Kioxia Unveils Industry’s First 245 TB NVMe SSD For AI Workloads

KUALA LUMPUR, July 22 (Bernama) -- Kioxia Corporation, a global leader in memory and storage solutions, has announced a major leap in enterprise storage with the launch of the industry’s first 245.76 terabyte (TB) NVMe solid-state drive (SSD).

According to a statement, the new high-capacity model expands its KIOXIA LC9 Series, available in both 2.5-inch and EDSFF E3.L form factors, and is tailored for the demanding requirements of generative artificial intelligence (AI) environments.

This milestone follows Kioxia’s earlier release of a 122.88 TB model and underscores the company’s commitment to scaling storage for next-gen workloads like large language model (LLM) training, vector databases, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).

The LC9 Series leverages BiCS FLASH QLC 3D memory and CMOS directly Bonded to Array (CBA) technology, stacking 32 dies of two terabit flash per chip. This innovative design achieves eight TB per BGA package, another industry first, enabled by advanced wafer processing and bonding techniques.

Designed for PCIe 5.0 and NVMe 2.0, the LC9 SSDs offer substantial improvements in speed, power efficiency, and density. By replacing multiple hard disc drives (HDDs) in high-performance data centres, the drives reduce power draw, cooling needs, and slot usage—ultimately improving total cost of ownership (TCO) for operators managing massive data lakes and AI pipelines.

To enhance drive endurance, the series supports Flexible Data Placement (FDP), which helps reduce write amplification.

On the security front, it includes multiple options such as Sanitise Instant Erase (SIE), Self-Encrypting Drive (SED), FIPS-compliant SED, and CNSA 2.0 algorithms designed with future quantum-safe encryption in mind. Additionally, the LC9 Series aligns with Open Compute Project (OCP) standards for datacentre SSDs.

The drives are now sampling to select customers and will be featured at the Future of Memory and Storage 2025 conference, taking place Aug 5 to 7 in Santa Clara, California.

-- BERNAMA