NAND shortage after HBM? Korean media: Samsung allocates over 60% of V-NAND capacity to NVIDIA, accelerating V9 and V10 deployment

According to foreign media reports, Samsung Electronics is currently allocating over 60% of its V-NAND (vertically stacked NAND) production capacity to NVIDIA for the latter's upcoming volume deployment of the AI server context memory platform, CMX (Context Memory Storage). A single CMX system is equipped with 576 SSDs, achieving a total capacity of 9,600TB, specifically designed to handle the explosive growth of KV cache data during large model inference, thereby alleviating GPU HBM overflow bottlenecks.

South Korean media outlet Sedaily reported on Monday (20th) that industry insiders estimate NAND demand driven by CMX will surge from 35 million TB in 2026 to over 100 million TB in 2027. Samsung's total NAND output in 2026 is expected to be around 250 million TB. Leveraging a monthly wafer production scale exceeding 100,000 units, Samsung aims to become NVIDIA's core supplier for CMX.

On the production side, Samsung's V-NAND capacity structure is rapidly shifting toward advanced generations: V9 (286 layers) accounts for approximately 60% of production, with yields stabilizing above 80%, entering a stable mass production phase. V8's share has been reduced to below 40%, while V10 (400 layers) has already entered mass production in the first half of the year. With approximately 400 layers of stacking and a 50% increase in storage density compared to V9, V10 enables higher-capacity SSDs to be packed into the same-sized CMX modules. Development of V11, optimized for CMX, has already begun, targeting up to 500 layers, with pilot production scale expected to double in the second half.

Analysis indicates that AI servers are evolving from 'competing on GPU compute power' to 'competing on context memory,' transforming NAND from a cyclical commodity into a component of computing infrastructure.

By aligning with NVIDIA's CMX, Samsung can absorb advanced production capacity, but this also intensifies supply contraction and upward price pressure in the consumer SSD market. As V10 and V11 take over, the NAND procurement landscape for AI data centers will further consolidate among major manufacturers after 2027.