Who is Sanjay Mehrotra, the Indian-American who shaped semiconductor giant Micron?

Micron Technology is riding the global AI boom, emerging as one of the biggest beneficiaries of rising demand for advanced memory chips. At the top of this semiconductor giant is Sanjay Mehrotra, an Indian-origin CEO whose journey is as remarkable as Micron’s rise from being rejected three times for a US student visa to leading a company powering the next generation of artificial intelligence.

Early life of Sanjay Mehrotra

Born in Kanpur and raised in Delhi, Sanjay Mehrotra reportedly faced rejection three times while applying for a US student visa during the 1970s. Despite repeated setbacks, he eventually moved to the United States to pursue higher education, a turning point that would shape one of the most remarkable success stories in the technology sector.

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Success after struggle

In 2017, Mehrotra took charge as CEO of Micron, one of the world’s leading memory and storage chip manufacturers. Under his leadership, Micron has emerged as a key player in the booming artificial intelligence industry, standing alongside technology giants led by Indian-origin executives such as Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai and has accelerated the company’s focus on next-generation computing technologies, particularly artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure. 

Mehrotra’s journey in Silicon Valley began after he co-founded SanDisk in 1998, which played a major role in making flash storage technology mainstream worldwide. SanDisk later became one of the most recognised consumer memory brands before being acquired by Western Digital in a multi-billion-dollar deal.

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Micron global leader in the AI boom

As global demand for AI infrastructure rises sharply, memory chips have become critical for running advanced AI systems, cloud computing platforms, autonomous technologies and high-performance data centres. Micron has benefited significantly from this AI-driven expansion. The company produces advanced DRAM and NAND flash memory chips used in AI servers, smartphones and enterprise computing systems.

Investors have increasingly viewed Micron as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the global AI race, helping strengthen the company’s market position in the semiconductor sector.

Micron's footprint in India

He has also expanded Micron’s footprint in India. The company is developing a semiconductor assembly and testing facility in Sanand, Gujarat, one of India’s biggest chip manufacturing investments. Earlier this year, Mehrotra said the plant could eventually produce “multiple hundreds of millions of chips annually,” underlining India’s growing importance in the global semiconductor supply chain.