Apple wants banned Chinese chips — memory suppliers like Micron have all the pricing power right now
Apple is asking the government for special permission to buy cheaper memory chips from Chinese companies that are currently blacklisted. This comes at a time when the big tech giants are losing value over AI spending concerns, while the companies that actually supply the physical chips (like Micron) have been the best-performing stocks of the quarter.
Idea
The Bloomberg Brief reveals that Apple is appealing to the Trump administration to buy memory chips from blacklisted Chinese firms, signaling a massive, desperate demand for memory chips. Simultaneously, we know the Mag 7 shed $2.3 trillion in June due to AI spending scrutiny, but CNBC reports that investors funneled $2 trillion into chip suppliers like Micron instead. With Apple starved for supply and capital rotating away from software giants into hardware suppliers, Micron represents the strongest pure-play intersection of these two massive macro trends.
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News sources
- Magnificent Seven shed $2.3 trillion in June as AI spending comes under closer scrutiny (MSFT) — Yahoo Finance
- Tech Stocks Fall Ahead of US Payrolls; Apple, OpenAI Bid with Government | Bloomberg Brief 7/2/2026 — Bloomberg
- Record chip rally adds $2 trillion in combined value to Micron, Intel and AMD in second quarter — CNBC