Kioxia to Start Volume Production of AI NAND with PCIe 6.0 and UFS 5.0 in 2026

Japan's Kioxia, one of the world's largest NAND flash makers, plans to begin volume production in 2026 of next-generation storage positioned specifically for the AI market, according to Sina Finance.

What will Kioxia release in 2026?

The company is preparing two standards for mass production: PCIe 6.0 (PCI Express 6.0) and UFS 5.0 (Universal Flash Storage 5.0). Both products target AI applications, which is a meaningful signal: Kioxia no longer treats NAND as merely a storage tool, but as part of AI infrastructure.

PCIe 6.0 is designed for server platforms and high-performance workstations, where AI inference demands maximum bandwidth between the drive and the processor. UFS 5.0 is the next-generation standard for the mobile and embedded segment: smartphones with neural accelerators (NPUs) and Edge AI systems that process tasks without the cloud.

• PCIe 6.0 — server and desktop AI segment
• UFS 5.0 — mobile and Edge AI devices
• Both standards: volume production in 2026
• Positioning — "next-generation AI NAND," according to Sina Finance

Why has NAND become part of the AI race?

The performance of AI systems depends on more than compute chips. When running large language models, a significant part of the cycle goes to loading model weights from the drive into RAM, the so-called storage bottleneck. The higher the NAND bandwidth, the lower the time to first token and the higher the overall speed of AI responses.

PCIe 6.0 doubles bus bandwidth compared with PCIe 5.0, from 32 to 64 gigatransfers per second per lane. This directly eases the bottleneck between the drive and the GPU. That is why memory chip makers are moving into the AI ecosystem alongside GPU developers and networking vendors.

"Kioxia has set its sights on the next-generation AI NAND market," according to a company statement published by

Sina Finance.

Who is Kioxia

Kioxia is a Japanese flash memory maker, formed in 2018 from Toshiba's memory division and renamed in 2019. The company is one of the five largest NAND suppliers in the world, alongside Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron and Western Digital; its production is concentrated at plants in Yokkaichi, Japan. In 2023, Kioxia held an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Amid the AI boom, all leading NAND manufacturers are accelerating development of high-speed next-generation solutions: competition for AI infrastructure now extends beyond GPUs to the data storage layer.

What this means

Kioxia's volume production of PCIe 6.0 and UFS 5.0 in 2026 means the AI memory market is moving from announcements to actual shipments. NAND makers are joining the AI ecosystem alongside GPU companies, and the choice of drive is becoming part of the architectural decision when building AI systems, both server-side and mobile.