Tom Lee highlights Intel and Micron as key plays on automation and the labor shortage

Tom Lee is making a straightforward argument: the world is running out of skilled workers, machines will fill the gap, and the chips powering those machines have to come from somewhere. His picks for where investors should look are Intel and Micron Technology. Lee, the managing partner and head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, has framed both semiconductor names as long-term structural plays rather than near-term momentum trades. The thesis rests on three interlocking forces: accelerating automation adoption, AI infrastructure buildout, and a manufacturing labor shortage that is getting worse before it gets better. The bottleneck thesis Lee has specifically described Micron as a “bottleneck” stock, a term he coined to capture companies that sit at a critical chokepoint in the AI supply chain but trade at valuations that haven’t caught up with their strategic importance. As of mid-2026, Micron was trading at roughly 4.8 to 7 times forward earnings, a discount that Lee argues is disconnected from its role in supplying the high-bandwidth memory that large language models and AI accelerators depend on. Recent Micron earnings reflected robust AI-driven demand for its memory pro...