“Why the iShares Semiconductor ETF Rallied 12% in January”
February 17, 2026
“…The move likely has to do with the AI buildout migrating from the training stage to deploying more infrastructure for inference, which is essentially the use of AI models in everyday tasks. That appears to have reignited demand for traditional DRAM, NAND flash, and hard disk drives for local storage, as well as for enterprise CPUs to deploy the models, orchestrate traffic, and enable machines to talk to one another.
During the quarter, forecasts for both DRAM and NAND flash pricing skyrocketed. In fact, the price of traditional DRAM is expected to increase by 90% to 95% compared with the prior quarter, while NAND flash is projected to surge by 55% to 60%, according to Trendforce…”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-ishares-semiconductor-etf-rallied-125000892.html