华尔街见闻·2026-01-07 12:43Core Viewpoint - The storage sector, seen as the "AI working memory," is undergoing an unprecedented value reassessment as the AI wave shifts from training to large-scale inference applications [1] Group 1: Market Dynamics - U.S. stock market storage concept stocks surged, with SanDisk rising by 27.56%, Western Digital by 16.77%, and Seagate by 14.00%, following NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's remarks at CES about the untapped storage market [2] - Huang emphasized that the storage market could become the largest globally, essential for supporting AI's working memory, and NVIDIA showcased a new storage platform promising five times the efficiency of traditional platforms [2] - Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Wamsi Mohan noted that 2026 will be a turning point for enterprise and edge AI, with exponential data generation driving hardware spending cycles [2][3] Group 2: Data Explosion and Storage Needs - IDC forecasts global annual data generation will soar from 173 ZB in 2024 to 527 ZB by 2029, a more than twofold increase with a compound annual growth rate of approximately 25% [5] - The rise of multimodal AI, which processes and generates unstructured data like images and videos, necessitates significant storage capacity and speed, transforming storage from a passive tool to an active participant in AI workflows [7] Group 3: Opportunities for HDD and SSD Manufacturers - Mechanical hard drives (HDDs) maintain an irreplaceable position in mass data storage due to cost advantages and capacity density, with increased demand from multimodal AI driving HDD shipments and pushing customers towards higher-capacity drives [9] - Seagate and Western Digital are positioned to benefit from this trend, with technologies like Seagate's HAMR and Western Digital's UltraSMR aimed at maximizing single-disk capacity and efficiency [11] - The demand for high-performance SSDs is rising as modern AI systems require extensive random I/O and write operations for tasks like storing prompts and feedback labels [11] Group 4: Edge AI and Flash Storage - Edge AI is rapidly penetrating devices like smartphones and PCs, creating a significant growth opportunity for companies like SanDisk, which specializes in high-performance flash storage [10][14] - The need for low-latency and high-reliability storage in edge AI applications is driving a shift from low-end to high-performance UFS and NVMe interfaces [14] - Major players like Apple, Dell, and HP are expected to benefit from the demand for "AI PCs," with Gartner predicting that AI PCs will account for 43% of all PC shipments by 2025 [14] Group 5: Price Trends and Market Outlook - The surge in demand for storage, coupled with supply constraints, is driving prices up, with reports indicating that Samsung and SK Hynix are seeking to raise server DRAM prices by 60% to 70% in Q1 [12] - The IT industry is entering a "hardware renaissance," with hardware spending as a growing revenue share since 2022, benefiting not only NVIDIA but also storage manufacturers and connectivity providers [12]