Kioxia and Sandisk to Invest Over $31 Billion in Japan, Extending Leadership in Memory Industry
Continued investments through 2032 will further strengthen the companies' long-standing joint venture and drive meaningful, multi-year flash memory-supply Investments align with economic policy goals of Japanese government and reflect strong US - Japan relations
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on September 15, 2026 at 2:01 pmKioxia Corp., a subsidiary of Kioxia Holdings Corporation, and Sandisk Corp. announced anticipated significant investments in Japan, totaling over $31 billion (approximately 5 trillion yen) contingent upon government support.
The investments through 2032 will continue to strengthen the Kioxia and Sandisk partnership, one of the most successful joint ventures across any industry. The partnership has helped drive decades of NAND flash memory innovation and invested over $50 billion (approximately 9 trillion yen) in Japan over the past 25 years. Kioxia and Sandisk will continue to deliver leading technology to support the growing demands of an AI and a data-driven world.
Aligned with market trends, these investments will support the ongoing buildout of infrastructure at the Yokkaichi Plant and the Kitakami Plant, along with related infrastructure, technology. Kioxia and Sandisk each has committed to drive meaningful, multi-year bit growth and ensuring stable supply to address the strong demand for their innovative flash memory technology. In line with these commitments, the announced investments are intended to fuel the joint venture’s long-term success and ability to deliver leading-edge flash memory innovations at scale and with stability.
“This joint investment further strengthens our longstanding partnership with Sandisk and underscores Kioxia’s strong commitment to contributing to the advancement of an AI-driven society,” said Hiroo Ota, president and CEO, Kioxia. “Kioxia will continue to meet growing demand for high-capacity, high-performance, and power-efficient flash memory, which is essential to the growth of an AI-driven society. We sincerely appreciate the support of the Japanese government to date and recognize the importance of its continued strategic support in maintaining further strengthening our global competitiveness.”
“For decades, Sandisk and Kioxia have jointly developed world-class NAND flash memory technology,” said David Goeckeler, chairman and CEO, Sandisk Corporation. “In line with our business strategy and financial guidance, these planned investments will ensure our ability to support our customer’s increasing demands for our technology, while providing new economic opportunities for the communities we operate in and serving as a premier example of US-Japan economic collaboration.”
These investments are aligned with economic policy goals of Takaichi administration, supporting a strategically important sector with the expansion of advanced manufacturing for cutting-edge semiconductor technologies.
In January, Kioxia and Sandisk announced the extension of their joint venture framework at Kioxia’s Yokkaichi Plant through December 2034. Through the joint venture, which has spanned more than 25 years, Kioxia and Sandisk collaborate in the development and manufacturing of flash-based memory wafers. This announcement reflects the strength of the longstanding partnership and its ability to leverage AI-enabled smart manufacturing at scale to ensure stable production of advanced 3D flash memory.
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Kioxia and Sandisk share one of the longest and probably most strategic partnerships in the flash memory industry. Their joint venture goes back roughly 25 years, centered on the co-development and manufacturing of NAND flash memory, and survived several major corporate transformations, including Western Digital’s acquisition of Sandisk. The story originally started with Toshiba Memory, renamed Kioxia in 2019. Some of us remember the announcement around FMS 2019, with the new identity becoming effective just a few weeks later.
In this long trajectory, 2026 clearly stands out as another pivotal year, with three major developments. In January, Kioxia and Sandisk extended their joint venture agreements for the Yokkaichi and Kitakami manufacturing facilities through December 31, 2034, accompanied by a $1.165B manufacturing services payment from Sandisk to Kioxia. In July, they started production of 10th-generation 3D flash memory using CBA technology at Kitakami Fab2. And in August came the biggest announcement: more than $31B of planned investment in Japan through 2032 to dramatically expand flash production capacity, largely driven by the AI infrastructure boom.
The number is massive, but perhaps not so surprising when we consider the current market dynamics. Kioxia and Sandisk have already invested more than $50B in Japan during their 25-year partnership, building one of the world's most important flash manufacturing ecosystems. The new investment will continue the expansion of Yokkaichi and Kitakami and confirms that neither company intends to remain conservative while AI reshapes memory and storage demand.
A significant part of the plan is also expected to support a new Fab3 at Kitakami, representing an estimated investment of around $11.3B, with operations not expected before 2029. Production would reportedly be split approximately 60% for Kioxia and 40% for Sandisk. This allocation is particularly interesting as both companies remain independent competitors while continuing to share some of the most capital-intensive elements of flash manufacturing.
And this is probably the key point. Building leading-edge NAND fabs has become so expensive that even major memory vendors have to carefully balance independence, technology differentiation and manufacturing economics. Kioxia and Sandisk have demonstrated for 25 years that such a model can work, even through acquisitions, corporate separations, market downturns and technology transitions.
The timing is also critical. AI has changed the memory equation, generating huge demand while putting pressure on available capacity, technology roadmaps and, obviously, pricing. After years during which NAND vendors suffered from oversupply and brutal price erosion, the industry is entering a very different investment cycle.
There is also a geopolitical dimension. The announcement reinforces the growing technology and semiconductor alignment between Japan and the US, with flash memory becoming another strategic component alongside processors, accelerators and HBM. Remember that Sandisk has started an initiative with SK hynix for HBF, High Bandwidth Flash.
So the obvious question is what comes next. Samsung, SK hynix and Micron cannot ignore investments of this magnitude. Will they respond with similarly gigantic capacity programs, new partnerships or different manufacturing strategies? The flash industry has always been extremely capital intensive, but the AI wave is pushing the game to another level. The next few years could trigger an investment race we haven't seen in NAND for a long time.
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