Memory chip maker Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) reported that for the fiscal quarter ending September 3, revenue nearly quintupled to $54.2 billion, driven by persistently red-hot demand for the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) needed for AI chips.

Thanks to product price increases, Micron Technology's gross margin nearly doubled to 86.8%; free cash flow for the quarter reached as high as $33 billion, compared with about $17.5 billion in the prior fiscal quarter.

That free cash flow figure has already surpassed the $32 billion Apple reported in its quarter ending in July, and is also well above the cash level in Nvidia's latest financial report.

At high-bandwidth memory manufacturers including Micron Technology, product orders are already booked into next year. The real test will come several years from now — the long-term supply agreements that Micron Technology signed this year with major cloud service providers and other customers will expire by then.

Even so, for the foreseeable future, these agreements have already ensured that memory companies will earn steady profits. The three leading HBM suppliers are also spurring demand for their own products through investment, with all three participating in Anthropic's latest funding round.

Micron Technology's bumper harvest, however, has brought pressure on almost every other company. According to The Information, Nvidia has already tested a reduced-memory version of its next-generation Rubin Ultra chip; affected by factors including rising memory chip costs, the price of Nvidia's entire new-generation chip product lineup has risen by about 17%.

Meta's and Apple's consumer hardware likewise purchases memory chips from manufacturers such as Micron Technology, and both companies have also indicated that part of their cost increases stems from higher memory chip prices.