With the acceleration of global data center construction, the demand for cloud manufacturers is shifting from training AI to promoting AI, driving the demand for large-capacity memory to continue to rise, which has also led to the tight memory supply situation shifting from DRAM to NAND. Supply chain operators revealed that after SanDisk raised its NAND quotes by 10% last week, Micron also notified its customers that it would suspend all product quotes for one week.
Professionals said that Micron will suspend bidding for channel vendors and OEM/ODM manufacturers starting today, covering DRAM and NAND products, and even neglecting to discuss the long-term contract next year. Supply link information pointed out that after seeing customers' FCST (demand forecast), Micron High-level found that it would face a serious supply shortage, so it urgently suspended the bidding of all products and re-adjusted the subsequent price strategy. The industry also once reported that Micron originally notified the channel merchant that the price of DRAM products rose by 20% to 30%, and the price range not only involves consumer and industrial storage products, but also includes vehicle electronic products, with a growth rate of 70%.
Microtron reflects that the rapid rise of recommended AI services and that large-capacity storage products are undergoing structural changes. Global cloud service operators (CSPs) have achieved a record high, and technology giants such as Google and Oracle have vigorously expanded AI infrastructure and turned to high-efficiency recommended applications, which has led to a significant increase in demand for large-capacity storage products in the market. Industry insiders pointed out that the delivery time for large-capacity HDDs has been scheduled for almost a year, so memory operators have also been very excited about the development of Nearline SSD products, hoping to reduce the price difference between them and HDD from the current 4 to 5 times to about 3 times to improve customer input.
Recently, a huge report from the US foreign investment pointed out that the positive view of NAND industry development and optimistic about entering the AI era, the roles of eSSD and NL (Nearline) SSD have been greatly enhanced. eSSD is expected to become the core storage device for AI training and inference servers, and NL SSD may become an alternative to HDD from 2026 to 2027. The report estimates that the accelerated deployment of AI infrastructure construction may lead to a 2% supply gap in NAND in 2026. Even if NL SSD continues to replace NL HDD market share, it may lead to a 8% NAND supply gap.
In addition to external information reports, domestic suppliers have also been bullish on NAND recently. The most aggressive call recently is Pan Jiancheng, the chief executive of the IC factory group, who pointed out recently that Flash is facing increasing demand, but the situation where the production capacity cannot keep up, may not be used for three times the factory. In 2026, with the explosion of demand for cloud and edge AI, Pan Jiancheng bluntly stated that in 2026, there will be no shortage of supply.
Pan Jiancheng emphasized that in the past two years, high-frequency broad memory (HBM) has been too easy to earn, but NAND has been poorly earned, resulting in a decrease in investment year by year. The future growth rate of production capacity is very limited. In 2026, with the increase in demand for cloud and edge AI, it will fall into a perfect storm, and suppliers will never be able to provide supply. Moreover, starting from August, as large U.S. cloud manufacturers purchased SSDs in large quantities, the original factory's supply was very tight, and coupled with the expanded purchases of Chinese cloud manufacturers, it would become increasingly short of goods. To make money, these GPUs built by cloud operators need to be used and generate data, and the data needs to be pushed up, so the memory supply is tight.
In addition to Pan Jiancheng, Chen Libai, chairman of the memory module manufacturer Weisha, also pointed out that NAND Flash's reduction in production efficiency should continue to ferment, and supply to maintain a stable and healthy environment. In addition, SBT loading capacity is insufficient, and SSD may have a shortage of short-term supply. With the increasing demand for storage of AI data centers and the continuous launch of new consumer electronic products, the expected NAND Flash contract price will continue to rise in the third quarter. On the other hand, the original NAND Flash production is still relatively self-disciplined, making the NAND Flash market expected to maintain a stable and upward trend.