will continue to rise, without a downward trend, due to the disparity between supply and demand.
It is important to note that these numbers were presented by Elon Musk as a personal characterization during the conference call and not as data independently verified by the industry.
Micron Technology’s unique positioning in the HBM market
Musk’s statement has a direct impact on Micron Technology (MU), which stands as the only high-bandwidth memory (HBM) manufacturer based in the United States. The company is one of only three global suppliers of this type of memory. Musk’s comment, coming from one of the biggest innovators in technology, puts Micron in a strategic position, directly influencing the expectations of investors and analysts about its future prospects.
Contrast with market projections for the DRAM sector
Although Elon Musk projects a scenario of continued rise for memory prices, market forecasts present a more cautious outlook. TrendForce, for example, anticipates a slowdown in DRAM price growth in the third quarter of 2026, with an increase range between 13% and 18%. This difference between Musk’s analysis and industry projections could introduce an element of risk to Micron’s valuations, which at first glance may appear low, but become uncertain in the face of such divergent scenarios.
Energy and GPUs are not the bottleneck for SpaceX’s ambitions
Musk also made a point of ruling out that power or GPUs are the limiting factors for his AI ambitions. He mentioned that SpaceX plans to have 20 gigawatts of power and cooling capacity online by the end of next year, although it hopes to reach something closer to 15 gigawatts. SpaceX’s design philosophy is clear: “our goal is to have much more power, cooling and electrical equipment than GPUs.” Furthermore, he reported that the understanding within NVIDIA (NVDA) is that SpaceX will receive a “very small percentage” of its GPUs next year, reinforcing that memory, not graphics processing or power, is the real bottleneck.
