Since its return to the public market in February this year, SanDisk has experienced explosive growth fueled by strong AI-driven demand. Analysts predict its revenue could grow by as much as 76% over the next two years, with its stock performance far outpacing industry averages. The flash memory manufacturer, which spun off from Western Digital, is capitalizing on structural opportunities created by AI's data-intensive workloads and a relatively constrained supply market.

Since the beginning of the year, SanDisk's stock has surged approximately 560%. Recent positive earnings from Micron Technology have further strengthened its upward momentum. The company was officially added to the S&P 500 Index in November last year.

Benchmark Research analyst Mark Miller noted in a recent report that the current high-demand, supply-constrained environment driven by AI is expected to persist beyond 2026. Based on this outlook, the firm maintains a "Buy" rating on SanDisk with a $260 price target and has raised its earnings forecasts for fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

SanDisk's growth prospects highlight the strong pull of AI infrastructure investments on the upstream memory supply chain. Data center and AI-related infrastructure investments are projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2030, providing sustained and expansive market opportunities for SanDisk's high-capacity, energy-efficient SSD products.

**BiCS8 Technology Builds Competitive Edge** While SanDisk's enterprise SSD (eSSD) business is still in its early stages, its BiCS8 technology is gradually establishing differentiated competitiveness. Citi analysts point out that such products, as mainstream flash memory solutions for data centers, will continue to benefit from tight industry-wide supply conditions—particularly the strong demand from hyperscale cloud providers for generative AI training and inference services, which will support long-term eSSD market growth.

In Q1 FY2026, BiCS8 technology accounted for 15% of the company’s total shipped storage capacity and is expected to become the dominant portion of production by the end of the fiscal year. The commercialization of this technology has directly driven data center business growth, with the segment’s revenue reaching $269 million, up 26% quarter-over-quarter. Hyperscale cloud providers, emerging cloud service providers, and OEM customers worldwide are increasingly focusing on BiCS8 products.

Looking ahead, SanDisk’s high-performance SSD product line, Stargate, designed for data centers, is expected to gain further adoption among existing customers. Additionally, the company’s collaboration with SK Hynix on high-bandwidth flash memory technology will provide enhanced storage support for AI inference scenarios in data centers and edge devices.

**PC Upgrade Cycle Boosts Edge Business** Edge business has become a key growth driver for SanDisk. In Q1 FY2026, the segment generated $1.39 billion in revenue, up 26% quarter-over-quarter and 30% year-over-year. The growth was primarily driven by the PC replacement cycle spurred by Windows 11 upgrades, with global PC shipments expected to maintain low single-digit growth from 2025 to 2026, alongside mid-single-digit increases in average storage capacity per device.

Meanwhile, the accelerated adoption of generative AI in PCs and smartphones is opening new growth avenues for SanDisk. Smartphone average storage capacity is projected to grow at a high single-digit rate over the next two years. The company anticipates that as device upgrade cycles accelerate, edge business will continue expanding, further driving higher NAND storage adoption per device.

Consumer business also performed strongly, with Q1 sales reaching $652 million, up 27% year-over-year and 11% quarter-over-quarter. Growth was largely attributed to its partnership with Nintendo—the co-branded Switch 2 microSD Express cards sold 900,000 units in Q1. Additionally, SanDisk recently launched dedicated storage cards for ROG Ally and Xbox, further solidifying its competitiveness in the gaming storage market.