Kioxia develops flash and CXL products to reduce AI data center reliance on DRAM

Kioxia is developing flash memory products designed to help data centers reduce their dependence on costly DRAM as AI workloads require more memory. Its approach combines faster NAND with interfaces designed for demanding AI systems.

The company is showcasing its GP1 Series PCIe 6.0 NVMe SSDs, which are designed for high input and output operations in AI infrastructure. The drives support direct communication between GPUs and storage. Kioxia is also exhibiting its CM10 Series enterprise SSDs and NX1 Series data center drives, which support liquid cooling. CM10 uses Kioxia’s tenth-generation BiCS FLASH technology, while NX1 has an E1.S design with PCIe 5.0 connectivity.

Kioxia’s XL1 Series is a CXL-compatible memory expansion module built on XL FLASH technology. The company says that combining high-speed NAND with a CXL controller module reduces data-read latency to less than one-tenth that of conventional NAND products.

Kioxia says replacing part of a system’s DRAM with CXL modules can double memory capacity while improving performance by 30%. However, NAND remains slower than DRAM, so the company’s strategy is to supplement existing memory rather than eliminate DRAM.

Evaluation units are scheduled for delivery to technology partners during August 2026. Kioxia plans to discuss the technologies at FMS 2026 in Santa Clara, California, through presentations, technical sessions and live demonstrations.