Micron in the AI stack

The business and what the filings show

Micron makes DRAM, including the high-bandwidth memory stacked beside every AI accelerator, and NAND flash. Over its latest four quarters its revenue was $133B, +256%, at an 81% gross margin and a 75% operating margin; its DRAM revenue alone was $101B, against $28.6B the year before.

Those are margins the memory industry has rarely reached. HBM takes more manufacturing capacity per bit than ordinary DRAM, so AI demand tightened the whole memory market. Micron spent $30.7B on capex over the same period and reports $134B of remaining performance obligations, a sign of longer customer commitments.

Memory has always been cyclical, and every maker is adding capacity. The question for Micron is whether HBM’s longer contracts and manufacturing difficulty make this cycle different. Gross margin holding up while industry capacity grows would be the evidence; margins falling while AI demand is still rising would say the old cycle is back.

How AI shows up in the numbers

AI shows up at Micron as high-bandwidth memory sold to accelerator makers and as stronger pricing for conventional DRAM and data-center SSDs, because HBM production absorbs capacity that would otherwise make ordinary memory. Micron reports HBM inside its DRAM revenue, so DRAM growth and gross margin together are the best read on how much AI is lifting it.

For scale, Micron’s revenue over the latest four quarters equals 24% of the $566B the five largest buyers spent on capital projects over their latest four quarters. Their capex rose +81% on the year before, while Micron’s revenue grew +256%: faster than the spending, a sign it is capturing a growing share of each capex dollar or selling to buyers beyond the five.

How it talks about AI

In its latest earnings release, furnished to the SEC on September 30, 2026, Micron mentioned AI 4 times in 555 words of narrative text, about 7.2 mentions per 1,000 words. Of its 4 sentences about AI, 0 included a number: a revenue figure, a growth rate, a customer count or another measurable result. Across the 8 releases we read, back to December 18, 2024, AI mentions per 1,000 words went from 5.5 to 7.2.

Specific claims are easier to check against the numbers than general enthusiasm, which is why the share of AI sentences that carry a figure is worth watching alongside how often AI is mentioned. The sentences below are quoted from the release as published, after removing safe-harbor text and company boilerplate.

• “AI is becoming Super Intelligence (SI), and memory enhances this intelligence and the competitiveness of our customers’ platforms.”

Source: earnings release (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1), September 30, 2026.

The trend in the numbers

Since the start of 2023, Micron’s largest quarter by revenue was Q3 2026 at $54.2B, and its highest gross margin was 87% in Q3 2026. The latest quarter set the revenue record for the period.

Quarter by quarter, Micron’s revenue grew +57% in Q4 2025, +196% in Q1 2026, +346% in Q2 2026, +379% in Q3 2026 on the same quarter a year earlier. Growth has been accelerating.

Gross margin in the latest quarter was 87%, against 45% a year earlier, so it is keeping more of each dollar as it grows. Operating margin moved from 32% to 81% over the same span. Over the latest four quarters it turned 67% of its revenue into operating cash flow and spent 23% of revenue on capital projects, against 42% a year earlier.

Segments that matter for AI

The parts of Micron’s reported results most tied to the AI build-out, from the segment and product disclosures in its 10-K and 10-Q filings.

Where it sits in the stack

Micron sits in the memory and storage layer of the AI stack. It is paid by the servers and chips layers; its own spending flows to foundry & tools.

Among the 5 companies in this layer on our map, it ranks first by revenue and first of 5 by revenue growth. Its gross margin of 81% compares with 75% for the layer as a whole, a sign that it keeps more of each dollar than its neighbors. The full layer analysis is on the memory page.

Latest four quarters for 10-Q filers; latest fiscal year for 20-F filers. Companies under $100 million of revenue are left out.

Against the 5 US-listed companies in its layer, Micron grew +256% over the latest year versus +180% for the layer combined, and converted 44% of revenue into free cash flow versus 43% for the layer. It is taking share of the layer’s revenue.

What has to go right, and what could go wrong

What has to go right. High-bandwidth memory has to stay scarce and contracted as the industry adds capacity, so that Micron’s margins hold up through the next round of supply.

What could go wrong. Memory has always reverted: if every maker’s new capacity arrives together, prices could fall even while AI demand grows, and today’s record margins would prove to be a cycle peak.

These describe the conditions the business depends on, as the filings show them. They are not a view on the stock.

Through the lens of Investing in AI

Rob May’s book offers six mental models for telling AI moats from traps. The one most useful for Micron’s layer is “Be careful evaluating AI COGS”: AI margins can improve dramatically as human labor comes out, or deteriorate as inference bites. Some companies reach software-like margins; others stay closer to services. Underwrite the trajectory, not today's margin.

The question it asks of any company is: Why will gross margin be higher in three years, and what could stop it? Applied to Micron, the filings on this page are the place to start: the margin trend shows whether it holds scarce value or passes it through, the customer and financing disclosures show who it depends on, and the commitments show what it has promised before the revenue arrives.

Customers and concentration

US companies must disclose any customer that accounts for 10% or more of revenue, and foreign filers usually describe their largest customers. Concentration matters because a company’s growth is only as durable as the handful of buyers behind it, and in the AI stack those buyers are often the same few companies.

• “No customer accounted for 10% or more of total revenue in 2026.” 10-K, October 9, 2026
• “Revenue from one customer was 17% (primarily included in the CMBU segment) of total revenue for 2025.” 10-K, October 9, 2026

Commitments and backlog

• Backlog. Micron reports $134B of remaining performance obligations, 1.0 times its revenue over the latest four quarters: contracted revenue not yet earned.
• Purchase commitments. $10.8B of unconditional purchase obligations as of September 3, 2026 (10-K): what it has contracted to buy from its own suppliers.

What to watch

Micron’s next quarterly report will cover the quarter ending around December 3, 2026. Large companies must file a 10-Q within 40 days of a quarter’s end and a 10-K within 60 days of the fiscal year’s end, so the new figures should arrive by about February 1, 2027 at the latest. This page, the layer pages and the next quarterly report all update from that filing.

• Gross margin and DRAM revenue each quarter: margin falling while AI demand still grows would be the cycle reasserting itself.
• Industry capex announcements, the classic early sign of a coming memory glut.
• Remaining performance obligations, which show whether customers are signing longer commitments for supply.
• Its place in the next quarterly AI Stack Report, which updates every company on the map from the new filings.

Figures from Micron’s SEC filings, latest period ended September 3, 2026. Other companies: all company pages.