Enterprise SSDs now consume 48% of global NAND flash supply

NAND May Cry: AI data centers and hyperscale operations are coming for everyone's NAND chips - and then some. In fact, the manufacturing industry is already realigning much of its production capacity around the needs of Big Tech and AI startups looking to sell chatbot-like experiences to subscribers. A recent study by Counterpoint Research highlights the seismic shift the NAND flash industry is undergoing because of generative AI and chatbot services. While AI training workloads are increasingly being replaced by inference tasks, enterprise SSDs are consuming around half of the world's entire NAND supply. Enterprise SSDs include high-performance storage units used in data centers and AI hyperscale facilities. During the second quarter of the year, these types of solid-state storage products accounted for 48% of global NAND shipments. Enterprise shipments nearly doubled compared to 2025, when they accounted for 26%, and are expected to grow even further over the next few months. SSDs are now in high demand for AI operations, as Big Tech looks to leverage high-capacity, high-performance storage solutions to cache the massive datasets required for AI inference workloads. Needless to say, this shift is having a significant impact on companies manufacturing NAND flash chips and the eSSDs they are ultimately used to power. Counterpoint said Samsung retained its position as the largest NAND flash maker, with a 25% market share, while SK Hynix came second with a 22% share. The Korean device manufacturer benefited from a 40% year-over-year increase in shipments from its subsidiary Solidigm and is now looking to grow its enterprise NAND business even further. Chinese maker Yangtze Memory Technologies saw a 22% increase in shipments, capturing 14% of the NAND flash market. YMTC is currently expanding its domestic operations thanks to its in-house manufacturing capabilities, producing 267-layer 3D NAND chips based on its proprietary Xtacking technology. Kioxia ranked third with 14% of NAND shipments, while Micron and SanDisk followed with 13% and 11% of the market, respectively. However, Counterpoint warns that shipment volumes don't necessarily translate into actual revenue. While YMTC ranked third in terms of chip shipments, it was only fifth in terms of revenue, behind Micron and Kioxia. The Chinese corporation can currently benefit from the global chip shortage but is still manufacturing a mix of consumer and enterprise solid-state products. Like everyone else in the industry, YMTC is eventually expected to focus much of its upcoming production on eSSDs as it seeks to capitalize on the AI-driven spending boom.