Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra Was Denied US Visa 3 Times, Now Heads $1 Trillion Firm - NDTV

The case of Micron Technology CEO Sanjay Mehrotra highlights the complex challenges facing international talent mobility in the US semiconductor industry. Despite being denied US visas three times, Me... Read original →

Sanjay Mehrotra’s early visa rejections reveal a critical misalignment between U.S. immigration policy and semiconductor industry realities. At a time when 3nm nodes and EUV lithography demand elite global talent, visa barriers directly erode R&D velocity in advanced packaging and memory stacking. Compliance costs surge as firms relocate high-value roles to Singapore or Taiwan, China—ironically increasing supply chain fragility. TSMC and NVIDIA are already accelerating U.S.-based R&D centers, yet their core process and algorithm teams remain anchored in Asia. Within 12–24 months, Washington will likely be forced to expand STEM green card quotas; otherwise, CHIPS Act incentives will be nullified by talent access constraints. The industry’s true bottleneck has shifted from capital to human capital—and without policy recalibration, even trillion-dollar valuations rest on sand.