Micron launches $10 billion AI memory research lab in Boise
Micron Technology unveiled Micron Research Labs on Thursday, a U.S.-based research institution headquartered in Boise backed by a planned $10 billion investment over the next decade. According to the company, the lab is designed to unite customers, academic institutions, government agencies, and the wider semiconductor industry in pursuit of advances in memory technologies, compute architectures, packaging, and semiconductor manufacturing.
Micron describes Micron Research Labs as the first dedicated memory research hub of its kind in the United States. Research will be anchored at a flagship Boise campus, with funding also directed toward university collaborations, global satellite labs, and ecosystem partnerships. The company said it plans to begin construction on the Boise facility in 2027, with the finished campus designed to accommodate hundreds of researchers.
"The decisions we make today will determine who leads the AI economy of tomorrow, and America's AI future will be built on American-made memory," Micron Chairman, President, and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said in a statement. "With a planned $10 billion investment in Micron Research Labs, we are looking around the corner to the memory and compute systems the future will demand."
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Applied Materials President and CEO Gary Dickerson, and Lam Research President and CEO Tim Archer all issued statements in support of the initiative, as did Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios.
Micron said the new investment is separate from its previously announced commitment to spend more than $250 billion on manufacturing and research and development across the United States, a plan the company said will support more than 90,000 American jobs. Micron describes itself as the only U.S.-based company developing and manufacturing leading-edge memory.
Micron raised that broader U.S. investment figure to more than $250 billion earlier this summer, a roughly $50 billion increase from its prior commitment. That announcement came alongside the first concrete pour at Micron's new fab near Syracuse, New York, which is expected to become the largest semiconductor manufacturing site in U.S. history. The company also has two fabs under construction in Boise, with first wafer output from the first of those expected in mid-2027.
High-bandwidth memory, the chip type that supplies data to AI accelerators, has surged in strategic importance as AI infrastructure spending accelerates, according to Reuters. The administration has prioritized domestic chip manufacturing as part of its broader push to reduce foreign dependence and maintain a lead in artificial intelligence, according to Reuters.