Have you shopped for a new laptop or smartphone lately? It’s getting rough out there.
Why? Two words: Memory crisis.
The price of computer memory chips (called random-access memory, or RAM) is going through the roof because of skyrocketing demand from AI data centers. And while that’s bad for shoppers, it’s good for shareholders of certain memory chip stocks and ETFs.
Why does AI need so much memory, anyway?
If you’ve been playing with AI for a while, you may remember that chatbots used to lack object permanence, like a newborn. Up until a couple of years ago, even the best AI models could remember, at best, the last few messages you’d sent them. They had zero recollection of previous conversations.
That means the models need to be able to “remember” things, to put it anthropomorphically. Or, more accurately, the models need to have much longer context windows.
Again, this is bad for anyone who wants a cheap phone or laptop. But it’s great for certain memory chip stocks and ETFs.
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Top 5 memory chip stocks by 1-year returns
Below is a table of the 5 best-performing stocks in the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), the Tuttle Capital Concentrated Memory Stack ETF (HBMX), the Kurv Memory Select ETF (KMEM) and the Tema Memory ETF (DISK), ranked by one-year returns.
The best-performing memory chip stock by one-year return is Sandisk Corp (SNDK), which is up 3150.61%. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Ticker | Company | Performance (Year) | ||
SNDK | Sandisk Corp | 3,150.61% | ||
MU | Micron Technology Inc | 664.33% | ||
WDC | Western Digital Corp | 540.58% | ||
AEHR | Aehr Test Systems | 511.61% | ||
STX | Seagate Technology Holdings Plc | 487.16% | ||
Source: Finviz. Data is current as of August 13, 2026, and is intended for informational purposes only. | ||||
