Micron's Biggest Long-Term Growth Catalyst Has Nothing to Do With AI Data Centers

Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) has emerged as one of the top AI stocks. It's up by more than 700% over the past year, thanks to strong demand for its memory and storage products from AI data centers. Those facilities need huge volumes of Micron's chips to efficiently handle AI workloads, but a new wave of products may need such chips even more.

During the company's fiscal 2026 third-quarter call on June 24, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra told investors that humanoid robots are a much more promising opportunity for Micron than AI data centers. That may sound hard to believe right now, especially since Micron more than quadrupled its revenue year over year thanks to data center sales. However, the premise is worth exploring.

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A multi-decade memory demand cycle

Some investors have shied away from the semiconductor trade due to the industry's cyclical history. The general concept is that at various points, rising demand for a particular type of chip leads to a shortage, which drives prices up.

The chipmakers supplying those products book higher profits, but they also rush to boost their production capacity so that they can sell as many of those chips as possible. "Rush," however, is relative. It can take a couple of years to get new chip fabrication facilities online.

Eventually, more supply arrives, cutting into chipmakers' pricing power. Then, frequently, total demand slides, and the chipmakers are stuck with inventory gluts. But they have to get rid of their older models to make room for new chips with better technological features. The solution is price cutting, which results in further reduced revenues and even tighter margins.

Memory chips in particular have been subject to these cycles, as the technology has largely been commoditized. There's not an enormous amount of variation between the products made by Micron and its peers.

Bullish investors view Micron as being in the middle of a multiyear up cycle driven by artificial intelligence. However, Mehrotra took it a step further during the fiscal 2026 third-quarter earnings call. He predicted a "sustained, substantial multidecade memory demand cycle" that will begin in "the latter part of this decade."

This cycle hasn't even started yet, and it's supposed to be bigger than the one that's being powered by AI data center demand. And that forecast came from Mehrotra right after his company broke records and crushed its already ambitious guidance.

Why robots?

Mehrotra also notified investors that AI infrastructure is accelerating the path to physical AI. That's a large category that includes humanoid robots. Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has also been teasing its Optimus robots for a while, and is getting closer to commercializing them.

When mass production of those devices actually happens, it will be a substantial tailwind for Micron. The company said humanoid robots will carry 10 times the memory of the average L2+ vehicle. (L2+ is just an auto industry insiders' term for vehicles with enhanced advanced driver assistance systems.)

The supply shortages in the memory market will get worse if demand continues to accelerate. Micron will have a vast runway to sell chips at nosebleed margins. Barclays expects the market for humanoid robots to reach $200 billion in less than 10 years, while well-known tech bull Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities anticipates the industry will be worth trillions of dollars over the course of the next decade.

Investors don't have to guess which robotics company will win that race when they can buy a chipmaker whose products will be integral to the majority of humanoid robots. That's the pitch from Micron, and it's a pretty good one.

Marc Guberti has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Micron Technology and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends Barclays Plc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.