CES detonates memory chip market: Huang Renxun says AI storage demand is “unprecedented” Sandisk (SNDK.US) surged 47% in three days

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Nvidia CEO Huang Renxun's remarks once again ignited enthusiasm for growing storage stocks. On Tuesday, Sandisk Corp. (SNDK.US) shares surged 28%, the best single-day performance since February last year. The stock surged more than 47% in the first three trading days of 2026. Since hitting a low point on April 22 last year, the increase has reached an astonishing 1080%. On the same day, the company became the best-performing constituent stock in the S&P 500 index, and other storage companies such as Western Digital (WDC.US) and Seagate (STX.US) also recorded double-digit gains, which followed.

The catalyst for the market came from Hwang In-hoon's statement at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).” “As far as storage is concerned, this is a completely unsatisfied market,” he said on Monday. “This is an unprecedented market, and is likely to become the world's largest storage market, essentially carrying the working memory of global AI.”

Analyst Jack Silverman pointed out that against the backdrop of growing demand for artificial intelligence training and inference, tight supply and soaring memory chip prices are driving digital storage stocks stronger. Hwang In-hoon's remarks at CES “indicate that demand for NAND storage will remain strong in NVIDIA's systems”.

The price of memory chips continues to rise. Earlier this week, the Korea Economic Daily reported that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are seeking to increase server DRAM prices by 60% to 70% in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter of last year.

Bank of America analyst Wamsey Mohan wrote in a January 4 customer report that Sandisk and other storage companies are seen as “core beneficiaries” of the development of “AI inference and edge AI” in 2026. Mohan anticipates that agencies will retain increasing amounts of data for training, analysis, and compliance purposes, and demand for storage will “skyrocket at the same time.” He specifically mentioned the growth of applications in fields such as drones, surveillance, automotive, and sports technology.

“Until now, the focus of AI investment topics has been on capital expenditure and driving AI model training, which has spawned the next wave of hardware spending,” Mohan wrote. “Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, we expect AI reasoning to dominate.”