According to a report published by Citigroup, continuous learning and AI reasoning will drive a sharp increase in demand for eSSD chips. The bank predicts a 52.9% year-on-year increase next year, and overall SSD demand is expected to rise 45%. The bank expects QLC demand to rise significantly, mainly driven by the recent increase in GPU storage adoption and rising demand for AI data centers in China. The bank believes that strong corporate AI demand should offset weaker consumer NAND demand. As memory manufacturers prioritize expanding DRAM/HBM production capacity over NAND, NAND supply and demand conditions should tighten significantly, leading to 6.1% and 5.5% shortages in the next two years. The bank reiterated its “buy” rating for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as both are well-positioned to benefit from tightening NAND fundamentals and growing demand for AI-driven structured memory.

According to a report published by Citigroup, continuous learning and AI reasoning will drive a sharp increase in demand for eSSD chips. The bank predicts a 52.9% year-on-year increase next year, and overall SSD demand is expected to rise 45%. The bank expects QLC demand to rise significantly, mainly driven by the recent increase in GPU storage adoption and rising demand for AI data centers in China. The bank believes that strong corporate AI demand should offset weaker consumer NAND demand. As memory manufacturers prioritize expanding DRAM/HBM production capacity over NAND, NAND supply and demand conditions should tighten significantly, leading to 6.1% and 5.5% shortages in the next two years. The bank reiterated its “buy” rating for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as both are well-positioned to benefit from tightening NAND fundamentals and growing demand for AI-driven structured memory.