AI Chip Stocks Rally as U.S.-Iran Talks Ease; Micron Tops $1T

AI chip and related technology stocks rose on Friday after signs of progress in U.S.-Iran diplomacy reduced investor risk appetite. The S&P 500 climbed 0.6% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.1%, both reaching intraday highs; the Dow Jones Industrial Average remained near flat. Traders reacted to President Donald Trump telling reporters talks were ‘proceeding nicely’ while warning the U.S. could act if negotiations failed. The Pentagon confirmed U.S. forces carried out what it described as ‘self defense’ strikes in southern Iran targeting missile launch sites and naval units accused of attempting to place mines.

Micron led gains with a roughly 17% increase that pushed its market capitalization above $1 trillion. UBS analysts wrote the stock could more than double from current levels, citing long-term supply agreements and tightening memory markets. Qualcomm rose about 6% after expanding its partnership with automaker Stellantis on Snapdragon Digital Chassis systems. Advanced Micro Devices climbed nearly 5% after CEO Lisa Su noted the company is working with Taiwanese partners to boost production capacity for AI demand. Intel and other chip suppliers, including Arm Holdings, Lattice Semiconductor and Marvell Technology, also posted gains.

Memory and storage firms advanced. Western Digital increased about 8% and Seagate Technology gained roughly 3%. The Roundhill Memory ETF rose about 12%, reflecting interest in high-bandwidth memory and server storage for AI workloads.

Nvidia remained central to the AI infrastructure theme. CEO Jensen Huang highlighted a potential $200 billion CPU opportunity and described Nvidia’s new ‘Vera’ CPU architecture as opening access to a new addressable market beyond GPUs. The company has expanded its product scope to cover processors, networking, software and computing platforms used by hyperscale cloud providers and enterprises.

Market participants pointed to supply constraints, rising deployment of AI servers and increasing demand for high-bandwidth memory as factors affecting the semiconductor sector this year. With hopes for de-escalation in the Middle East, investors moved back into technology and AI names, helping push broader market indexes to intraday records.