KIOXIA America, Inc. today announced the development of its new LC9 Series 122.88 terabyte (TB) capacity NVMe SSD in a 2.5-inch form factor - the first SSD built with the company's BiCS FLASH generation 8 3D flash memory technology QLC 2 terabit (Tb) die.

As AI systems become increasingly sophisticated, and data volumes continue to grow, enterprises require storage solutions that can keep pace with the complex demands of modern workloads. High-capacity drives are critical for certain phases of the AI process, including large language models (LLMs), training and storing vast datasets, vector databases and the rapid retrieval of information for inference and fine-tuning. Designed for generative AI applications, the new enterprise-class KIOXIA drive is built for capacity and provides a PCIe 5.0 interface and dual-port capability for fault tolerance or connectivity to multiple compute systems. These high-capacity QLC-based SSDs are suitable for deploying in hybrid cloud and multi-cloud systems. High-capacity SSDs feed training and inference data to AI server systems via these cloud configurations.The new KIOXIA SSD complements the recently announced KIOXIA AiSAQ technology, which enhances scalable RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) performance by storing vector database elements on SSDs instead of costly, limited DRAM. Additionally, it improves system and rack-level efficiency with higher storage density and lower power consumption per TB compared to lower-capacity SSDs.

"As AI adoption accelerates and larger LLMs and vector databases become more prevalent, the need for high-capacity SSD storage is surging," commented Gregory Wong, founder and principal analyst, Forward Insights. "Advanced storage solutions such as KIOXIA's LC9 Series 122.88 TB SSD will be critical in supporting the growing computational needs of AI models, enabling greater efficiency and innovation."

KIOXIA LC9 Series SSD highlights include:

• Dual-port 2.5-inch SSD form factor, 122.88 TB capacity, 0.3 DWPD endurance.
• NVMe 2.0, NVMe-MI and PCIe 5.0 specification-compliant (up to 128 gigatransfers per second Gen 5 1x4, 2x2 performance capable).
• Features KIOXIA 2 Tb QLC BiCS FLASH generation 8 3D flash memory with CBA (CMOS directly Bonded to Array) technology.

"AI workloads are pushing the boundaries of data storage, demanding higher capacities and faster access to vast datasets that reside in today's data lakes," said Neville Ichhaporia, senior vice president and general manager of the SSD business unit at KIOXIA America, Inc. "The new LC9 Series NVMe SSD from KIOXIA can accelerate AI model training, inference, and RAG at scale."

The KIOXIA LC9 Series SSD will be showcased at an upcoming conference.