In the third quarter of 2025, legendary fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller exited his position in a leading AI-infrastructure chipmaker and established a new position in Sandisk, the flash-memory specialist spun out of Western Digital in February 2025. Since that spinoff, Sandisk shares have rallied by over 1,000%, reflecting soaring demand for high-performance NAND flash in data center and AI workloads. Despite this run-up, the stock trades at roughly 170 times forward earnings, a multiple that far exceeds the semiconductor sector average and suggests elevated expectations for continued earnings growth of nearly 80% annually through mid-2029.

Sandisk ranks as the fifth-largest manufacturer of NAND flash memory worldwide, trailing only the major Korean and Japanese players. The company has gained market share during the first half of 2025, driven by a strategic capital-and-R&D alliance with Kioxia and fully vertically integrated manufacturing—from process development and wafer fabrication to device packaging and firmware design. This integration underpins ongoing margin expansion, with gross margins approaching 30%, while two hyperscale cloud providers are already testing Sandisk’s enterprise SSDs and additional partners are slated to begin trials next year.

In recent weeks, several top Wall Street firms have lifted their target prices and ratings on Sandisk. One major broker raised its price objective by more than 60%, while others have increased theirs by between 25% and 85%, contributing to a consensus target implying mid-double-digit upside from current levels. Meanwhile, institutional investors have added sizable new positions during the third quarter, with the largest asset managers committing nearly $2 billion and other global funds allocating hundreds of millions to Sandisk, underscoring growing confidence in the company’s ability to capitalize on the AI-driven memory shortage.