According to Nomura Securities, SanDisk (SNDK.US) anticipates robust demand for server-grade storage in the coming quarters and may double the price of high-capacity 3D NAND memory chips used in enterprise solid-state drives this quarter. SanDisk's stock surged 13% on Friday, triggering a broad rally across other storage product manufacturers. Micron Technology (MU.US) climbed 5.5%, Seagate Technology (STX.US) jumped nearly 7%, and Western Digital (WDC.US) advanced approximately 7%. The report added that it remains unclear to what extent this price increase for high-capacity 3D NAND will affect mainstream flash memory pricing for consumer devices. Analysis indicated: "Channel checks reveal that multiple storage suppliers are persistently pushing for price hikes, with enterprise-grade NAND increases being particularly aggressive. It is suggested that the price for SanDisk's NAND chips used in enterprise SSDs could see a sequential increase potentially exceeding 100% in the March quarter." SanDisk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The report stated that Nomura Securities believes storage suppliers' plans to raise enterprise 3D NAND prices are driven by both short-term supply constraints and medium-term demand growth expectations—a trend largely fueled by artificial intelligence, particularly the transformation of AI storage architectures. The report mentioned that NVIDIA's (NVDA.US) inference context memory and storage platform, based on the BlueField-4 DPU, equipped with 512GB SSDs and KV caching, is cited as a major driver of enterprise storage demand this year. Earlier this week, reports suggested that Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) and SK Hynix plan to increase server memory prices by up to 70% in the first quarter, as surging AI demand disrupts the global supply chain landscape.
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