An insatiable appetite for data storage by artificial intelligence (AI) has delivered Japanese memorychip maker Kioxia Holdings Corp world-beating stock gains this year, a sign that the AI boom is alive and well despite market jitters.
Kioxia’s shares have risen about 540 percent this year, outperforming all other members of the MSCI World Index and making it the top stock in Japan’s TOPIX.
The NAND flash memory maker, which only debuted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in December last year, counts Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp among its clients, and is now worth about ￥5.7 trillion (US$36.6 billion).
Photo: Bloomberg
Kioxia’s stratospheric climb illustrates the technology industry’s booming demand for memory as hyperscalers rush to build out AI infrastructure. Chips such as Kioxia’s are essential for AI training and data centers. This year, major technology firms warned of a memory supply crunch amid soaring demand, with analysts forecasting a jump in prices.
The memory rush has been a boon for Kioxia shares, as investors anticipate solid demand and rising prices would boost its revenue.
“In tech, we go into 2026 mainly geared to memory, whether that’s direct exposure to Kioxia or second derivative plays,” Asymmetric Advisors Pte Japan equity strategist Amir Anvarzadeh said.
Chip wafer makers such as Sumco Corp also stand to benefit from strong memory demand next year, he said.
Still, the stock’s performance has raised some concerns about overvaluation which have also weighed on other AI-related shares. Kioxia dropped 23 percent in a day after its quarterly earnings undershot investors’ lofty expectations last month.
However, with memory demand still far outstripping supply, Kioxia looks well-placed to weather AI market jitters next year, Anvarzadeh said.
“Worries about a data center investment slowdown shouldn’t really affect memory prices for next term, as the market is already heavily undersupplied,” he said.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
New vehicle sales in Taiwan plunged about 37 percent sequentially last month as the long Lunar New Year holiday and 228 Peace Memorial Day holiday cut short the number of working days, along with the lingering uncertainty over import tax cuts on US vehicles, market researcher U-Car said in a report yesterday. New car sales last month totaled 22,043, slumping from 35,073 units in January and down 19.89 percent from 37,515 in February last year, U-Car data showed. Sales of imported luxury cars, led by Mercedes-Benz, plummeted about 45 percent to 3,109 units last month from 5,663 units in the previous month,
RSS