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NAND-based products, including consumer SSDs, could see a sharp rise in the coming weeks. Major suppliers are raising prices to meet the massive demand from artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
The increase in AI data center capacity has brought huge demand for enterprise storage. This surge in demand is causing NAND firms like Western Digital, SanDisk, and Micron to raise prices by up to 30%. Currently, major NAND suppliers have stopped providing price quotes to customers, indicating a widespread price increase across the industry.
Western Digital recently announced changes in the NAND pricing structure. According to a report by DigiTimes, SanDisk is expected to raise prices for NAND products by up to 10%, while Micron could see an even more significant hike of 30%. Although not officially notified yet, this means that consumer-focused NAND products are likely to experience drastic price increases.
AI’s demand for enterprise storage is primarily due to the need for large datasets to train language models (LLMs). While HDDs act as cold storage for raw data, they won’t see as aggressive a price increase as SSDs. Nonetheless, they are still expected to be influenced by this trend.
Interestingly, just last year, the NAND industry was struggling with low profits due to diminished consumer demand.
In summary, the growing AI sector is driving up prices for enterprise storage solutions, particularly SSDs, while HDDs will also see some impact but not as significant.
