Industry research firm TrendSpec Analytics projects global AI data center capacity to grow by 45% in 2026, driving storage intensity—the amount of SSD storage per server—to rise from 8TB to 12TB on average. Sandisk, leveraging its production facilities in Malaysia and China, is ramping up output by 35% to meet enterprise orders, with shipment volumes expected to exceed 18 million units in 2026. Capital budgets at hyperscale operators are increasing by 20% year-over-year for high-end NVMe SSDs, and Sandisk’s new controller architecture promises a 30% improvement in IOPS/Watt, positioning the company to capture significant market share in performance-sensitive AI workloads.

At the CES 2026 keynote, Sandisk unveiled its rebranded ‘Optimus’ series—successor to the WD_Black family—with capacities ranging from 1TB to 8TB and sequential read speeds up to 7,500 MB/s. The lineup features proprietary thermal management and predictive failure analytics, validated in endurance tests exceeding 3,000 terabytes written (TBW) per drive. Pre-orders opened immediately, with enterprise configurations starting at $129 for 1TB. Following the announcement, Sandisk shares rallied over 23% in early trading, reflecting strong investor confidence in the new brand and its potential to secure contracts with cloud providers and gaming OEMs.