--- title: "Morgan Stanley Comments on Kioxia's BiCS-10 Mass Production: A Key Step in AI Storage Upgrades" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/291825708.md" description: "Kioxia and Sandisk announced the mass production of BiCS-10 NAND flash memory, with Morgan Stanley maintaining an Overweight rating. Analysts pointed out that BiCS-10 offers significant performance improvements and is designed specifically for AI data centers, helping to enhance medium-to-long-term competitiveness; however, short-term earnings growth still relies on the previous-generation BiCS-8 products" datetime: "2026-07-06T15:57:45.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/291825708.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/291825708.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/291825708.md) --- # Morgan Stanley Comments on Kioxia's BiCS-10 Mass Production: A Key Step in AI Storage Upgrades Kioxia has initiated the mass production cycle for its next-generation NAND flash memory technology, laying a critical technological foundation for competing in the data center storage market in the AI era. On July 3, Kioxia and Sandisk jointly announced the official start of BiCS-10 NAND flash mass production at the K2 wafer fab in Kitakami, and began providing samples of 1Tb TLC products based on this technology to customers. Morgan Stanley subsequently released a research report, maintaining an "Overweight" rating for Kioxia with a target price of 110,000 yen. Analysts believe that **the official mass production of BiCS-10 signifies that the company's next-generation enterprise SSD products have entered the commercialization phase, which is expected to further strengthen its competitiveness in the AI data center and enterprise storage markets.** However, Morgan Stanley also noted that over the next year or so, the company's earnings growth will still primarily depend on the previous-generation BiCS-8 products. **The true value of BiCS-10 is more reflected in the medium to long term—its commercialization progress will determine whether Kioxia can successfully increase the proportion of its data center and enterprise businesses, thereby achieving an upgrade in its product structure.** ## Comprehensive Performance Upgrade for BiCS-10, Designed for SSDs in the AI Era Compared to the previous-generation BiCS-8, BiCS-10 achieves significant improvements in performance, capacity, and energy efficiency. Specifically, the interface speed has increased from 3.6Gbps to 4.8Gbps, a rise of approximately 33%; bit density per unit area has improved by 59%; write energy efficiency has increased by 18%, and read energy efficiency by 30%. **More importantly, BiCS-10 was designed from the outset to meet the demands of next-generation AI servers**, supporting PCIe Gen6 and Gen7 SSDs, and providing the high bandwidth and high throughput storage required for large model training and AI inference. Kioxia stated that the first batch of mass-produced 1Tb TLC products will be initially applied to high-performance enterprise SSDs, including the CM series. This series is mainly targeted at the data center market, featuring high throughput and low latency, and supports the KV Cache (Key-Value Cache) architecture, serving as high-speed cache storage within the AI memory hierarchy. The K2 wafer fab, responsible for mass production, commenced operations in September 2025 and previously mainly produced BiCS-8 products. With the introduction of BiCS-10, Kioxia and Sandisk plan to further expand the capacity of this factory. ## Short-Term Growth Still Relies on BiCS-8, While BiCS-10 Determines Medium-to-Long-Term Competitiveness Morgan Stanley believes that the market should not view BiCS-10 as a short-term driver of earnings. The report forecasts that **by the end of March 2027, BiCS-8 products will account for approximately 80% of Kioxia's total GB shipments.** Thanks to more advanced planar shrinkage processes, CMOS Direct Bonded to Array (CBA) technology, and higher stacking layers, BiCS-8 will remain the primary source of the company's revenue growth and unit cost reduction over the next year or more. In contrast, BiCS-10 assumes the task of medium-to-long-term product upgrades. Currently, data center and enterprise products account for approximately 30% to 40% of Kioxia's revenue. The company aims to increase this proportion to over 60%, and Morgan Stanley believes that **whether this strategic goal can be achieved largely depends on whether BiCS-10 can successfully complete customer certification, achieve scale shipments, and drive the continuous volume ramp-up of high-end SSD products.** Therefore, the key focus of market attention in the future will be on the progress of BiCS-10 customer validation and the pace of capacity expansion at the K2 wafer fab. Risk Warning and Disclaimer The market carries risks, and investment requires caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice, nor does it take into account the specific investment objectives, financial status, or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article are suitable for their specific circumstances. Investment decisions made based on this content are the sole responsibility of the investor. ### Related Stocks - [SNDK.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/SNDK.US.md) - [KXIAY.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/KXIAY.US.md) - [SNDG.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/SNDG.US.md) - [SNDQ.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/SNDQ.US.md) - [SNDU.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/SNDU.US.md) - [SNXX.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/SNXX.US.md) - [MS.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS.US.md) - [MS-O.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-O.US.md) - [MS-Q.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-Q.US.md) - [MS-E.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-E.US.md) - [MS-I.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-I.US.md) - [MS-L.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-L.US.md) - [MS-P.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-P.US.md) - [MS-A.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-A.US.md) - [MS-F.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-F.US.md) - [MS-K.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MS-K.US.md) ## Related News & Research - ['Prepare for What's Coming,' Says Investor About Sandisk Stock](https://longbridge.com/en/news/291736056.md) - [Kioxia readies next-gen memory mass production as AI boom fuels dramatic comeback](https://longbridge.com/en/news/291594525.md) - [Why Did SanDisk (SNDK) Stock Crash? AI Chip Selloff, Valuation, and What's Next](https://longbridge.com/en/news/291910731.md) - [SanDisk’s Volatility May Be Telling Bulls What They Want to Hear](https://longbridge.com/en/news/291677576.md) - [SK Hynix has a massive warning for SanDisk stock investors](https://longbridge.com/en/news/291912560.md)